The March 2 Democratic primary election will be a close race, as the three candidates vying for Christine Kehoe’s seat in the 76th Assembly District have garnered the support of separate voting communities: Educator Lori Saldana is a local neighborhood favorite, securing the support of the Latino Caucus and the school districts, former professor Vince Hall has the support of the local GLBT community and political consultant Heidi von Szeliski has a large portion of endorsements on the state level. Environmental groups are split between endorsements for Saldana and Hall; all three candidates are supportive of GLBT civil rights.

Saldana is an associate professor of web design and information technology for the San Diego Community College District. Born and raised in the 76th District, Saldana, who has never run for political office before, has been walking precincts for the better part of last year for her own campaign.

“The most recent polls consistently show me in the lead,” she said. “I’m confounding the conventional wisdom in Sacramento, which says the people with the most money will be the winners.”

Saldana’s main goals are to restore funding for community colleges and repair cuts made to K-12 public education, pass water and energy conservation measures, address air quality issues and upgrade existing sewage pipelines and water treatment facilities.

She has done significant work on environmental issues, serving as chair of the San Diego/Imperial Counties chapter of the Sierra Club, as an appointee to the City’s Wetlands Advisory Board and as a 1999 appointee to a bi-national environmental commission.

“If we have a healthy environment we have healthy people and only healthy people are able to go to school and learn,” she said. “I am an educator and committed to people being educated and trained so they can go out and get good-paying jobs and start new companies. If we don’t pay attention to that, then the economic engine in California will never get started again.”

Saldana has actively supported Kehoe in past campaigns, writing endorsements for Kehoe’s 1993 bid for city council, and walking precincts and creating a campaign website for her 1998 Congressional campaign. She was surprised when Kehoe endorsed Szeliski over her.

“Early on when I told [Kehoe] I was going to run for this seat, initially she was supportive,” Saldana said. “But when I didn’t go out and immediately run to Sacramento and start raising a ton of money, I think she just forgot that maybe money is not what makes a successful campaign…. I think people forget their roots – what it means to be a first-time candidate and what it means to go out and run for the first time.”

Under Saldana’s chairmanship, the Sierra Club Executive Committee was the first in the country to vote in the Gay and Lesbian Sierrans Group. She has been a member of the San Diego Democratic Club for the last two years and supports full rights for the GLBT community.

“I would never do anything to restrict people from entering into a loving, committed relationship, who were willing to take on the full responsibility of what is involved with that,” Saldana said. “Why should somebody be able to get drunk and married by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas, yet caring, thoughtful people can’t do the same in a legal ceremony any place else?”

Saldana said the GLBT community has virtually ignored her campaign, though she is as committed to GLBT issues as Hall or Szeliski.

“The 76th District encompasses most of San Diego’s LGBT neighborhoods, and the March 2 election is one in which the community is almost unified behind its support of my candidacy,” Vince Hall said in a recent interview with the Gay & Lesbian Times.

Hall has been a member of the San Diego Democratic Club for more than 10 years, walks in the LGBT Pride parade every year and has attended numerous events in the GLBT community throughout that time, prior to any plans to run for political office.

“It was in fact the leadership of the LGBT community that encouraged me to run in the 76th District,” he said.

Hall served as Gray Davis’ communications director when Davis was Lieutenant Governor and then as a staff director when Davis was elected governor. He also worked as Congressmember Bob Filner’s technology advisor when Filner was a council representative for the San Diego City Council.

Top goals for Hall, if elected, are reforming the state budget, enhancing economic support for the middle class, helping push through GLBT civil rights legislation and strengthening the California Coastal Commission.

Like Saldana, Hall has advocated extensively on behalf of environmental issues such as coastal clean up and preservation, air quality and water treatment, and has been endorsed by the Sierra club (as has Saldana) and Vote the Coast.

Szeliski is the favorite on the state level. Kehoe, Senators Dede Alpert and Sheila Kuehl, former Assemblymember Howard Wayne, and Assemblymembers Mark Leno and Jackie Goldberg have endorsed her campaign.

Szeliski’s campaign focus is on education, public safety, better health care for seniors, children and people with disabilities, and also balancing the state budget crisis without resorting to bonds and loans, and closing special-interest tax loopholes.

Hall criticized Szeliski’s environmental track record, specifically her 1998 success at gaining exemption for Sea World from San Diego’s 50-foot property height requirement along the coast – a judgment that resulted in what many see as the over-development of San Diego’s coastline.

“All it did was allow the city council and the coastal commission the right to approve any particular improvements to Sea World,” Szeliski said. “The issue was about whether the city council and the coastal commission should have the ability to approve projects. They are the ones that decided to build the roller coaster…. Dissatisfaction with that decision should be rightfully taken with the city council and the coastal commission.”

Both Saldana and Hall have also questioned Szeliski’s firm’s work on behalf of Wal-Mart, in the face of the super store’s recent anti-labor policies. Szeliski said the accusations are “just not true,” and that a school district in Orange County hired her firm to help them lease vacant, commercially-zoned land that they owned to help raise funds for the school: It was the district’s decision to lease the land to Wal-Mart.

“I have never worked for Wal-Mart; I would never work for Wal-Mart,” she said, adding that the San Diego/Imperial Counties Labor Council would not have endorsed her if any of her firm’s activities were suspect.

Of the three candidates, Hall is the only one who has run for political office before – an unsuccessful bid for the 78th Assembly District in 2002, which he lost to Shirley Horton.

It was because of this loss, among other matters, that Kehoe endorsed Szeliski over Hall, issuing the one dissenting vote against the San Diego Democratic Club’s endorsement of Hall.

Kehoe asserted that Szeliski is “the strongest candidate who can win” the effort to hold onto the Democratic seat in the State Assembly, particularly during a crucial year for GLBT civil rights legislation, when every Democratic vote will count.

“The Los Angeles Times about a week ago talked about my race and how the Republicans want Vince to be the nominee because they can beat him in the general and he can cost the Democrats their seat,” Szeliski said.

Kehoe cited Szeliski’s work to defeat the Knight Initiative, her fight against anti-gay ballot measures in 12 states and her firm’s help to elect the first openly GLBT members of the California State Legislature and the Los Angeles City Council as examples of her commitment to GLBT legislation.

Hall downplayed Szeliski’s work for the GLBT community. “Ms. von Szeliski claims to be an advocate for gay and lesbian civil rights,” he said. “The only claim that she makes to having helped gay and lesbian civil rights comes in the form of billable hours.”

“The kind of projects I have sought out have reflected my personal values,” Szeliski said in response to Hall’s comments. “We pursue projects, campaigns, candidates, issues and affiliations on purpose… There are different ways of being an advocate and an activist and I’ve put it into my work.”