Van de Kamp Ploy on Crime Issue Charged

Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) and several other top backers of the proposed Crime Victims’ Justice Reform Initiative assailed Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp Monday for what they characterized as attempting to defeat the initiative by a political ploy.

Van de Kamp, a Democrat, is seen as Wilson’s likely opponent in next year’s gubernatorial campaign. He has suggested that a provision in the initiative that refers to the right of privacy could be construed so as to curb abortion rights.

It was this suggestion that was attacked as a ploy at a street news conference and initiative petition signing session in Westwood Monday that included Wilson, state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia), Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and several other police chiefs, district attorneys and leaders of victims’ organizations.

Wilson, although characterizing Van de Kamp’s concern as belated and insincere, said that in order to assuage any worry it may cause to voters, he has agreed to insert a paragraph in a ballot pamphlet argument for the initiative, if it secures enough petition signatures to qualify for the June primary election. This paragraph will say it is not the intent of the drafters to do anything to affect the abortion laws one way or another.

But a Van de Kamp spokesman, informed of Wilson’s promise, said it is not enough. “It is not possible to remedy a defect in an initiative through ballot pamphlet language,” said the spokesman, Duane Peterson.

The rhetoric at the largely Republican news conference was bitterly anti-Van de Kamp, an indication that Wilson will seek to capitalize on Van de Kamp’s opposition to the criminal law reform initiative next year. The initiative is aimed at speeding up criminal prosecutions and dealing more rigorously with offenders.

Davis, saying that when he was police chief of Los Angeles he often had to “struggle” to get Van de Kamp, then Los Angeles County district attorney, to file charges in murder cases, accused Van de Kamp of “trying to sidetrack” the initiative.

Gates declared: “Clearly, there has been a ploy by the attorney general. That’s too bad. (Abortion) has nothing to do with the issues being raised.”

Gates, who for a time had considered becoming a GOP candidate for governor next year, went on to accuse Van de Kamp of doing the bidding of trial lawyers “who do not want court reform.”