24th Congressional District

Democrat Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles, the incumbent in the 24th Congressional District, is in another matchup Nov. 6 with Republican John N. Cowles, whom he easily beat in 1988. A dedicated liberal and environmentalist, Waxman has been a leader in the battle to extend the Clean Air Act. As chairman of the House subcommittee on health and the environment, he has led a legislative attack on smoking and is pressing legislation to restrict tobacco advertising in print and on billboards.

Sources close to Assemblyman Tom McClintock said Wednesday that he will seek the Republican nomination to oppose veteran Democratic Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson in a newly created congressional district that lumps the western San Fernando Valley and eastern Ventura County. "He just gave me a courtesy call," said one well-placed Republican source. "He'll be announcing that he is running in the 24th District."

Republican Mark Boos Benhard of Oak Park kicked off his campaign to unseat Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson at a rally Thursday, where he urged a $500 tax credit for working families and a get-tough policy against illegal immigrants. Benhard, 28, for three years an aide to former Rep. William Dannemeyer, said he supports using the armed forces to patrol the U. S.-Mexican border and eliminating all benefits for illegal immigrants, including automatic citizenship, education and welfare.

U.S. Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D--Woodland Hills) and his Republican challenger, Richard Sybert, jumped into the Proposition 187 fray Wednesday, agreeing that illegal immigration needs to be controlled but parting ways on the controversial ballot proposition. Beilenson condemned the initiative as ineffective, costly and unconstitutional during a debate sponsored by the Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce, while Sybert said it is an important first step in easing the state's immigration woes.

It's a marquee matchup: one of California's most prominent, endangered incumbent Democrats versus one of the state's most outspoken and conservative Republican legislators. In contrast to this "year of the outsider," the contest between Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) in the 24th Congressional District looms as a high-profile showdown of two career politicians who offer sharply contrasting personal styles and political ideologies.

Tom McClintock, the conservative Republican state assemblyman attempting to unseat Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles), had barely said hello before he laid into Beilenson for what he called a "campaign of character assassination." It was the first of several sharp attacks both congressional candidates made before the Rotary Club of Thousand Oaks on Thursday.

Republican congressional contender Tom McClintock is benefiting from a surge of eleventh-hour campaign donations by special-interest groups, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Assemblyman McClintock's campaign took in at least $42,000 in the past two weeks, the reports said. Of that, $27,500--or 65%--came from groups representing beer wholesalers, realtors, chiropractors, insurance interests, gun owners and others. By comparison, his Democratic rival, Anthony C.