Rivals for Governor Face Off in Lively Forum

By CATHLEEN DECKER

May 14, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES POLITICAL WRITER

In a debate that was rollicking from its opening minutes, the four major candidates for governor clashed Wednesday on issues ranging from education and gun control to the tactics of their own campaigns, as each sought to capture momentum for the three crucial weeks remaining before California’s primary.

While the forum, sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, delivered on its pledge to illuminate the candidates’ stands on the issues, the four hammered away at one another as well. Businessman Al Checchi took most of the hits for his massive and, lately, attack-prone television advertising.

“Your ads, Al, have been negative,” Rep. Jane Harman told her fellow Democrat. “I resent the distortion of my record. It’s false and voters know that and it cheapens your own campaign.”

Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, and Republican Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren also heaved brickbats at Checchi--Davis for his advertising and Lungren for his failure to vote in several California elections. Checchi later defended himself, insisting that criticism of his opponents is justified despite his past pledge to run a positive campaign.

“I’ve been attacked for spending my own money by people who take money from others,” said Checchi, who by the end of the primary will have broken the national record for spending for an entire statewide race. “I’ve been attacked for my experience in business, where I have achieved a great deal, by a lot of people who have not achieved a great deal in government. I’ve been attacked for emphasizing the issues. . . . And I’ve been attacked for my voting record even by people whose voting record is spotty.

“The things that I have talked about are factual and they’re not personal.”

Lungren to Oppose Bilingual Measure

As is typical of such forums--gubernatorial or presidential--little new ground was broken on substantive issues, many of which have been debated for months.

The few exceptions included Lungren’s pronouncement that he would oppose Proposition 227, the initiative on the June 2 ballot that would essentially end bilingual education in California. All three of the Democratic candidates had previously announced their opposition, but Lungren had postponed his decision.

Tactically, Lungren was taking a page from Gov. Pete Wilson, who in 1990 used a gubernatorial debate to announce his support of a term limits initiative. On Wednesday, Lungren said that as much as he gives initiative organizer Ron Unz credit for inspiring a statewide debate on bilingual education, he cannot support the measure. He gave the same reason previously cited by the Democrats.

“It goes against what I’ve been talking about throughout California for the last number of years,” he said. “Local control . . . local decision-making which will adapt to the particular students that you have is the best direction we can take.”

Under questioning by moderators Janet Clayton, the editor of The Times Editorial pages, and Times state political columnist George Skelton, the candidates also fleshed out how they would deal with the newly projected state budget surplus of nearly $4 billion.

Lungren, 51, insisted that the money must go back to Californians in the form of tax breaks, including a gradual, five-year phaseout of vehicle registration fees. To ignore the surplus, he said, was to risk a voter uprising along the lines of the one that powered 1978’s Proposition 13. That initiative, which was fueled by widespread anger over rising property taxes, was characterized by Lungren as “an imperfect solution . . . that we live with today.”

Davis said he would spend much of the surplus on improving the state’s elementary and secondary education systems. He seconded Lungren’s call for some form of tax relief, perhaps including the vehicle registration fee--or “voters will take matters into their own hands.”

Checchi, 49, who hinted that Lungren was raising the “car tax” issue for political gain, said that he would instead invest the money in economic development.

“There are going to be 18 million more people here in the next 25 years,” he said. “We’re going to grow an entire New York state. Where are they going to get the water? How are they going to go to school? How are we going to transport them? That’s what we should be talking about, not a car tax.”

Harman has been criticized recently for a lack of specificity, but she gave the most detailed response: $1 billion to education, another $1 billion to help out cities and $1.8 billion back to taxpayers. Among the tax breaks she proposed were the restoration of the renters credit, cuts in the vehicle fee and the funding of child care and health insurance tax breaks.

“In the answers by Dan and Al, we have the classic split between the parties,” said Harman, who has tried to carve out a moderate image both in Congress and in this campaign. “We have the cut-and-run approach and we have the tax-and-spend approach. I think they’re both old politics.”

All four major candidates for governor were invited to the forum--held at Times Mirror Square in downtown Los Angeles--because under the new blanket primary rules, voters are allowed to cross party lines to cast ballots. The other 13 minor candidates were not invited. Outside The Times’ headquarters, representatives of the Green Party protested their exclusion.

Similar Positions on Many Issues

Despite the fact that two parties were represented on stage, the candidates displayed a fair amount of uniformity at times. On education, the dominant issue in the campaign so far, all agreed that bad teachers and principals should be fired and that the state should sanction more experimental charter schools. The Democrats insisted that teachers deserved more money and Republican Lungren countered that they needed more respect.

Checchi emphasized his support for teacher competency testing; Harman and Davis favored scholarships and loans to help lure young people into teaching careers.

“A failing school is no less of a problem than a national disaster and it requires immediate and urgent action,” said Davis.

On another perennially important issue, the Democrats unsurprisingly were most insistent on controlling guns, while Lungren threaded a finer line. Checchi said he would ban Saturday night specials, the inexpensive handguns responsible for much of the state’s mayhem, and would outlaw assault weapons and “cop killer” bullets, and would set stringent restrictions on gun sellers.

Davis, 55, said he too supports a ban on cheap handguns and favors trigger safety locks. But he made a point of saying that people have a right to a handgun for protection or sporting purposes.

Harman, 52, said she would ban assault weapons--noting that she voted for such restrictions in Congress--and would outlaw inexpensive handguns.

Lungren did not explicitly offer a position on assault weapons or Saturday night specials. But he said that he took pride in his support of a waiting period for handgun sales and had worked alongside Democrats to limit the size of gun magazines. He rebuffed criticism that he has been lax in enforcing anti-gun laws as attorney general by attesting to animosity toward him by the National Rifle Assn.

Overall, all four candidates used the debate to emphasize their strengths and underscore the others’ weaknesses. At times, the forum took on the flavor of an extended version of the candidates’ advertising, with a bit more emotion and detail thrown in. Coming as it did three weeks before voters will make their decision, the gathering was seen by all four campaigns as a event potentially crucial for end-of-primary momentum.

As it turned out, there were no major gaffes, but each of the four candidates appeared to rope off the turf from which they will campaign for the final weeks.

Davis emphasized his years in Sacramento and a life spent in service--repeatedly referring both to his onetime boss, former California Gov. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr., and to his duty in Vietnam.

“It’s been a great privilege to serve you the past 23 years as chief of staff to a governor, state Assembly person, state controller, lieutenant governor and before that as a captain of the U.S. Army in Vietnam,” he said in his closing remarks, adding a gibe at Checchi: “I’ve spent my life in public service, and believe me I’ve not gotten wealthy doing it.”

He also turned aside criticism that his strong reliance on donations from organized labor had left him in their pocket politically. He cited his opposition to a recent union effort to float a ballot initiative stripping away tax exemptions given to businesses.

“My allegiance is to the people of this state,” he said.

Checchi, as he has in six months of television advertising and 18 months of campaigning, positioned himself as the results-oriented outsider, unwilling despite good economic times to let the state’s problems fester.

“Our people are concerned about their future and dissatisfied with politicians who say that things are pretty good right now and that we don’t need a plan for the years ahead,” he said. “For Californians, the enemy of our future is complacency.”

Harman denied that she entered the race because of the Democratic Party’s recent fondness for female gubernatorial candidates. But she nonetheless emphasized her gender and took repeated aim at “macho” politicians. And while she has insisted that she is running a positive campaign, she closed the debate with a caustic blast at her opponents.

“In Dan Lungren, there’s a very decent man with strong convictions. But I would say to you that someone who is anti-choice, pro-gun and pro-tobacco is out of California’s mainstream,” she said.

“In Gray Davis, we have, for me, an old friend, a thoroughly decent man, but . . . I think we need bolder leadership. In Al Checchi, we have a financial wheeler-dealer who is attempting a corporate takeover of California, and I say our state is not for sale.”

Touting the Reagan Legacy

Lungren, who spent much of the debate adopting a somewhat jocular air that contrasted with the squabbling Democrats, quipped sarcastically: “Jane, thank you for that positive roundup on the rest of us.”

Clearly aiming at Republican voters, he emotionally invoked former California governor and two-term president Ronald Reagan, who stands even in his infirmities as the shining symbol of success for the state’s GOP activists.

“It may be corny. It may be old-fashioned, but when Ronald Reagan talked about America being that shining city on the hill, I believed him,” said Lungren. “In my mind’s eye I saw this golden dome in the midst of all that, and I always said, ‘That’s my California. That’s where I’m from. . . . I want that to be the best place in the country.’ ”

Lungren issued a challenge, saying he would face the winning Democrat in a series of debates to begin in the weeks after the primary election. Afterward, he said each had agreed and that the series could begin in June.

Mark Willes, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, also announced at the close of the debate that the Democratic and Republican nominees will be invited back for a general election debate in early October.

* CAPITOL JOURNAL: Some observations--and frustrations--from a participant’s perspective. A3