ELECTIONS / U.S. CONGRESS : South Bay Sees Return of Competitive Races : Politics: Redistricting and the faltering economy make the outcome of two of the area’s House races uncertain. In two others, Democrats are shoo-ins.

After seeing incumbents overwhelm weak opponents in election after election, many South Bay voters are at last witnessing competitive races for Congress.

Although two longtime local politicos--U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Compton Mayor Walter R. Tucker III--appear poised for easy wins in the 35th and 37th Congressional districts, the outcome of two other House contests is not so certain.

Contentious races for open seats in the newly redrawn 36th and 38th districts exemplify a new political climate that has brought the South Bay its first genuine general election competition in a decade. Experts cite reapportionment--the once-a-decade redrawing of legislative districts--and the South Bay’s crumbling economy.

“I think the South Bay is a Republican stronghold, but that is based on economics,” said Fernando J. Guerra, an assistant professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University. “When the Republicans lose that edge, as they’ve done here with the massive layoffs in the aerospace industry, those Republican voters become much more free agents.

“They believe now that there is no economic advantage to voting for the Republican, and they’re willing to vote on the social issues--which gives the Democrat an edge.”

The following is a district-by-district look at the South Bay’s four congressional races.

35th District

Despite the best efforts of Republican challenger Nate Truman, the contest in the district encompassing Inglewood, Hawthorne and Gardena looks more like a peaceful stroll for incumbent Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) than an all-out race.

Waters is expected to breeze to an easy second term, thanks largely to her party’s lopsided 79% to 12% voter registration advantage in the district.

But that hasn’t stopped Truman, a political newcomer.

Truman, who claims to be a distant relation of Harry S. Truman, has temporarily quit working as a television graphics specialist to run his energetic, if long-shot campaign.

His central focus, if elected, would be to create enterprise zones in the district where new businesses could benefit from tax breaks and regulatory rollbacks.

A self-described conservative who switched to the GOP from the Democratic Party because of his anti-abortion beliefs, Truman says he knows he stands little chance of winning.

“The Republican Party had just sort of thrown (the district) to the wolves,” he said. “I was raised to be civic-minded, and when I saw that nobody else was coming forward to be the Don Quixote at Maxine’s windmill, I really thought it was necessary to give people an option.”

The district’s two minor party candidates--Libertarian Carin Rogers and Peace and Freedom candidate Alice Mae Miles--hope to accomplish much the same mission.

“I don’t really have any chance of winning,” said Rogers, whose central campaign plank is the legalization of drugs. “But a lot of people have never even heard of us, or those who have don’t know what we stand for.”

36th District

The coastal 36th District, stretching from San Pedro to Venice, contains more registered Republicans than Democrats. But the GOP’s 45% to 42% advantage--even considering the traditionally higher turnout of Republican voters--is not insurmountable for a Democratic candidate, analysts say.

“This is where reapportionment actually did some good. It’s a balanced district,” said H. Eric Schockman, a political science professor at USC. “The Republicans in that district tend to be a lot more open-minded and independent.”

In other words, a significant number of GOP voters may be willing to support a Democrat, Schockman said. That means Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores may not have the easy victory some observers expect.

Flores, who won a bruising 11-candidate primary, faces first-time Democratic candidate Jane Harman, a Harvard-educated lawyer and former Carter White House official who split her working life between Washington and Los Angeles for more than a decade before taking up permanent residence in California last year.

Although other congressional contests this fall feature two female candidates, the 36th District race is believed to be the only one in the nation to pit a woman who favors abortion rights against a woman who opposes them.

Noting that her polls show that nearly three-quarters of the 36th District’s voters support a woman’s right to an abortion, Harman hopes her “Pro-Choice, Pro-Change” campaign slogan will swing votes her way.

“Choice is not a partisan issue at all,” she said. “Choice is not the only issue in any district, but it is central to whether women have respect in our society or they don’t.”

During the primary, Flores said she favors banning abortion except in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the life of the mother.

In a recent interview, however, she said would not favor a constitutional amendment creating such a ban and would not propose laws restricting abortion. But she added that she would vote for abortion restrictions, particularly those that would ban the procedure after the first trimester and prevent abortions sought solely for birth control or sex selection.

“I would certainly like to work with people who are pro-choice (to find) ways that we could reach some kind of a coming together of the views so that while abortions could remain legal . . . there could be some restrictions to lower the number of abortions that are done, certainly those done for sex selections and for birth control,” she said.

Flores and Harman consider the district’s economy of central interest to voters.

Reeling from the loss of tens of thousands of aerospace jobs and the collapse of smaller companies supporting the industry, the South Bay needs an economic make-over, both women say.

Although their general outlines for making that happen are similar, they differ somewhat in their approaches.

Both favor a strong national defense and federally funded job retraining programs for out-of-work defense and aerospace employees. And both support tax incentives to help aerospace companies redirect their technical know-how.

But Flores emphasizes tax breaks to stimulate investment and research, whereas Harman prefers using government assistance to help the South Bay’s defense manufacturers enter other high-tech industries, such as mass transit and alternative energy.

Harman, who brands Flores a career politician, said her background in private business makes her well-suited to help restore the district’s flagging economy. Harman has worked 14 years in the private sector, primarily as a corporate and government relations attorney, and is general counsel and a board member of Harman Industries, an audio and video manufacturing company headed by her husband, Sidney.

Flores, who paints Harman as an outsider unfamiliar with the South Bay, said she would use the negotiating skills she has acquired as a City Council member to help the aerospace industry find new directions.

Minor-party candidates in the race--Green candidate Richard H. Greene, Libertarian Marc F. Denny, and Peace and Freedom candidate Owen Staley--say neither woman would do much to turn the district’s economy around. And none of them discount their chances.

Said Greene: “I’m looking to win this thing. . . . Don’t sound so surprised.”

37th District

Compared to the primary, the general election campaign for the district stretching from Lynwood to Wilmington is so low-profile as to be nearly invisible.

Compton Mayor Walter R. Tucker III won a bruising battle among Democrats for the seat of retiring Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton).

Running in a district that is 76% Democrat and facing no Republican opposition, Tucker is thought to be well on his way to the House of Representatives.

First, however, he must defeat Peace and Freedom candidate B. Kwaku Duren, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Foundation who became politically active in the mid-1970s as a leader of the Southern California chapter of the Black Panther Party.

Duren is calling for a new social and economic bill of rights, which--among other things--would pay reparation to the country’s blacks for their years in slavery. Though Duren does not plan to run a massive or expensive campaign, he predicts that he has a 50-50 chance of beating Tucker. He said that as an independent candidate, he offers change that neither the Democrat or Republican parties can offer.

“People are fed up with the established order of things,” he said.

Tucker said he is not taking anything for granted and has been conducting a low-key campaign focusing on the ailing economy, a key issue in the largely minority and blue-collar district.

38th District

A hard-fought race is taking place in the district that encompasses much of the Harbor area, as well as Long Beach, Bellflower, Downey and Paramount.

The battle began even before reapportionment had concluded, when Democrat Rep. Glenn Anderson announced in December that he would retire after 22 years in public office.

Republicans who had long coveted his seat stampeded forward. To their delight, the new district’s lines diluted a previously strong Democratic voting bloc.

Cal State Long Beach political science professor Steven Horn edged out seven competitors for the Republican nomination and faces Democratic candidate and Long Beach Councilman Evan Anderson Braude, musician Paul Burton of the Peace and Freedom party, and Libertarian attorney Blake Ashley.

The competition between Horn and Braude is expected to be fierce. Braude is the stepson of the retiring congressman and has been a Long Beach councilman since 1986. Horn is a former president of Cal State Long Beach.

And although the voter registration remains tipped in Braude’s favor, Horn is a moderate, pro-choice Republican, an asset in a district of so-called Reagan Democrats who have tended to side with the GOP.

“I think most races are tough, but for a lot of reasons this one will not be an easy one for anyone,” Braude said last week.

The candidates have their work cut out for them. Many voters in the district are working- and middle-class residents who have suffered from the area’s loss of aerospace and manufacturing jobs.

The economy--what’s wrong and how to fix it--is expected to dominate the campaign as the election draws nearer.

Braude suggests creating a national economic conversion plan, moving the area’s manufacturing away from defense work to such sectors as public transportation and the environment. He also says defense cuts should be used to retrain workers in high-paying manufacturing jobs and to reduce the deficit.

Horn is billing himself as the “Republican for Reform” and has been emphasizing campaign finance reform. He has refused all political action committee money and is a supporter of term limits. He also advocates a freeze on all government spending except Social Security and Medicare.

At ringside, Burton and Ashley, although on opposite sides of the political spectrum, agree on one thing: There is little difference between the Democratic and Republican parties, and both major party candidates represent politics as usual.

Burton favors greater cooperation between business and government to address social needs, particularly those of the poor. Ashley argues that the only thing federal government should be doing is defending the country and ensuring that state and local governments do not interfere with business or the personal lives of its citizens.

Congressional Districts

Demographics

Dist. No. Dem. Rep. Anglo Latino Black Asian Congressional 35 79% 12% 21% 43% 43% 6% Congressional 36 42% 45% 78% 15% 3% 12% Congressional 37 76% 14% 26% 45% 34% 11% Congressional 38 48% 40% 69% 26% 8% 9%

Numbers may add up to more than 100% because Latinos are sometimes counted in more than one category.