Bradley Denounces Governor as Being ‘Cold, Uncaring Man’

Citing vetoes of funding for such programs as providing child care for latchkey children, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Bradley Tuesday accused Republican Gov. George Deukmejian of being “a cold, uncaring man.”

The Los Angeles mayor told an audience celebrating the recent 66th anniversary of women’s suffrage that Deukmejian in television commercials is “portraying himself as a kindly, fatherly figure, loving of his family, but the facts are quite different.”

Deukmejian, Bradley charged, “is a cold, uncaring man as far as all the families of this state are concerned.” Bradley cited Deukmejian’s 1984 veto of legislation to provide day care for latchkey schoolchildren who are left unattended at home while their parents work. Bradley also cited the governor’s opposition last year to the study of higher wages for women in traditionally low-paying jobs.

Surrounded by supporters, Bradley then endorsed a local November ballot initiative that would increase the wages of city female workers to more closely match wages paid to men in comparable jobs. The City of Los Angeles negotiated a similar “comparable worth” agreement last year.

Child Care Budget

In response to criticism of his opposition to child-care funding, Deukmejian spokeswoman Christy Flynn said the governor approved a 1986-87 child-care budget of $400 million, including $14 million to expand latchkey programs.

Flynn called Bradley’s attack on Deukmejian “outrageous--considering the only idea the mayor ever advanced in child care was to take children away from their families and put them in government-run institutions.”

That was a reference to a controversial statement Bradley made last year, suggesting that poor preschool children from Watts be taken from their homes and put in motivational programs “away from their parents.” Bradley said later that the proposal, an idea popularized by some in the mid-1960s, was meant to be voluntary, not forcible, removal, as some interpreted it.