ELECTIONS ’88 ORANGE COUNTY : 40th District: Republicans’ Coveted Gem

Pollster Lance Tarrance said that Orange County--and, in particular, the 40th Congressional District--took on a new significance in the early morning hours of Nov. 3, 1982.

It was after 1 a.m., and Republican Atty. Gen. George Deukmejian and Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley had been neck-and-neck in the gubernatorial race all night. Then the Orange County returns started popping onto computer screens, giving Deukmejian the edge he needed to narrowly defeat Bradley.

“People looked toward Orange County’s tremendous volume of voters on that close election in ‘82, and ever since then it has taken on an even greater significance to the party,” said Tarrance, of Tarrance, Hill, Newport & Ryan of Houston, Tex. “There is no other county that gives the Republican Party a larger plurality.”

The heart of this GOP vote headquarters, Tarrance and other political experts say, is the 40th Congressional District, one of the most dependably conservative in the nation. In 1984, the electorate gave President Reagan a whopping 75% majority and in 1986 voted to reelect Republican Gov. George Deukmejian by only a few percentage points less.

Besides votes, the 40th District is known throughout the nation as a place that, as one political consultant said, “backs up its votes with money.”

‘Grand Experience’

“Senators from other states, candidates for Congress in other districts across the nation never hesitate to pay a visit in Newport Beach and Emerald Bay and Irvine Cove . . . for purposes of fund-raising and taking money out of the district,” agreed Orange County Republican Party Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes. “It’s a grand experience to host a cocktail party aboard a yacht in Newport Harbor or go for a cruise down the coast and look at the 40th District.”

Given all of this, it is no wonder that the district is viewed with what its current representative calls “friendly envy” on both sides of the political aisle in Washington, both because it is safe for an incumbent and because it is just plain beautiful.

And, it is no wonder that 13 Republicans have lined up to run for the seat being vacated by Robert E. Badham, (R-Newport Beach), who is retiring after his sixth term. One of them will most certainly find himself or herself (there are two women GOP candidates) as a freshman member of Congress next January.

While there are four other candidates, including two Democrats, running for the seat, the district has 2-to-1 Republican-to-Democratic registration, so the winner of the June 7 primary is virtually guaranteed of victory in November. The district has been represented by a Republican for 40 years.

Says Badham of the district he has represented for 12 years: “I live in the finest spot in the whole world.”

Badham described his constituents as “more or less typical coastal Southern California” in that they are “on the one hand sophisticated but on the other hand casual both in dress and demeanor.” He added that they are, in general, very patriotic and outdoor-oriented and tend to have a higher profile in such areas as education, home ownership and per capita income.

As political consultant Eileen Padberg put it, the 40th District is where “old money and new money match up.” For example, the older, established Newport Beach--the district’s largest city--has the largest per capita income in the county: $18,082, according to the 1980 census. Fast-growing Irvine, with its aspiring young families, showed a healthy $12,169 per capita, according to the census. (By comparison, the per capita income in Garden Grove, which is not in the district, was $8,000.)

The district’s landscape ranges from glistening Newport Harbor, with its necklace of mansions, to rustic Silverado Canyon. The brown hills that once loped through the district’s southern areas, untouched by much more than horse trails, now are covered with walled subdivisions. Nearby is Leisure World, home to the elderly elite.

To the north are well-established, and more modest, family areas, such as Costa Mesa and Fountain Valley.

Lively Business

The 40th District’s beautiful coastline has helped bring it a lively tourism business. Other economic mainstays are home and commercial building construction, and the district’s solid economic base also includes Fashion Island in Newport Beach and the hugely successful South Coast Plaza Shopping Center in Costa Mesa.

But the county’s top three private sector employers are defense contractors--Hughes Aircraft Co., Rockwell International and McDonnell Douglas Corp. Two others--Ford Aerospace & Communications Corp. and Parker Bertea Aerospace Group--are among the top 10.

The district also is home to a University of California campus, at Irvine, and the county’s two major airports, John Wayne and the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

According to Badham, these demographics translate into a constituency “that cares with intense emotion”--one gets the sense that Badham finds it at times too intense--about government at all levels, from school districts to city, county, state and federal governments.

“They’re literate. They write letters,” Badham said, chuckling.”They write letters.”

Fair Amount of Freedom

But, though its constituents are vocal, whoever wins this district can be assured of a long political life and a fair amount of freedom to carry out his or her political vision--barring scandals or an early death.

“It’s the envy of the whole country,” political consultant Padberg said. “It is the most tolerant district in terms of issues and also the most tolerant in terms of electing the person and giving that person flexibility. It’s not a question of this district screaming and carrying on if you disagree on one issue.”

The current rush to represent the 40th District reminded Badham’s longtime aide, Howard Seelye, a retired Times’ reporter, of the scene 18 years ago when the district’s former representative, Republican James B. Utt, died suddenly while running for his 10th term.

At Utt’s funeral, Seelye said, “there seemed to be more candidates than mourners there. I remember coming outside the social hall. There were knots of people standing around, political types talking to each other. I knew what they were talking about--they were plotting who was going to run.”

What followed was a rocky few years for the 40th District. Badham, then an assemblyman, had expected to be heir to the seat. But, as sometimes happens, a controversial candidate slipped through the cracks amid the wide field in the special election called to replace Utt. That candidate was John Schmitz, a John Birch Society member. Although the district is conservative, Schmitz’s views were too extreme for his constituents’ comfort. He was ousted after serving one full term.

Badham’s District

Schmitz’s successor in 1972 was former Orange County Assessor Andrew Hinshaw, who later was convicted of bribery. Schmitz ran against Hinshaw in 1976, but both he and Hinshaw lost, as Badham finally claimed what many thought should have been his district to begin with.

Badham, a Stanford University graduate who ran a hardware business before entering politics at age 33, is a man who fit the district’s social profile and reflected its political views in Congress. He served on the House Armed Services Committee, where he was effective in representing California’s defense contractors, and thus is credited with bringing defense industry jobs to the state and area.

But in recent years, Badham has run into trouble as he has gained a reputation for absenteeism and for worldwide travel at the expense of taking care of his district.

Even some Republican stalwarts were frustrated with Badham for what they felt was his failure to provide the kind of GOP leadership they thought he could, given his job security, and the wealth and generosity of his home base.

Viewed as a Rebuke

To show how entrenched a 40th District incumbent can be, it was viewed as a rebuke when Badham was returned to his seat two years ago with only 66% of the vote in the primary election, and only 60% in the general election. (Badham’s all-time general election high was 72%.)

Badham’s 1986 GOP opponent, Newport Beach businessman Nathan Rosenberg, was preparing to challenge him again this year. But Badham decided that, at age 58, he still had another career in him and announced he would retire.

With the incumbent out of the way, it didn’t take a funeral like Utt’s to bring people together to start plotting strategy.

Rosenberg, 35, was the first, followed by Irvine Councilman C. David Baker, 35; former White House senior assistant counsel C. Christopher Cox, 35; Costa Mesa City Councilman Peter Buffa, 39; Tustin City Councilman John Kelly, 35; Charles S. Devore, 25, of Laguna Hills, a former congressional liaison for the Pentagon; corporate financial officer Peer Swan, 43, of Irvine, and airline pilot John Hylton, 42, of Newport Beach.

By the time filing closed March 11, these original eight were joined by six more Republicans: management consultant Patricia Gunter Kishel, 39, of Laguna Hills; attorney and businessman William Yacobozzi, 46, of Newport Beach; entrepreneur and business consultant Kathleen B. Latham, 46, of Irvine; businessman Dave Williams, 52, of Livermore in Northern California; businessman Adam Kiernik, 37, of Huntington Beach, and accountant Larry F. Sternberg, 60, of Santa Ana.

Support for Baker

Buffa dropped out last week, throwing his support to Baker.

The two Democrats are Laguna Beach Councilwoman Lida Lenney, 55, and veterans’ hospital administrator George Henry Margolis, 56, of Newport Beach. Libertarian Roger Bloxham, 49, of Newport Beach and Peace and Freedom Party candidate Gretchen J. Farsai, 46, of Irvine, also will be on the ballot.

With so many in the running, the many candidate forums staged throughout the district have lent little in the way of real discussion of the issues; each candidate barely gets a minute or two to expound on such weighty subjects as Central America and the budget deficit. While they pride themselves on their different approaches to these problems, in truth, their views are so close that, to paraphrase humorist Dorothy Parker, they run the gamut from A to B.

Still, from such forums, one is able to get the gist of what issues are of concern in the 40th District. Besides the deficit and Central America, these include on a broader scope the nation’s defense and abortion. Among the local issues of import are issues that revolve around the environment and quality of life: offshore oil drilling, traffic congestion, growth controls and the prospect of joint use of El Toro for commercial flights.

Wise Decision

All the GOP candidates oppose joint use of El Toro. This is probably a wise political decision, as it is overwhelmingly opposed in the district, with the exception of some areas of Newport Beach that want other parts of the county to share the burden of the region’s growing air traffic.

Reflecting the district’s deep concern for the environment and its treasured coastline, all GOP candidates oppose offshore oil drilling, albeit with varying degrees of intensity. Some would oppose it under any circumstances, and others believe that if the nation faced another oil crisis, there might be a need to at least assess oil reserves off Orange County’s coast.

While traffic and growth controls are local issues mostly out of the purview of the federal government, they are spilling into the 40th District by virtue of the emotional pitch generated by the slow-growth initiative, which will be on the June 7 ballot in unincorporated areas of the county.

One candidate’s political consultant, who would speak only if his name was not used, said, “One thing that is interesting in this race, and I don’t know the answer to this, is, will a local issue such as traffic and growth supersede any federal issue? Are they (constituents) going to turn to their federal officials to solve problems that their local officials have been unable to solve?”

The major candidates are conducting polls to plumb such questions.

40TH DISTRICT PROFILE Voters

Total registered voters: 314,741 Republicans: 58.66% Democrats: 30.54% Declined to state: 8.97% Minor parties: 1.83%

Source: Orange County Registrar of Voters Statistics

Population: 525,935 Foreign born: 58,730 Median age: 31 Primary industry: Durable manufacturing Primary occupations: Clerical; craft/repair; assemblers Government employment: 33,937 Federal contracts (in billions): $1.3 People under 24 with at least four years of college: 99,307

Ethnic Breakdown

Asians/Pacific Islanders: 5% Spanish origin: 8% Blacks: 1% Whites: 90% Others: 1%

(total not 100% because ethnic/racial breakdowns overlap)

Households

Total households: 201,948 Receiving Social Security: 40,112 Receiving Public assistance: 7,157 Household income (mean): $29,003 Households with income more than $50,000: 23,134 Households below poverty level: 5,282 Single-parent households: 11,920 Six or more in household: 6,973 Live in rented housing: 173,716 Live in owner-occupied housing: 338,865

Source: 1980 Census Voting Record

Proposition 13

40th District California For 404,878 70.3% 4,280,689 64.8% Against 171,274 29.7% 2,326,167 35.2%

1964 Presidential election

40th District California Goldwater 224,196 53.87% 2,879,108 40.8% Johnson 176,539 42.42% 4,171,877 59.1%

1982 Gubernatorial election

40th District California Deukmejian 422,878 60.8% 3,881,014 49.3% Bradley 252,572 36.2% 3,787,669 48.1%

1984 Presidential election

40th District California Reagan 198,338 75.0% 5,467,009 55.8% Mondale 63,210 23.9% 3,922,519 40.0%