By Lou Cannon
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, August 9, 1998; Page A04

SACRAMENTO—After narrowly losing the Republican Senate nomination to a conservative in 1992, Rep. Tom Campbell set out to make the Republican Party safe for moderates by backing a ballot initiative that created an open primary in California.

Six years later, that open or blanket primary, whereby voters of any party can cross party lines and vote for any candidate, is transforming politics in this mega-state. California has an eighth of the nation's population and 52 of its 435 House seats.

Because of the open primary, used this year for the first time, mainstream Republicans have won nomination in state legislative districts long dominated by the GOP's conservative wing. GOP moderates soundly defeated conservatives in two open House districts currently represented by Democrats that are key battlegrounds in the national struggle for control of the House. Statewide, the open primary also has made Republicans competitive against Sen. Barbara Boxer, the liberal Democrat who defeated conservative Bruce Herschensohn after he defeated Campbell in 1992 in the GOP primary.

The Republican nominee against Boxer is state Treasurer Matt Fong, a moderate conservative who was helped by crossover votes from Asian Democrats when he defeated the more conservative and better financed Darrell Issa in the primary. Current polls show Fong and Boxer running even.

The success of GOP moderates in a state where "Republican" often has been a synonym for "conservative" was overshadowed by other developments in the June primary. News accounts focused on the failure of the self-financed gubernatorial campaign of multimillionaire Al Checchi, the success of incumbents in both parties and the renomination in Orange County of noisy Republican conservative Robert K. Dornan, who is attempting to regain the House seat he lost to Democrat Loretta Sanchez two years ago in a district that is more Democratic and more Latino than it was then.

"But Dornan was an exception to what happened in many other districts," observed Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst from the Claremont Graduate School.

After examining results in 25 open state legislative districts, Sacramento-based Republican analyst Tony Quinn concluded that the open primary has "the potential to change the character of the GOP in California." Democratic political strategist Bill Carrick said the open primary helped GOP mainstream candidates in the two open House districts now held by Democrats because it permitted Democrats and independents to vote for Republicans.

Because most House members in California won renomination, political action at the House level is focused on these two seats: the 3rd District in the Sacramento suburbs and rural areas of the Sacramento Valley represented by Vic Fazio, a member of the Democratic leadership who is retiring; and the 36th District in the beach cities of Los Angeles County, represented by Jane Harman, who gave up the seat to run for governor.

California's other open district, the 1st, is represented by Rep. Frank Riggs (R), who also is retiring. Republicans concede they are likely to lose the 1st, which sprawls from Marin County north of San Francisco to the Oregon border. State Sen. Mike Thompson (D) won 51 percent of the primary vote despite a well-financed challenge in his own party, and the district has a 15 percent Democratic registration advantage.

But polling by both parties shows GOP nominees ahead in the seats being vacated by Fazio and Harman. Fazio survived tough races in a district that has become increasingly Republican in part because the GOP put up right-of-center candidates against him. This time in the 3rd, however, Assemblywoman Barbara Alby, a social conservative and the pre-primary favorite, was upset by newcomer Doug Ose, a moderate.

Ose, who quips that he is a "formerly wealthy developer," spent $1 million of his own money to defeat Alby. He will probably spend another $1 million in the fall campaign – this time helped by the national GOP, which views the district as its number one priority among House races in California.

A similar pattern prevailed in the 36th District, where moderate Assemblyman Steve Kuykendall defeated conservative Susan Brooks, who had lost twice to Harman. The 36th is almost even in party registration, and Kuykendall twice won Assembly races by narrow margins in districts where registration was less favorable to the GOP.

Kuykendall, like Ose, favors abortion rights except for certain late-term abortions. This largely removes abortion as an issue in the general election, a boon to Republicans in two districts where majorities of the voters favor abortion rights.

While acknowledging that Ose and Kuykendall are moderates likely to have broader appeal on social issues than recent GOP candidates in these districts, Democrats have found capable contenders and are not conceding either seat. In the 3rd District, where Democrats hold a four-point registration edge, they have nominated Fazio's choice, lawyer Sandie Dunn. The Democratic nominee in the 36th is Janice Hahn, a well-financed member of a Los Angeles County political dynasty.

Ose and Kuykendall, as well as Fong, said they won a majority of the Republican vote but acknowledge that they were also helped by crossover voting. They were not alone. A statewide study of primary results commissioned by Secretary of State Bill Jones (R) shows that voters often crossed over to participate in contested primaries if candidates in their parties were uncontested.

In the 3rd and 36th districts, for instance, nearly two-thirds of the electorate voted for a GOP candidate. One question, observed Quinn, is whether these voters will return to their own party in November.

Richard Temple of McNally Temple Associates, the consulting firm advising the Ose and Kuykendall campaigns, believes the most significant impact of the open primary is that it has encouraged moderates who would not have sought nomination under the closed primary system. "Perception is important in politics, and the perception of moderates is that they have a better chance," Temple said.

The open primary also changed the dynamics of primary campaigns. "Ose ran more like a Democrat than a Republican in the primary," said Dunn's press secretary, Joseph Schultz. Ose said the blanket primary prodded candidates of both parties to compete for the center, "where 80 percent of the voters are."

This centralizing tendency could have its most immediate impact in the state legislature, where the turnover is high because of term limits. In the primary, three Latino women won GOP legislative nominations, helped by Latino crossover votes.

One of these, Charlene Zettel in the 75th Assembly District in San Diego County, is a moderate who defeated two conservative male opponents. Because the 75th is one of the state's safest GOP districts, Zettel is likely to become the first female Republican Latino to represent her party in the legislature.

Campbell, who started this upheaval, was out of government for less than a year after his 1992 primary loss. He won an open state Senate seat and later was reelected to his old seat in the House. He is pleased about the moderating trend but believes it will take time for the state GOP to change its traditional, conservative ways. Using a baseball metaphor, Campbell said: "This change will have to work its way through the farm system – we'll need many mainstream victories to change the nature of the party in California."