Political Opposites Face Off in Assembly Race

Next week’s general election to replace termed-out Assemblywoman Fran Pavley pits two candidates in a contest that is as predictable as it is unlikely. Like most state assembly districts, AD 41’s gerrymandered boundaries mean limited competition between political parties. The District stretches along the coast from Santa Monica to Oxnard and runs inland from Pacific Palisades to Tarzana, encompassing Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Woodland Hills and Encino. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 19 percent, and that registration gap has helped ensure Democratic success for decades. It has also meant that the Democratic primary has all but decided the winner of the general election. If the past is any indicator, then that’s good news for Julia Brownley, the Democratic candidate and president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School Board. In what might be considered one of the state’s most improbable contests, the liberal education advocate and environmentalist is running against Republican Tony Dolz, an activist opposing illegal immigration. Brownley, a former marketing executive, won an expensive, five-way Democratic primary last June. She has spent nearly $600,000 during her campaign, but only a small fraction of that amount since her primary success. Perhaps as a sign of confidence in victory next Tuesday, she has contributed more than $50,000 of her own campaign’s war chest to other Democratic campaigns. Strong support from local Democratic heavyweights Pavley and State Senator Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) helped Brownley compete against better-financed competitors in the primary. Brownley has been an elected SMMUSD Board member since 1994, and she has made improving education one of the cornerstones of her candidacy. Among her education goals are lowering student-teacher ratios and increasing California’s low per-pupil spending, which she blames for the state’s low achievement. ‘The state needs to make a more significant investment in education,’ Brownley told the Palisadian-Post on Tuesday. ‘California ranks 46th in education spending and 48th in achievement. We need to look at how revenue can be enhanced.’ She has suggested that she would favor easing the rules for raising parcel taxes that fund education. State law mandates that most new property taxes must be approved by a two-thirds vote. In most states, such increases require only simple majorities. In her campaign, Brownley has also prioritized conserving the environment and expanding mass transit. She wants to raise water-quality standards by reducing urban runoff and hopes to continue Fran Pavley’s legacy of air-quality legislation by promoting the use of alternative fuels and high-efficiency vehicles. She strongly opposes the proposed LNG facility off Malibu’s coast. She wants to reduce congestion on the District’s freeways by extending the light-rail Expo line to Santa Monica and expanding local bus routes. She is endorsed by the Palisades Democratic Club, the California Democratic Party and several environmental and labor groups, including the Sierra Club and the California State Federation of Labor. In contrast to Brownley’s more broad political focus, her competitor Tony Dolz has focused his campaign exclusively on the perils of illegal immigration. Dolz, a resident of Santa Monica, said that he became committed to stemming the flow of immigrants after reading the 9/11 Commission Report, which recommended stricter border control. He speaks about illegal immigration with a sense of apocalyptic urgency. He attributes almost every state woe to illegal immigration, including budget deficits, high health care costs, traffic congestion, terrorism and environmental degradation. But he offers few details of plans for legislative action that do not intersect with stopping illegal immigration. ‘I care about the environment,’ Dolz told the Palisades Republican Club gathering late last month. ‘What about the millions of toilets that are being flushed because of illegal immigrants?’ Two years ago, the Cuban-born legal immigrant said he stopped working full-time on his online business to dedicate more time to the Minuteman Project, an anti-illegal immigration group, and to run his campaign for state assembly. His exact relationship with the Minutemen is clouded by conflicting accounts. Dolz describes himself on his Web site as a ‘founding member of the Minuteman Project,’ but a Minuteman spokesperson said that title was inaccurate. The spokesperson did say that Dolz had been an early member of the group. Dolz’s job description on the ballot has been the target of scrutiny in newspapers statewide. In campaign literature and the ballot, he describes himself as a ‘national-security analyst,’ which observers have said is misleading because Dolz considers writing articles about illegal immigration for anti-immigration Web sites to constitute national-security analysis. He has also never received money for ‘national-security’ analysis. There is no publicly available campaign finance data for Dolz. It is unknown how much his campaign has received. All candidates must disclose campaign contributions and expenditures to the Secretary of State. Dolz is endorsed by the California Republican Assembly, U.S.A. Border Alert and Barbara Coe, the founder of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform. Despite numerous debates and candidate forums during the primary campaign, there has been no debate between Brownley and Dolz. Conrad Stefan Frankowski is representing the Liberterian Party in the race. The Woodland Hills-based human resource executive has not campaigned actively. Reporting by Max Taves, Staff Writer. To contact, e-mail: reporter@palipost.com