CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : A Solid ‘Year of the Woman’ at State Polls

It was the governor of Texas, Ann Richards, who gave California’s women candidates their defining sound bite last week when she said that the rooster crows, but it’s the hen who delivers the goods.

On Wednesday, some California women could be forgiven for doing a little crowing too.

Led by the unprecedented election of two women to the U.S. Senate, the state will also send seven Democratic women to the House of Representatives--up from three--and put an additional five women, for a total of 22, in the 80-member state Assembly. In the state Senate, two more women will join the four already there. Most of them are Democrats. In San Francisco, voters elected a female majority to the Board of Supervisors with the addition of four women, and also chose Angela Alioto to head the board.

But what do the numbers mean? Is seven a respectable Year of the Woman showing when 19 women were running and women were shoo-ins in six congressional districts? And is 22 a blowout when 45 women were running for Assembly, some of them against each other?

The numbers in the general election and the primaries were “unprecedented,” said Kate Karpilow, the executive director of CEWAER, the nonpartisan California Elected Women’s Assn. for Education and Research.

Women scored “solid gains” in competitive districts, she said, because of “the trickle-up effect, first and foremost. Women were in place to move up, they were galvanized by Anita Hill, mobilized by Clinton and the Democratic Party, and empowered by very viable campaigns and--this is critical--women’s PACS that have matured into major forces.”

Anti-incumbency sentiments and a mood favoring change broke women’s way in some races, as did the question of abortion.

In California, the Year of the Woman played mostly as the Year of the Pro-Abortion Rights Democratic Woman. Even when women ran against each other, the Democrat almost always won.

“I don’t think a lot of those victories would have taken place without choice as the defining issue,” said Robin Schneider of the California Abortion Rights Action League, which sent 880,000 pieces of mail--most of it to Republicans and independents--on behalf of pro-abortion rights candidates, male and female, of both parties.

Pro-abortion rights legislators added to their majority in both the Assembly and the state’s congressional delegation, she said. “It almost couldn’t have been better for us,” Schneider said.

Abortion rights, and the symbolic control of women’s lives that they have come to represent for many voters, were played out vehemently in the national arena this year, creating wide rifts in the GOP and a few cracks among Democrats.

On Tuesday, they were a defining issue in California for the Senate races, and apparently farther down the ballot. Exit polling conducted by The Times among 3,873 California voters asked which three of 12 issues--like taxes, the economy, honesty--were most important in their vote for U.S. Senate.

Among women, 48% ranked abortion as one of the three. Among men, 33% ranked it as important, second only to taxes.

Though the polling did not indicate whether voters were for or against abortion, a voter sampling also showed that pro-abortion rights Democrat Dianne Feinstein enjoyed a 26-point “gender gap” advantage over pro-abortion rights Republican John Seymour among women voters, 60% to 34%. And women preferred pro-abortion rights Democrat Barbara Boxer to anti-abortion Republican Bruce Hershensohn by 51% to 40%.

Ester Ramirez, a Republican, manages career advisement at USC’s journalism school. On Tuesday, she took her sample ballot into the voting booth, a dance card filled with Republicans. She planned not to vote for Boxer or Hershensohn.

“I was not really going to vote for Boxer because of her record and the pay increase--I was so insulted she’d do that when teachers suffer through pay cuts,” Ramirez said. “But when I got into the voting booth, I opened the sample ballot and was going to go mechanically through, I just stopped and said ‘Oh my God.’ I just went ahead and voted for her, and I voted for anyone who was female and if the woman was a Republican, then I went for the Democrat.

“I just completely changed my mind because of the abortion issue.”

In Fresno, anti-abortion activist Barbara Keating-Edh lost a close and closely watched Assembly race to abortion rights supporter Margaret Snyder.

In two significant South Bay races, the Democratic women believe abortion rights made a difference in their victories.

In one of only three congressional races where two women were running against each other and disagreed on abortion rights, Republican City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who was favored to win, lost to Democrat Jane Harman, who outspent her about 2 to 1 and had the support of major abortion rights groups.

Both agree that abortion was “a major issue” but not the only issue. Flores, who opposes abortion except for rape, incest and the woman’s health, says Harman’s “cash and coattails” also hurt. Harman said the abortion matter earned her crossover votes in this GOP-leaning district.

Another South Bay abortion rights Democrat, Assembly candidate Debra Bowen, upset Redondo Beach Mayor Brad Parton by a stunningly wide margin in a name-calling battle that encompassed abortion. She attacked Parton as a right-wing fundamentalist, and Parton likened her attacks to “the brownshirted fascists of Nazi Germany.” Bowen had the help of big abortion-rights groups, and Parton, who opposes abortion in most circumstances, got about $100,000 from conservative Christian and anti-abortion groups.

The Times poll also showed that for both men and women, “change” was one of the top three considerations in Senate races. Women candidates, even incumbents, promoted themselves as “change” agents this year.

Betty Karnette, a Long Beach math teacher who upset Republican Assemblyman Gerald N. Felando (R-San Pedro) by 10 percentage points in Long Beach, said the gender vote “was a help” in her grass-roots campaign.

“Wherever I went, I found that voters are tired of confrontation and grandstanding. They are looking for people who will solve problems in a cooperative manner” and “women are better at it--not all of us, but in general women are more cooperative and tend to solve problems.”

Times staff writers Janet Rae-Dupree and Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this story.

Contributing to election coverage were Times staff writers Alan Abrahamson, Fred Alvarez, G. Jeanette Avent, Eric Bailey, Carol Chastang, Stephanie Chavez, Jack Cheevers, Henry Chu, Tina Daunt, Alicia Di Rado, Gerald Faris, Ralph Frammolino, Jerry Gillam, Mark Gladstone, Larry Gordon, Jill Gottesman, Tina Griego, Tracey Kaplan, Greg Krikorian, Maria L. La Ganga, Dave Lesher, Carlos V. Lozano, Consella Lee, Hugo Martin, Dean E. Murphy, Richard C. Paddock, Judy Pasternak, Mark Platte, Amy Pyle, Jeffrey L. Rabin, Janet Rae-Dupree, Lucille Renwick, H.G. Reza, Deborah Schoch, Phil Sneiderman, Ron Soble, Douglas P. Shuit, Otto Strong, Renee Tawa, Mike Ward, Timothy Williams and Stacy Wong; Times researcher Cecilia Rasmussen. Also contributing were special correspondents Emily Adams, Michael Arnold, Sara Catania, Brian Fowler, Sam Green, James Maiella Jr., Ron Nissimov, Mark Nollinger, Mary Pols, Suzanne Rostler, Kathleen Sharp and Lesley Wright.