Foes Find Lockyer Is Difficult to Unseat

SACRAMENTO —  In seeking reelection, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer already has filled his war chest with almost $5 million for a down-ticket race against an eclectic field of challengers with low public profiles and little money.

His campaign finances reflect his standing as a long-established liberal Democrat and California’s top cop, and many large contributions are from his party’s traditional benefactors.

But records show that in the last two years Lockyer’s campaign also collected $41,000 from the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, which his office regulates. And Oracle Corp., which has millions of dollars in computer software contracts with the attorney general’s office, donated $50,000 and sponsored a golf tournament fund-raiser for Lockyer. Oracle is one of the primary competitors of Microsoft, which the attorney general is suing over alleged monopolistic practices.

Lockyer, a veteran of a quarter of a century in the Legislature, said that gaming regulation and contracting are handled by the office’s professional staff and that contributions do not influence his official actions. “I have never connected a decision made with any contribution made and no one has been able to contradict that statement,” he said in an interview.

Lockyer has collected so much money and staked out so much political turf that even his opponents allow he will be difficult to unseat.

His lone rival in Tuesday’s Democratic primary is Michael Schmier, who has waged an esoteric legal crusade born of his personal bankruptcy years ago.

Lockyer acknowledges that he is looking past Schmier to a November matchup with state Sen. Dick Ackerman (R-Fullerton), a pro-business lawmaker drafted by the GOP after others declined to take up the fight.

The field will be rounded out by three minor party candidates: a barrister who has specialized in drunk-driving cases, a former Santa Barbara County public defender who represents the homeless and an Orange County attorney who once ran for president.

Campaign experts have speculated that Lockyer is positioning himself for a future gubernatorial bid. Without ruling that out, Lockyer says he loves being attorney general. “I have noticed that officeholders who are fixated on the next rung of the ladder often don’t do a good job on the one they’re at,” he said. “The best politics is to do the job well.”

The race boils down to a referendum on Lockyer’s performance as the state’s chief lawyer overseeing everything from narcotics and firearms enforcement to gambling regulation and environmental laws.

His opponents span the ideological spectrum. Some fault him for supporting capital punishment. Others criticize him for being anti-business.

Lockyer dismisses his competition. He calls Schmier, whom he easily defeated in the 1998 Democratic primary, “a person searching for an office.” He calls Ackerman an anti-environment and anti-consumer legislator who is “defined more by what he is against than for.”

Lockyer, 60, is the son of an East Bay roofing contractor. He studied at nearby UC Berkeley and chaired George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign in California.

Lockyer served in the Legislature for 25 years, the last four as Senate leader. He earned his law degree at night school while chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee. Although he now runs an office with 1,000 lawyers, he has never practiced law full time.

Like his dearth of legal experience, his liberal reputation was one of his hurdles as attorney general.

Santa Barbara County Dist. Atty. Tom Sneddon did not endorse Lockyer in 1998, but this time he is one of more than 30 district attorneys who do. Many, like Sneddon, are Republicans and former skeptics.

“He’s done a great job in almost every respect,” said Sneddon. “He came in with very little exposure to law enforcement needs. But he’s an incredibly quick read, and he has done something about them.”

Lockyer wanted to bolster consumer and environmental protection. But he says he did so without weakening the law enforcement side or the unit that handles criminal appeals for the counties.

His office helped win a ban on jet skis on Lake Tahoe, and it stepped up enforcement action against nursing homes. He also made technological improvements in services provided to local law enforcement, such as eliminating a backlog at the state’s DNA databank.

The Department of Justice is modernizing the automated criminal history system--an $18-million project. Records show that Oracle, which did some work for the department prior to Lockyer’s election in 1998, has received at least $11 million in contracts for the criminal history project since May 2000.

Lockyer’s campaign received $25,000 from the company in December 2000, as well as $25,000 in June 1991 for a fund-raiser at the Tehama Valley Country Club in Carmel. Signup sheets listed Oracle as the sponsor.

Oracle spokesman Jim Finn said there was no connection between the contract--one of many between the company and the state--and the contributions. “We have a ... wall between our political giving and our business divisions,” he said.

Ken Glueck, the Oracle vice president who reviews contributions, said the company refrains from making donations while it has a procurement pending, although it is comfortable making them afterward. “We try to apply an appearance test,” he said.

The company gave to the attorney general, Glueck said, because he is one of the most important state officials and the California-based company has an interest in state issues ranging from energy to transportation.

Lockyer said he is not involved in contracting decisions and was not aware of the Oracle contract until recently.

He said his policy as attorney general prohibits soliciting money from individuals or companies with business before his office, such as investigations or other problems.

When asked about the $41,000 in contributions from the Bicycle Club, he said that the casino is not under investigation and that the department’s professional law enforcement officers “review the licensing and make sure the games are honest.”

Despite his reputation as a liberal, Lockyer says he has supported the three-strikes sentencing law and capital punishment.

His position on the death penalty may have comforted local police and prosecutors. But it offends Lockyer’s primary opponent, Schmier, who called on Lockyer to make an 11th-hour attempt to block the execution in January of Stephen Wayne Anderson.

Lockyer says that stopping executions is the governor’s responsibility, not his.

To Schmier, seeking justice for a condemned man is part of his larger crusade for a “dependable and affordable” legal system.

Schmier, 57, is a University of Michigan-educated lawyer who has specialized in labor and employment law. He was appointed to the Emeryville school board and served part of last year.

But his passion is fighting to make sure that all state appellate court decisions are published and become legal precedent. The issue hit home more than a decade ago, he said in an interview, when he was facing a $300,000 malpractice suit.

The judge sent the case to a private referee. Schmier said he refused to participate, believing that legal precedents required both parties to agree to such a dispute resolution. He said the judge found him in default.

Schmier said court costs and the judgment entered against him exceeded $1 million, forcing him into bankruptcy.

He lost an appeal--but the decision was not ordered published. “So no one else was warned that you could be forced to accept a referral to a private referee,” said Schmier. “It’s a secret law.”

Schmier enjoyed some success--legal journals have written about the issue and the Supreme Court agreed to post appellate decisions on a Web site for 60 days.

To get out his message, Schmier visits shopping centers, local Democratic clubs and newspapers. He says he has taken out some newspaper ads but has not raised enough money for statewide television buys. “People are not anxious to give unless they think you’re going to win.... That’s sad.”

Ackerman, the Republican state senator, attended UC Berkeley. He graduated from UC’s Hastings Law School and has practiced business law for 34 years. His political career includes 12 years on the Fullerton City Council and three terms in the state Assembly. He was elected to the Senate in 2000.

Ackerman said he was considering running for attorney general in 2006 but got drafted for this election. The thinking was that Gov. Gray Davis is susceptible to a Republican challenge--and a GOP victory would make the incumbent attorney general more beatable.

“If Davis wins, I will probably lose,” Ackerman said. “Lots of those races are driven by the top of the ticket.”

His late start, Ackerman said, means that he has lots of fund-raising to do. “You should have the same amount at least as the incumbent to be competitive,” he said. As of Feb. 19, he reported about $40,000.

But Ackerman said he already has identified issues where he feels Lockyer is vulnerable. The attorney general, he said, does not have nearly as much legal experience as he does, and has harmed the state’s business climate by going after companies such as Microsoft and Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

Rather than joining in a federal settlement with Microsoft, Lockyer is leading a contentious legal fight with the Washington-based software company.

Some of Lockyer’s opponents have all but waved a white flag.

Diane Beall Templin of Escondido, the American Independent Party candidate, has run for various offices, including attorney general in 1998. She says she wants less government and more campaign finance reform.

Does she expect to win this time? “I’ll plead the 5th,” she said.

The Libertarian Party candidate, Ed Kuwatch, lives on a mountaintop near Willits. He runs a business called Fast Eddie Publishing and wrote a self-published book on drunk-driving laws in the state.

He wants to end laws that restrict the right to bear arms and wants three-strikes cases to apply only to violent offenders. But he has not raised money or campaigned around the state. He figures he’ll put together some bumper stickers with his catchy campaign slogan: “Don’t let them micromanage your life.”

The Green Party’s candidate is Glenn Freeman Mowrer, Santa Barbara County’s retired public defender. “I represent mainly the homeless who get tickets for camping or sleeping out of doors,” he said.

Mowrer wants a death penalty moratorium and an end to disparities in how it is enforced around the state.

His chances of winning? “Zero,” he said.

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Times staff researcher Maloy Moore contributed to this report.