MURRIETA —— It is a sign of things to come. Campaign signs plastered all over town proclaim that Murrieta school board candidate Richard Ackerman is a Republican.

Not only that, Ackerman, one of eight candidates vying for two open seats on the Murrieta Valley Unified School District board, possesses an official endorsement of the Riverside County Republican Party. The party also endorsed John Wells, a pastor and former police officer.

They are not alone. County Republicans recently endorsed 21 candidates in all for the Nov. 8 election, in the party's first large-scale, countywide foray into traditionally nonpartisan local races. County party Chairman Kevin Jeffries, a Lake Elsinore man who owns an investment firm, said the GOP endorsed favorites in races for school boards, city councils, water districts and park boards at a Sept. 19 convention in Riverside.

"We have done it before, but on a much smaller scale," Jeffries said. "This was the first time we implemented a comprehensive policy on how to do it and under what circumstances. This was our first big effort to get our party involved at the grass-roots local election level."

Jeffries said Riverside County Republicans decided that, because unions and "left-leaning" organizations have been trying to influence local races for years, it was time for them to jump into the fray.

"We decided that it was time to try to level the playing field," he said.

Making endorsements for school boards and city councils carries the added advantage of building a pool of preferred potential candidates for later runs for statewide office such as Assembly and attorney general, Jeffries said.

"We want to build a farm team of local Republicans that can be viable candidates for those higher offices," he said.

Here to stay

Far from just experimenting with the idea, Republicans plan to build a bigger list of endorsements next year.

"I think you're going to see it expand even farther as we go into 2006," Jeffries said. "This is something that I think is here to stay." He added that the county party may contribute campaign money to endorsed candidates.

Jeffries is a declared 2006 candidate for the 66th Assembly District.

County Democrats have been getting involved in local races for several years —— since at least 1998 —— and this fall they endorsed 15 candidates, although none in Southwest County races, said Shirley Walton, chairwoman of the Riverside County Democratic Party Central Committee and Murrieta resident.

"I think all parties should endorse their own candidates," Walton said. "I don't think there is any election that's nonpartisan, at least in Riverside County. The parties get involved each time, one way or another, and maybe silently, but they get involved."

Not everyone thinks it's a good idea to endorse local candidates, however.

"It's not appropriate," said Gene Vitamanti, campaign manager for Murrieta school board candidate Robin Crist, a Democrat. "It's injecting politics into something that we should all be working together on. When you're in education, you're not a Republican, you're not a Democrat, you're everything."

Vitamanti said he is disturbed that Ackerman has been calling attention to his endorsement.

"He's been going around saying, 'I am a Republican' and 'I am a Christian,'" Vitamanti said. "Well, what in the hell does that have to do with education?'"

Art Cassel, a Riverside-area activist who has worked on regional campaigns, also opposes endorsements.

"It's bad enough that we have to put up with that in national elections," Cassel said.

At the very least, he said, party endorsements should be reserved for higher offices that have been declared partisan.

"Neither party should dabble in nonpartisan local races," he said. "I think it's ridiculous. It destroys the whole concept of having it be nonpartisan."

Besides, Cassel said, it is nonpartisan local issues that take center stage in races for school boards and city councils, not ideological conservative-versus-liberal battles over divisive national issues such as abortion.

"It shouldn't be a factor in a local race," he said.

First Amendment right

As far as Ackerman is concerned, it shouldn't be an issue. He maintains there is nothing wrong with what the county Republican Party is doing or he is doing.

"I have a First Amendment right to state what my political views are," Ackerman said.

Sheree Jederberg, another Republican in the Murrieta school race, said that while she was passed over for a party endorsement, it is entirely reasonable for the GOP to get involved in this and other local races.

"I think the Republican Party is just another group or faction that should also be able to endorse candidates," Jederberg said.

Like other party members running for local offices this fall, she was invited to fill out an application detailing her views on the issues and to attend a forum directed by a GOP panel that decided which candidates to back.

"They notified us 48 hours in advance, and I was out of town and could not change my schedule," Jederberg said. She asked for a chance to come in a few days later, but was denied that opportunity.

"It would appear to me that the decision was already made," Jederberg said. "That's not equitable, but that's politics. And if you're going to run for office, you better get used to it."

Jederberg figures Ackerman's endorsement is worth a lot, given Murrieta's predominantly GOP voter registration and the fact that name recognition factors heavily in voting on local races.

"Murrieta has a huge population of Republicans," she said. "So I think it is a major endorsement. That's why I wish I would have had an opportunity to speak with them."

Not in the rulebook

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the University of Southern California, said people can debate all they want about whether party endorsements are appropriate.

"The reality of the situation is that there is nothing illegal about doing it," said Bebitch Jeffe.

And forget about fairness, she said.

"Where does it say in the rulebook that you have to play fair? Here's the bottom line: If they can do it, they're going to do it," she said. "And why shouldn't they?"

California's rulebook on local elections dates back to 1911 and the Progressive Era. That's when former Gov. Hiram Johnson and his team of reformers pushed through a package of landmark legislation that brought us the power to recall governors and write laws through initiatives, and mandated that local races be nonpartisan.

The reformers' goal was to substantially dilute the influence of the then-powerful railroad industry that dictated much of what happened in California politics, historians say.

"They felt that it would release the stranglehold that partisanship had on government," Bebitch Jeffe said.

Decades later, Californians sought to bolster the time-honored tradition of nonpartisan local races by amending the state Constitution. In passing Proposition 49 in 1986, California voters outlawed party endorsements for candidates in nonpartisan races.

Way down the list

However, the new law was immediately challenged, and the dispute went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a February 1989 high court decision, in the case of Eu v. San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee, justices struck down California's new law, saying it went against the grain of the First and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

"The ban directly hampers the party's ability to spread its message and hamstrings voters seeking to inform themselves about the candidates and issues," Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote in the court's opinion.

Since then, the practice of endorsing candidates has spread throughout the state and is something both major parties —— Democratic and Republican —— have been using as a political strategy, analysts said. Close to home, the San Diego County Republican Party began endorsing local candidates in 2002.

"It tends to happen more often in the heavily populated areas because that's where the parties tend to be more active," said Allan Hoffenblum, a GOP political consultant in Los Angeles. "It's no longer unusual."

It is unusual, however, for an endorsement to be the deciding factor in a race, Hoffenblum said.

"I've seen survey after survey where party endorsements are way down the list," he said. "I've seen it work (for a particular candidate), and I've seen it backfire."

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2616, or ddowney@californian.com.