ELECTIONS / 23RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT : Primary Races Marked by Strong, Often Combative, Personalities : Republicans: Incumbent Elton Gallegly takes his opponents seriously. Daphne Becker and Robert Shakman are running hard.

By RON SOBLE

May 25, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The lights are on late these nights in business offices off the Ventura Freeway in Camarillo where Daphne Becker’s enterprises are headquartered. For a month, office staffers have been stuffing thousands of political mailers.

“It’s been a fabulous experience,” said Becker, a Ventura County businesswoman who co-owns a dental health network and property management firm. She believes that she will pull off a long-shot upset of three-term congressional incumbent Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley).

“We will win this election because we know our future is at stake,” said Becker with unabashed confidence. “There’s a movement afoot. There’s a revolution going on in this country.”

To be sure, voters appear to be in an anti-incumbency mood amid such congressional embarrassments as the House of Representatives bank scandal.

Mindful of the dour public mood, Gallegly signs posted around Ventura County urge voters to ELECT him. None say REELECT the incumbent.

Still, Republican congressmen are not easily uprooted.

“Based on what I’ve seen, she has not done enough to unseat Gallegly,” said Ben Key, the congressman’s Texas-based campaign manager.

Even so, Gallegly, 48, the former Simi Valley mayor, said he is taking nothing for granted in the 23rd Congressional District Republican primary.

“We take every campaign very seriously,” he said. “Every one is the toughest one of my life.”

Besides Becker, 50, of Ojai, Gallegly is being challenged in the primary by Dr. Robert Shakman, 48, of Ventura, a health plan executive.

Neither challenger has run for political office before.

On key issues, Gallegly generally opposes abortion while his two opponents support abortion rights. Gallegly also is at odds with Becker and Shakman on legislation that he is sponsoring to control illegal immigration.

Particularly controversial is a Gallegly constitutional amendment that would prohibit children born in the United States of illegal immigrants from automatically becoming citizens.

Gallegly, says a mailer, “is leading the fight to bring an end to the practice of taxpayers footing the bill for hundreds of millions of dollars paid to illegal aliens for welfare and other benefits each year.”

Both Becker, a native of Guatemala, and Shakman oppose the amendment, calling it discriminatory and contrary to U. S. beliefs.

Gallegly also voted against the $2-billion emergency urban aid bill, still pending in Congress, which contains relief for victims of the Los Angeles riots.

He said the bill was flawed because the government had no control “on whether (the money) goes to illegal aliens. By just appropriating money without a method of managing that money is not the way to approach it.”

Shakman supports the funding. Becker said she opposes “spending federal money we don’t have,” and would instead send the Seabees from Port Hueneme to rebuild riot-torn areas of Los Angeles.

Gallegly’s vote “gives Ventura County a bad image,” Shakman said.

Complicating the outlook for Gallegly is that the new congressional district eliminated Thousand Oaks, a Republican stronghold that had overwhelmingly supported the incumbent. Included in the new Ventura County district is Oxnard and Ventura, new political turf for Gallegly.

As a three-term incumbent, Gallegly has the advantage of having accumulated about $350,000 in campaign cash reserves over the years. But much of that cash is being withheld for the general election, the congressman said.

One batch of Gallegly mailers went out earlier this month, timed to when the absentee ballots were received by voters. And strategist Key anticipates another mailing next week targeted to Republicans who are expected to turn out for the election.

“We have several mailers in reserve” if needed in the coming final week of the primary race, Key said.

Whether to buy radio and television time depends on an assessment of the final days of the Becker campaign, he added.

Becker, meanwhile, has loaned herself $59,000 and said she has committed $100,000 out of her bank account “to complete a strong campaign.”

Since the beginning of May, her staff has been mailing 3,000 to 30,000 pieces a day to targeted registered Republicans, such as women and absentee voters.

Many of the mailers underscore her position on abortion. Others hit at Gallegly for voting a pay hike for himself and for being “part of the Washington check-kiting scandal.”

On the latter point, Gallegly disclosed that he had written overdrafts on five checks totaling about $800 and that he was not aware of the overdrafts until notified by the House bank.

Shakman said he sent “two large mailings this month” laying out his positions supporting pro-choice, environmental issues, integrity in Congress and an overhaul of health care financing that still allows private choice of physicians.

Gallegly campaign general Key is unimpressed.

“To unseat an incumbent you have to do more than send out some mail to certain targets,” he said.

Even in this unpredictable election year, he’s probably right.

So Becker’s staff also has produced what she declares are “some great commercials,” which are just now appearing on Ventura County cable television in the final days before the primary election.

“Our theme is a pig wallowing, grunting, squealing at the public trough” symbolizing congressional perks, she said. “We don’t mention Elton.”

For his part, Gallegly has made it clear that he has not enjoyed the race with Becker.

Gallegly is still smarting from a forced encounter with her at a Ventura Chamber of Commerce luncheon last month in which Becker, sitting at a table in front of the speaker’s podium, interrupted his talk and called him a liar for allegedly misrepresenting facts on his immigration package.

“I’m glad I stood up to Elton,” Becker said. “I think I simply acted out everyone’s fantasy with this particular Congress.”

Gallegly said he does not think much of Becker’s tactics.

“I’m not going to be deterred by somebody’s method of campaigning,” he said. “I would say her method is different than mine. Historically, we’ve taken the high road.”