County GOP Chief’s ‘Noble’ Goals Have Foes Claiming Foul

“It’s OK for Republicans to date Democrats, as long as they marry Republicans,” Orange County Republican Chairman Thomas Fuentes said recently.

He was only half-joking.

Fuentes, a former seminary student and public relations consultant to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, has little tolerance for anyone who has not accepted Republicanism as the path to political righteousness.

“I simply cannot fathom how even well-intentioned Democrats can remain naive about the evils their party has wrought across the great American political landscape,” Fuentes said recently. “It’s a little like good Germans denying the existence of the Holocaust.”

But to Fuentes, the forces of evil are in retreat. “We have Democrats on the run everywhere you look,” he said. “Justice triumphs. It’s the American way.”

Seven months into his first term as county GOP chairman, Fuentes is embroiled in a rift over what some Democrats and Republicans see as an attempt to replace every Democrat who holds nonpartisan office in Orange County.

Fueling the debate is the recent ousting of Santa Ana Mayor Daniel E. Griset from two nonpartisan county transportation panels.

Griset and his supporters charged that they were victims of a Republican conspiracy aimed at killing Griset’s chances of attaining higher, partisan office. Griset is a Democrat.

While some Republican activists admitted that partisanship influenced the decision to oust Griset, Fuentes insists that no organized effort by the county GOP was involved.

Fuentes denies that the county Republican Party has targeted all Democrats holding nonpartisan posts.

However, Costa Mesa Mayor Norma Hertzog, a Republican, quotes Fuentes as telling her that the Republican Party’s goal is to have every office in the county “filled by a Republican.”

Fuentes said Hertzog asked him if that was the GOP’s goal. “I said, ‘Norma, that sounds like a noble goal to me,’ ” Fuentes recalled.

According to Griset, Fuentes complained recently that too many Democrats were scheduled to be part of a daylong public seminar on transportation. Griset, then serving as Orange County Transportation Commission chairman, was one of the panelists. Fuentes said he did not complain.

But he also acknowledges that he and the county GOP Central Committee have tabled a challenge by the Democratic Central Committee to keep party politics out of nonpartisan elections.

Fuentes and the GOP committee also sponsored a $100-per-person reception honoring the four Republican members of the Board of Supervisors, a nonpartisan panel. The local GOP also sponsored a two-day candidates’ training seminar for people seeking nonpartisan offices. The seminar included a computer-simulated city council race.

Also, Fuentes appointed former Stanton Councilman Jim Hayes, a former Democrat, to woo and convert Democrats in nonpartisan posts with promises of GOP support for future political endeavors. Some Democratic officeholders say Hayes has threatened them with political opposition if they don’t switch. Hayes denies the accusation.

Fuentes is in no danger of losing his post, although even some Republicans are unhappy with him.

San Clemente Mayor Robert Limberg, a Republican, said recently: “It’s gone beyond the realm of selecting just the best person. It is now partisan politics. . . . It’s clearly an effort by the Republicans to grind down any non-Republican representation in any of our nonpartisan slots. And it’s really not healthy for the system.”

But Fuente says, “The Democrats would do it to us if they could. In fact, they do it to us in places like Los Angeles and San Francisco.”

Indeed, former Los Angeles Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson charges that Democrat Michael Woo defeated her last month as part of the Democrat’s campaign to win control of city government. Woo was supported by the Democratic campaign organizations of Reps. Howard Berman of Studio City and Henry Waxman of Los Angeles, and state Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti of Los Angeles, Woo’s former employer. (Stevenson is also a registered Democrat.)

In San Francisco, County Supervisor Quentin Kopp recently quit the Democratic Party and registered as an independent because, he said, Democratic leaders in the city were trying to control him and city government generally.

And state Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) has defended a recent California Supreme Court ruling that allows political parties to make endorsements in nonpartisan races. Brown said the ruling will help Democrats rather than hinder them, especially in Northern California, where they predominate.

But some Democrats and Republicans say both sides are guilty of spreading naive political myths, such as:

- When it comes to making decisions on city services, there are no Republican potholes or Democratic sewers. Actually, council members admit that political philosophy, not just “good government,” influences which neighborhoods get their streets repaired first and how projects are financed. Republican and Democratic council members often differ over priorities and financing techniques.

- Democrats who hold nonpartisan offices are truly nonpartisan. Actually, there was much behind-the-scenes partisanship when Democrats controlled much of the county’s political apparatus in the late 1970s. Former Supervisor Ralph Diedrich actively recruited Democrats to run for various offices and was successfully prosecuted for laundering money to some of their campaigns.

- There are few Democrats on county commissions because four of the five members of the Board of Supervisors are Republicans. The fact is, there are many Democrats serving on commissions, and on some panels, including the county Planning Commission, they constitute a majority.

- In other counties, political parties support and woo nonpartisan candidates. Actually, the Orange County Republican Party is the only one in the state that has a program aimed at converting Democrats who hold nonpartisan offices into Republicans, according to state GOP and Democratic Party officials.

What’s at stake, say some officeholders, is political power and fund raising.

“I think it’s human nature that people get together in groups and try to be power brokers,” said Supervisor Harriett Wieder. “Power brokering is the name of the game, and power brokers like to play monopoly.”

The Republicans are anxious to play monopoly now with nonpartisan offices because those offices represent the GOP’s only opportunity for growth in Orange County. Since they already control most state and all federal legislative seats in the county, going after nonpartisan offices is a way to keep Republican voters interested and free-spending with campaign donations.