Supervisor Dana Lends $445,000 to Son’s Race

Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana has made a $445,000 loan from his own campaign funds to finance his son Deane Dana III’s bitterly contested Republican primary challenge to Assemblyman Gerald N. Felando (R-San Pedro).

Campaign finance reports and late-contribution telegrams filed with the secretary of state on Thursday show that Dana lent his son $395,000 through May 18 and another $50,000 after the reporting period ended on Saturday.

Felando reported raising $296,276 during the last two months, largely from Republican lawmakers and special interests, in an effort to beat back the stiffest electoral challenge of his 10-year legislative career.

The two candidates spent a total of more than $702,300 as of Saturday, making the 51st Assembly District race one of the most expensive in the state.

The supervisor’s loans provided well over 90% of all the money raised by the younger Dana, 35, who resigned in March as assistant director of the state Department of Aging to pursue the Assembly seat.

‘Trying to Buy Son a Job’

The heavily Republican district stretches along the coast from Manhattan Beach to parts of San Pedro and includes Torrance.

Felando said the flow of money from father to son proves what he has been saying in sharply worded campaign mailers during the past two weeks.

“Deane Dana, the supervisor, is trying to buy his son a job with a $1-million smear campaign,” Felando charged. “They’re halfway there.”

“Let’s face it,” he continued, “Deane Dana III would be a joke without his father’s money.”

The elder Dana, who faces only token opposition in his race for another term on the Board of Supervisors, said that he still has $700,000 on hand in his own campaign fund and that he will contribute whatever it takes to get his son elected.

“This is serious business,” the supervisor said. “I’ll spend every dime of my campaign money, if necessary.”

Dana said his son’s campaign polls show his candidacy is “very strong” and he predicted that Felando will resort to “desperation tactics” in the closing days.

“If there are lies,” he said, “they will be rebutted right up to the last day on Tuesday.”

Echoing one of his son’s campaign themes, Supervisor Dana charged that Republican Felando has had a cozy relationship with the Legislature’s most powerful Democrat, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco.

Mailers and Phone Calls

The Dana campaign has repeatedly made the charge in multiple mailers and phone calls to GOP households in the district.

“I will do anything to get Willie Brown out,” the supervisor said.

He charged that Felando, who was quoted in a Times article last January as saying that Brown was an “excellent Speaker,” is unwilling to oust the Assembly leader.

Felando denied that at a lunchtime appearance before a group of Republican women in San Pedro on Thursday at which Dana also spoke.

“You’ve been subjected to lies and misrepresentations by my opponent,” Felando said.

The five-term incumbent said he has voted several times this month to oust Brown and replace him with Assembly Republican leader Pat Nolan of Glendale.

Dana rejected Felando’s claim of opposing Brown, noting that on the night of the first motion to oust Brown, Felando attended an Oakland fund-raiser in his honor held by one of Brown’s chief allies, Assemblyman Elihu M. Harris (D-Oakland).

Later, Dana defended the loans from his father. “It’s a sad fact of politics,” he said, “but any incumbent who is up in Sacramento knows you have to spend this much to get elected.”

Before the South Bay Bar Assn. in Torrance Thursday night Dana said again that a move to replace Brown with a Republican “is not going to happen” until there are 41 Republicans in the 80-member Assembly. In his second face-to-face encounter with his challenger Thursday, Felando again rejected the suggestion that he remains close to Speaker Brown. He said that dissension within the Assembly Democratic Caucus has benefitted Republicans and contributed to the passage of a bill allowing local police to use wire taps in local drug investigations.

Dana’s campaign finance report shows that he received $42,816 in cash in addition to his father’s loans through May 18. He spent $458,210 through the close of the reporting period and reported having just $10,192 in cash on hand last Saturday.

In contrast, Felando collected $274,776 through May 18. Late contributions of $21,500 boosted his total to $296,276. He reported spending $244,109 during the reporting period and said he had $82,137 in cash on hand on May 18.

Felando received $56,000 in direct contributions from Assembly Republicans and $33,500 in loans from fellow GOP lawmakers.

His campaign report is replete with contributions from Sacramento-based political action committees and commercial fishing interests in his hometown of San Pedro.