VOTE-FIXING ALLEGED.

Byline: Steven J. Gorman Daily News Staff Writer

The Democratic primary contest for the seat now held by state Assemblyman Richard Katz took a bitter turn last week when several candidates accused members of the Latino Legislative Caucus of rigging a key endorsement vote.

The Latino Caucus leader, Sen. Richard Polanco, D-Los Angeles, and four other Latino legislators appointed 12 delegates supporting candidate Tony Cardenas to the party's 39th Assembly District endorsement committee days before the panel voted Jan. 14 to recommend support for Cardenas.

Of the 28 delegates who cast ballots, 17 voted for Cardenas, a real estate broker from Sylmar, and six backed attorney Valerie Salkin of Panorama City.

Five other delegates opted for no endorsement.

No votes were cast for any of the three other Democratic candidates - Jim Dantona, Michael Del Rio or Jose Galvan.

While acknowledging that no party rules were broken, Cardenas' rivals said the endorsement process was corrupted by last-minute changes in the roster of delegates.

They suggested the maneuver was a sign that the East Los Angeles political establishment led by Polanco was attempting to broker the outcome of the March 26 primary in the Northeast San Fernando Valley district.

Cardenas and his allies dismissed the criticism as sour grapes, saying they had operated within the party's bylaws and merely used the rules to their advantage.

State legislators each have the power to appoint up to five Central Committee delegates from districts anywhere in the state, whom they can dismiss and replace at will.

But the state party's executive board member from the 39th District, Dennis Petrie, said he intends to try blocking a Cardenas endorsement by demanding that it be removed from the "consent calendar" of recommendations scheduled for approval by acclamation.

Endorsement recommendations of each district's delegate caucuses routinely are ratified by the state-level party organization, and the party's executive board is due to meet Feb. 1-2 in Oakland to consider them.

The chairwoman of the 39th Assembly District Committee, Cynthia Ruis, said Thursday that she has called an emergency meeting of the panel for tonight to vote on whether to instruct Petrie to uphold the endorsement recommendation. She is a Cardenas supporter.

Although such a vote would be nonbinding, Petrie said he might refrain from going through with his challenge if explicitly urged by the committee to do so. He acknowledged that defying the will of the committee could lead to his ouster.

But Eric Bauman, a party activist and executive board member from the 40th Assembly District, said he was aware that other board members were in the process of lining up support from other districts to pull the Cardenas endorsement off the consent calendar.

"There are phone calls being made. I've received several myself," Bauman said.

He said many board members were concerned about last-minute delegate substitutions being made in their districts in the future.