hayden, Tom

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</div><div>=</div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/173146897/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/173146897/&ved=0ahUKEwiBqN6C2tDZAhWK8oMKHX8XCi8QFggwMAI" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California on April 28, 1985 ...</font></a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/173146897/</font></cite></div><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="f">Apr 28, 1985 - </span>Also involved in the election was the Sacramento-based <span style="font-weight: bold;">Free Market Political Action Committee</span>, a group that channels thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to conservative candidates. It put out a mailer for the conservative slate. The chairman of the committee is freshman Assemblyman Gil ...</font></span></div></div><div class="s" style="font-size: small; max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div class="s" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><div id="mod-a-body-after-first-para" class="mod-latarticlesarticletextwithadcpc mod-latarticlesarticletext mod-articletext" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="padding: 0px 10px 0px 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Yet, despite all its surface tranquility, the city, about 90 miles north of Sacramento in rural Butte County, becomes a battleground of far left and far right politics at election time.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Four years ago, a group of liberal candidates, with support from the left-of-center Santa Monica-based Campaign for Economic Democracy, defeated four conservatives and took control of the seven-member City Council.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Then, in municipal elections several weeks ago, a conservative faction backed by ultra-right Sacramento legislators swept four incumbents, including the mayor and three council members, out of office.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Local residents say the last campaign divided the city into two bitterly warring camps.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"There was absolutely no middle ground,</span>" said Republican activist Karen Vercruse, a city planning commissioner and campaign manager for one of the conservative candidates. "It was like the community grabbed their dogs and children, ran indoors and left the two gunfighters out on the street to battle it out. I've never seen such an intense campaign. We beat their socks off."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">While the city elections are still mostly local affairs, outside political forces have figured prominently in local voting, a development with statewide implications.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">On one side is the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Campaign for Economic Democracy (CED), a group founded in 1977 by then political activist and now Democratic Assemblyman Tom Hayden of Santa Monica with the help of his actress-wife, Jane Fonda, to promote tenants' rights, rent control, energy conservation and other issues.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Bid for Respectability</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"><b>Hayden, who helped organize the militant Students for a Democratic Society into a political force in the 1960s, hoped to establish CED's respectability by winning elections in college towns like Chico.</b></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">On the other side are conservatives, who say the fight here is one that will be repeated in other parts of the state.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">"Chico represents the middle ground in California. That's what we are fighting for, the left and the right. If we can beat them in Chico, then we can probably beat them in every other part of the state," said John Feliz, a Sacramento-based legislative aide to conservative Sen. John Doolittle (R-Citrus Heights) and one-time director of the Law and Order Campaign Committee.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Feliz, who owns a political consulting firm called Communications Consulting Group, coordinated activities of the conservative slate.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Also involved in the election was the Sacramento-based Free Market Political Action Committee, a group that channels thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to conservative candidates. It put out a mailer for the conservative slate.</p></div><div class="float" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" clear="clear" both="both" height="height" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px;"><img src="http://articles.latimes.com/images/pixel.gif" height="1" width="1" alt="" style="border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px; display: inherit !important;" /></div><div id="mod-a-body-after-second-para" class="mod-latarticlesarticletextwithadcpc mod-latarticlesarticletext mod-articletext" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"><b>The chairman of the committee is freshman Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), a retired Marine Corps officer and head of the Free Market Political Action Committee, </b>who said: "Until now, there has been nobody effectively countering CED. Everyone has been assuming it will fall of its own dead weight. Not only don't I think it will fall of its own dead weight, I think there should be opposing forces in our society. We'll be challenging them elsewhere."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Conservatives say the election results point to a decline in the effectiveness of CED, locally as well as statewide.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">But Hayden downplays the importance of Chico politically, although in days gone by victories here, as well as in Santa Monica, Santa Cruz, Arcata and Berkeley, led to rejoicing by CED.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Hayden said the price CED paid for winning local elections and then holding onto the offices was too high, so they have been backing away.</p></div></span></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div>==</div>