ELECTIONS 20TH STATE SENATE DISTRICT : Roberti Spends $876,000 in Race to Win New Seat

State Senate leader David A. Roberti has spent at least $876,000 in his drive to capture a new seat in the San Fernando Valley, setting a pace that is likely to make him one of the heaviest spenders in a Senate race since the 1970s.

Roberti, a Democrat previously based in Hollywood, has paid out nearly seven times as much as his Republican rival, Carol Rowen, since Jan. 1, according to campaign reports filed Thursday. The two are battling to succeed former Sen. Alan Robbins in the 20th Senate District, which covers Van Nuys and other parts of the south-central Valley.

But although Rowen has spent only $79,000 on her campaign, groups representing gun owners and anti-tax activists plan to send voters up to 1 million anti-Roberti attack mailers in independent campaigns costing more than $200,000 that are sure to benefit Rowen.

The 20th District seat has been vacant since Robbins agreed to plead guilty to federal corruption charges in December and resigned. Roberti is trying to transplant himself to the 20th District because his current district was wiped out by the recent court-ordered reapportionment.

The head of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Assn. said Thursday that his group is spending $125,000 through an independent committee on mailers attacking Roberti, a liberal who has long been a nemesis of anti-tax groups. The Jarvis group expects to send out 500,000 to 800,000 brochures.

In addition, a grass-roots group of firearms owners, Californians Against Corruption, is sending 230,000 brochures to 20th District voters, which a spokesman said cost nearly $90,000.

Gun owners are angry at Roberti for his co-sponsorship of a landmark 1989 ban on military-style assault weapons. The law was passed after a drifter wielding an assault rifle killed five children on a Stockton playground.

Roberti said in his report that during the most recent reporting period, March 22 to May 16, he spent $578,000, including tens of thousands of dollars on a battery of high-powered campaign consultants and pollsters.

Roberti, whose powerful position as Senate president pro tem makes him a prodigious political fund-raiser, received $573,000 in cash and non-cash contributions during the same period. They included numerous donations from groups representing doctors, laborers, accountants, motel operators and other special interests.

By contrast, Rowen took in $127,000 since Jan. 1, including $50,000 that she loaned her campaign.

Robert Stern, co-director of the California Commission on Campaign Financing, a private group that studies the impact of money on politics, said Roberti’s fund-raising strength was “amazing” in light of limits on campaign donations in special elections.

Although voter-approved campaign contribution limits have been invalidated by the courts for regular elections, the caps still apply in special elections. Individuals are limited to $1,000 and political action committees to $2,500.

Stern said Roberti will probably spend more than $1 million through Election Day--enough to place him among the top five highest-spending Senate candidates in the past 16 years. Including expenditures by Rowen and the independent committees, the race could cost nearly $2 million, he said.

Stern said Roberti is “used to raising substantial sums of money for other legislators. He has a network of people who give him money. And he’s milking that network to the nth degree, I’m sure.”

Joel Fox, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., said his group wants to defeat Roberti because the lawmaker is “one of the biggest taxers and spenders in the state.” Fox said Roberti opposed tax-cutting Proposition 13 in 1978 and backed a series of recent tax increases, including those on snack foods, personal income and business.

Roberti responded that the hikes were proposed by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. He added that although he initially opposed Proposition 13, he recently joined in a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court not to overturn it.

But Fox countered that Roberti did so only because the 20th District “is a hotbed of support” for the initiative, and Roberti wanted to curry favor with local voters.

Manny Fernandez, a spokesman for Californians Against Corruption, said his group expects to flood the 20th District with anti-Roberti brochures, repeating the wave of mailers it sent before the April 7 primary, in which Roberti failed to get enough votes to avoid the June runoff with Rowen.

Asked if he thought his heavy spending plays into the hands of critics who have charged he is trying to “buy” the 20th District seat, Roberti said he must spend more in order to be on a par with the combined spending of Rowen and the pro-gun and Jarvis committees.

“I’m not trying to buy the district,” he said. “The same question could be asked of the people who are arrayed against me. Those are powerful organizations.”