46TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Trouble-Plagued Area Has No Lack of Candidates

Tuesday’s special election in the 46th State Assembly District has all the ingredients of a political science case study: Fifteen candidates of extraordinary racial and ethnic diversity and equipped with experience in street-corner activism are competing to represent one of California’s most problem-plagued urban areas.

This contest has seen the full array of tactics typical of a compressed special-election campaign. Candidates bump into each other walking precincts. A flood of mail is reaching voters this weekend as candidates struggle to stand out in a crowd that generally agrees on major state issues--the need for new taxes, health and auto insurance reform and more money for education. Candidate signs sprout like sunflowers at intersections from Los Feliz to Pico-Union. More than $1 million has been spent in a race where just 3,500 votes could win.

Voter mailboxes have been stuffed with the old campaign staples of note pads and potholders. But usually a visitor to the 46th hears about John Emerson’s flashlights.

Emerson sent each potential voter a tiny flashlight, powered by a single AAA battery and attached to a key chain, with a note about the need to protect themselves against criminals. The idea, he said, was to help potential crime victims get into their autos or houses quickly, without having to fumble in the dark for the right key.

It was an attention-getter for certain, the talk of the 46th District for days. But would a gimmick like that actually win votes?

“Oh, I don’t know,” Emerson said. “What pleased people was they think it is something useful.”

The 46th District, a 25-square-mile area just west of downtown Los Angeles, has 373,336 residents. Many are recent immigrants from Latin America and Asia who cannot speak English. A disproportionate number are drug dealers, drug users, criminals, crime victims, dropouts from school and society and ordinary people who live with bars on their doors and windows. There is a large population of senior citizens, gays and lesbians.

Only 62,340 are registered voters and most observers expect no more than a 20% turnout. That would mean 15 candidates--including 12 Democrats--are competing for fewer than 12,500 votes total.

In the 46th--out Pico, Wilshire and Sunset and up and down Vermont, Hoover and Normandie, every issue before the Legislature is represented: bilingual education, housing, renter rights, health care, auto insurance, traffic congestion and crime.

If the problems are daunting, the candidates seem uniquely qualified to address the district’s needs, observers agree. Rarely if ever has such a talented, experienced group run for a single Assembly seat. The average age is 40, and the average educational level is just shy of two college degrees each. Virtually every major ethnic and racial minority is represented. There are five women and six lawyers. Democrat Bob Burke is trying to be the first openly gay person to be elected to the Legislature.

At least eight of the candidates have experience in some form of social work. Others have dealt with the same issues in the courts. Several moved into the district so they could qualify as candidates, but no one knows whether the carpetbagger issue will hurt them.

The election was called in March after the resignation of Assemblyman Mike Roos, a Democrat who represented the district for 14 years. On Tuesday, any candidate getting more than 50% of the vote will win outright. With such a large field, that is not expected to happen. So the top vote-getter of each party will go into a July 30 runoff.

Because Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 58% to 28%, the Democratic nominee will be the overwhelming favorite to win in July.

The Tuesday voting is “a shoot-out,” one campaign manager said. But by at least two standards, Emerson is something of a front-runner. With $234,000 raised, Emerson had the most money. He also has been the chief target of what little negative campaigning there has been so far, a sure sign that others believe he was out in front.

From the beginning, Barbara Friedman was assumed to be a major candidate because of the support of the Westside-based Waxman-Berman political organization and of organized labor. Friedman had collected $176,000, including a May 17 loan of $50,000 from herself, putting her third in fund raising behind Emerson and T. S. Chung, a Korean-American lawyer with $182,000.

The late entry of Jill Halverson, founder of a Los Angeles center for homeless and mentally ill women, has cost Friedman support, some experts said. Halverson raised more than $80,000 after her April 23 announcement and had an additional $50,000 in hand or pledged, her campaign said. “I am now more than a candidate,” Halverson said. “I’m a serious contender.”

Much of the money has come from outside the district, including considerable amounts from the Westside, the entertainment industry and developers.

Chung and others have natural constituencies in their own ethnic groups: Chung with Korean-Americans; Joselyn Geaga Yap, Filipino-Americans; and Keith Umemoto, who has the backing of state Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti and the smaller Japanese-American community.

Because Latinos account for about 20% of the registered voters, demographics would seem to help Kathleen Torres, the only Latino in the contest.

One campaign tactic is to target ethnic voters through computerized lists of surnames. But this is impossible to do for Yap campaigners because so many Filipinos have Latin names, an aide said. Burke said there is no way for him to target gays and lesbians, who live primarily in West Hollywood and Silver Lake, except to find households with registered voters of the same sex and different names. He found one such address housing a number of women only to discover that it was a convent. Sal Genovese claims he has the best Democratic credentials because he lost to Roos in the 1990 election.

Republican voters pose another wild card. Because this is an open primary, they can vote for other party members if they wish rather than the single GOP candidate, Geoffrey Church, who is assured of a spot in the runoff.

Chung has sought GOP votes by billing himself as the most conservative potential winner. But Emerson sent a letter to voters from Sheriff Sherman Block, a Republican, saying: “I want to make sure that the best Democrat running is elected.”

Adam Schiff, the young former assistant U. S. attorney who boasted of winning 70 cases without a loss, challenged Emerson’s city prosecutor record in a brochure by claiming he “never prosecuted a felony case.” Neither has John Ladner, but as a court commissioner he has presided over them.

In recent days, some observers saw movement within the campaign of former Roos aide Michael Cacciotti, an energetic young community organizer who issued mailers attacking Emerson and Burke for being carpetbaggers with no anti-crime records within the 46th District.

Campaign managers have agreed that the candidate who managed to walk the most precincts and talk to the most voters would win. But emphasis has shifted to the critical end game of getting the right voters to the polls. The election is being conducted under city voting rules that prevent the massive vote-by-mail drives typical of special legislative elections.

46th Assembly District Race

A look at the candidates in the June 4 special election:

DEMOCRATS

Bob Burke, 48, is a land-use planning expert and lawyer who is bidding to be the first openly gay person to win a seat in the state Legislature. Burke, a graduate of UCLA Law School, entered politics in Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign and has served on the Los Angeles City Building and Safety Appeals Board.

Michael Cacciotti, 31, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from St. Thomas University in Miami, Fla. He has worked for the last five years in Sacramento and in the 46th District as an aide to Assemblyman Mike Roos, whose resignation created the need for a special election. Cacciotti has been active in programs in the district to assist senior citizens and young people and helped start a youth soccer league.

T. S. Chung, 35, emigrated with his family from South Korea in 1970 and is a graduate of Harvard, Princeton and UCLA Law School. He was a financial analyst for Exxon and in 1986 became a founding partner of the law firm Kim & Andrews.

John Emerson, 37, on leave as chief deputy to City Atty. James K. Hahn, is a law graduate of the University of Chicago who worked from 1984 to 1987 as a partner in the law firm of Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg & Tunney. He was deputy manager of Gary Hart’s 1987-1988 presidential campaign and was a member of the Los Angeles Commission on Charter Reform.

Barbara Friedman, 41, is a graduate of UC Berkeley who worked from 1973 to 1978 as an organizer in the South for the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). She worked for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and affiliated unions before serving from 1983 to 1985 as chief of staff to Assemblyman Burt Margolin. Since 1985, she has been deputy to City Controller Rick Tuttle.

Sal Genovese, 45, attended Los Angeles City College and Cal State Los Angeles and is owner and executive director of an outpatient treatment center for alcohol and drug abuse. Genovese ran for the 46th District seat in 1988 and 1990, for mayor of Los Angeles in 1985 and for the Los Angeles City Council in 1987.

Jill Halverson, 49, a graduate of St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, was a Peace Corps volunteer in India from 1965 to 1967, served as a welfare worker on Skid Row from 1972 to 1977 and in 1978 founded the Downtown Women’s Center of Los Angeles for the homeless and mentally disturbed. She is executive director of the center.

John Ladner, 45, is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Loyola University Law School who served as counsel for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services). Since 1983, he has been a full-time Municipal Court commissioner, appointed by presiding judges to perform the duties of a judge.

Adam Schiff, 30, a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, was a law clerk to U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne. He is now an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. Among his cases was the spy trial of former FBI Agent Richard Miller.

Kathleen A. Torres, 39, is a graduate of Cal State Los Angeles and UC Berkeley, with a master’s degree in public health. She has been director of the health careers opportunity program at UCLA and is a member of the board of the American Lung Assn. of Los Angeles.

Keith Umemoto, 35, is a graduate of Loyola Marymount and UCLA, with a master’s degree in social welfare. He has been a human relations consultant for Los Angeles County and, most recently, a consultant to the state Senate Budget Committee.

Joselyn Geaga Yap, 44, emigrated from the Philippines in 1965, graduated from Los Angeles City College, UCLA and USC and holds a master’s degree in social work. She spent 17 years as a clinical counselor and program administrator before becoming executive director of the Sunrise Community Counseling Center in 1989.

REPUBLICAN

Geoffrey Church, 28, a graduate of Cleveland State University and Cal State Long Beach with a master’s degree in political science, has been an investment banker and stockbroker since 1987. Church was the Republican nominee against Roos in 1990 and is assistant treasurer of the Los Angeles County Republican Central Committee.

LIBERTARIAN

Michael Benedict Everling, 36, is a native of Florida who has lived in the district since 1980. He is a litigation guarantee officer for a title company and is regional chairman of the Libertarian Party.

PEACE AND FREEDOM

Elizabeth Nakano, 65, a native of Switzerland, came to California in 1952 and received a degree from UCLA in 1960. She recently retired as a social worker for Los Angeles County. She has been active in the Peace and Freedom Party for about five years and was the party’s 1990 nominee for state treasurer.