California Elections 1994

Democratic state Sen. Art Torres, promising to protect Los Angeles earthquake victims from "unfair tactics" of insurance companies, announced his candidacy Tuesday for state insurance commissioner. If elected, Torres, 47, who was born in East Los Angeles, would be the first Latino to hold statewide office since 1875 when Romualdo Pacheco was governor. "I am not running as a Latino candidate," said Torres, chairman of the Senate Insurance Committee.

Proponents of a failed statewide bond measure that would have provided $25 million to buy more open space in Laguna Canyon were hopeful Wednesday they could overcome the major setback and still save the land from development.

Former Republican Cabinet Secretary Jack F. Kemp faced an unenthusiastic and sometimes angry audience at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace on Wednesday as he defended his condemnation of Proposition 187, the illegal immigration reform measure on the Nov. 8 state ballot. In his first public discussion of his opposition to the initiative, Kemp told the audience that he could not, in good conscience, support a measure that would "turn teachers and nurses into agents of the INS."

Terrie La Vann, a sixth-grader at 68th Street School in South-Central Los Angeles, had a question Sunday for the people vying to become California's next superintendent of public instruction. Striding purposefully to the microphone set up in an elementary school auditorium, the 12-year-old calmly faced the grown-ups sitting on the stage and got right to the point: "What can you do to increase our reading scores?"

State Treasurer Kathleen Brown gained a potential rival Wednesday, but as she completed a two-day, seven-city tour of the state, the name Tom Hayden rarely passed her lips. In Santa Barbara, where Brown shook hands at an electronics firm that trains high-skill workers, she responded to a query about the well-known state senator's unexpected gubernatorial ambitions by predicting, "This is going to be an exciting Democratic primary race."

Saying the measure would undermine "clear moral principles" of "compassion and welcome," Cardinal Roger Mahony on Saturday called on California Roman Catholics to defeat Proposition 187, which promises sweeping crackdowns on public benefits for undocumented immigrants.

Former Republican Cabinet secretary Jack F. Kemp faced an unenthusiastic and sometimes angry audience at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace on Wednesday as he defended his condemnation of Proposition 187, the immigration measure on the Nov. 8 state ballot. In his first public discussion of his opposition to Proposition 187, Kemp told the disagreeing audience that he could not, in good conscience, support a measure that would "turn teachers and nurses into agents of the INS."

It was in June, 1990, that Bill Honig rode the crest of an education reform wave to a third term as California's superintendent of public instruction. He easily gathered the majority vote needed to win the state's only nonpartisan office in the primary election, avoiding a November runoff. What a difference four years can make.

A member of the Proposition 187 campaign committee has reopened old wounds with plans to post "only citizens can vote" flyers outside polling places Tuesday. The plan is sponsored by Barbara A. Coe, a member of the pro-187 campaign committee and head of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform. The flyers were handed out last week during a meeting of her group in Garden Grove. The flyers read: "Only citizens can vote! Violators will be prosecuted!"

Allstate Insurance Co. conceded Friday that some of its employees misrepresented themselves as speaking for a police group while soliciting votes by telephone for Republican candidate Charles Quackenbush in the insurance commissioner's race. Delia Chilgren, head of Allstate's California political action group, said that fewer than one-third of the company volunteers were given scripts instructing them to say they spoke on behalf of the Peace Officers Research Assn. of California.