County and Its Lobbyist Still Carry a Torch for Each Other

Five years since the courtship began, the love affair is still very much alive between the Orange County Board of Supervisors and its chief advocate in the state capital.

Dennis E. Carpenter, 57, the cheery, rotund former FBI agent who spent nine years in the state Senate representing parts of Orange and San Diego counties, has become one of Sacramento’s best-known and highest-paid lobbyists.

His clients, in addition to county government and the Orange County Transportation Commission, include a high-powered assortment of oil, timber, beer and wine, high-technology and horse-racing concerns.

The Minnesota native, who says he finds lobbying much more fun and rewarding than being in the Legislature, will be representing Orange County governmental interests for a sixth straight year when legislators reconvene next month.

He will carry the county’s wish list, including a bill that would add $1.50 to parking tickets and $1 or more to traffic tickets to help pay for a new Juvenile Court and Superior Court. Another bill on the list would allow the county to cover old landfills with soil instead of clay to save $10 million or more.

A Fair Political Practices Commission report shows that Orange County spent more to influence state legislators and bureaucratic policy-makers during the last two-year legislative session than any other governmental entity except Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles.

The $344,000 that Orange County spent during that period was nearly three times the amount spent by the combined city and county government of San Francisco. With a contract that pays Carpenter more than $164,000 a year, county officials will have made similar expenditures when the current two-year legislative session ends next year.

During the first nine months of 1985, public records show that the county paid Carpenter’s firm more than $123,000.

Carpenter’s predecessor in the job, former professional football player Robert St. Clair, earned $40,000 for the one year he represented Orange County. Carpenter, who was hired in December of 1980, was paid $80,000 in his first year working for the county.

County officials say Carpenter, who pays his own office and travel expenses, is worth his 1985 price tag.

“They (Carpenter and his four associates) do a heck of a job for us,” said County Administrative Officer Larry Parrish. “They are real pros.”

“I think the County of Orange is a lot better off,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas F. Riley, noting that Orange County is getting more state money these days for everything from road projects to foster care and medical assistance programs.

“For a long time . . . instead of being treated like the second largest county in the state and the sixth in the nation, we were treated like we were the low man on the totem pole,” Riley said.

Since Carpenter took over as the county’s Sacramento lobbyist from St. Clair, “our success has been extraordinary,” Riley added.

Supervisor Harriett Wieder agrees that Carpenter’s work has been worth the high price tag. “You get what you pay for,” she said.

“Denny is good,” Wieder said. “He’s a real professional. . . . He has the respect and, obviously, the trust of all the people he has to deal with.”

Local officials say it was a good year in Sacramento for Orange County, which got four new judges, a new source of money for road projects and savings or potential funding increases under scores of bills dealing with court operating costs, unemployment insurance, foster care programs, transportation and divisions of tax revenues. Sixteen of 25 bills sponsored by the county were enacted into law.

Other Accounts

This year, Carpenter and his four associates--who include his wife, Aleta, and former Democratic state Sen. George N. Zenovich of Fresno--also represented Fresno County, the cities of Costa Mesa and Fresno, the Municipal Water District of Orange County, the Fullerton Union High School District, the trial courts of Tulare County and the California Assn. of Area Agencies on Aging.

Despite those wide and varied interests, Carpenter and his staff say conflicts have been few, and they have been able to work out problems when they occur.

“If he sees a potential conflict, he tells us it may exist,” said Supervisor Bruce Nestande, who, as a former assemblyman, understands the inner workings of state government better than his four colleagues. “If I didn’t think he would level with us, I wouldn’t want him as a lobbyist.”

This year, Carpenter helped push through, and got signed, a heavily lobbied bill that vastly expanded horse-racing seasons at Pomona and Los Alamitos race tracks. Gov. George Deukmejian had vetoed a nearly identical bill last year.

Carpenter also helped persuade the governor to veto a bill, supported by some California wineries, that would have curbed bargain sales of fine imported wines and champagnes through a growing gray market.

Irvine Co. Ties

Around the Capitol, other lobbyists say Carpenter is an extremely difficult foe, primarily because he is so well-known, well-liked and respected. Orange County legislators are generally complimentary, too. But some complain privately he is often too sympathetic to the interests of Orange County developers, particularly the Irvine Co.

Five years ago, Orange County went looking for a replacement for St. Clair, who had taken over after the death of a previous county lobbyist, former Republican Assemblyman Edward (Ted) Craig. As a candidate for the job, Carpenter seemed to have everything going for him.

He continued to maintain a home and law practice in Newport Beach, where he had resided when he was a state senator.

A former county and state Republican Party chairman, Carpenter had been, in his words, “one of the more conservative members” during his years in the Legislature.

Besides, he shared a Newport Beach law practice with Stuart Spencer, a longtime political adviser to then President-elect Reagan. Supervisors admitted when they chose Carpenter that the potential link to the White House was a major factor in his favor.

Hasn’t Used Connection

“It seemed to me that he had friends in all the right places we needed,” Riley recalled.

Carpenter said at the time that he would willingly use his firm’s “unique relationship with the White House” for a client “as important as Orange County.” But in a recent interview, he said that occasions to use those ties simply have not arisen.

Outgoing and genial, Carpenter still maintains some close friendships--with both Democrats and Republicans--from his days as a legislator.

Orange County political consultant Eileen Padberg said that when she started lobbying a decade ago, she was shocked to learn that Carpenter--whom she called “my hero”--regularly played cards with Bob Moretti, then the Democratic Speaker of the Assembly.

Padberg, a Young Republican activist, said she went to Carpenter and asked him why he fraternized with “the enemy.”

“Denny told me: ‘Padberg, a lesson you are going to learn here is that there are no enemies as such,’ ” Padberg recalled.

Not Seeking Political Office

“I’ve never heard anyone say bad things about Denny, even people who are on opposite sides . . . ,” Padberg said. “He’s just wonderful. . . . He’s the only man in the world that I let call me ‘broad.’ ”

Carpenter, who said he was “burned out” when he left the Legislature, said the idea of running for political office no longer entices him.

“I can’t think of any office I’d run for, except maybe U.S. senator,” he said.

“I think I’d make a good one,” added Carpenter, who tested the waters before the 1976 Republican primary but pulled out after polls suggested he would lose to Democratic incumbent John V. Tunney.

A U.S. senator, Carpenter said, gets to concern himself with crucial, exciting and important issues that impact all mankind. But state legislators, by the very nature of their job, have to concern themselves with less dramatic matters that have far less impact and get far less attention. In the state Legislature, he said, the exciting, interesting moments are the exceptions.

The advantage to being a lobbyist, particularly one in a large firm such as his, is that he and his chief associate, Zenovich, can avoid the drudgery, Carpenter said.

With three other associates officially registered as lobbyists for all their clients, Carpenter said he does not feel he is needed at routine hearings, “when it is just a matter of tracking bills.”

“Some of that stuff is, well, boring,” he said.