VOTER’S GUIDE : County’s Incumbents Odds-On Favorites for Legislature

Taking advantage of name recognition, fund-raising clout and lopsided voter registration, most of Orange County’s state lawmakers appear poised to return to the Legislature for another term.

Only two of the county’s 13 incumbents are facing challenges in Tuesday’s primaries: Republican Assemblymen Gil Ferguson of Newport Beach and Ross Johnson of La Habra.

In two other contested primaries, candidates will be fighting for the right to wage general election campaigns against state Sens. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) and Cecil N. Green (D-Norwalk), both of whose districts include portions of Orange County.

That leaves eight Orange County districts in which Tuesday’s primary will be no more than a prelude to the fall campaign season.

One county lawmaker--Republican Sen. Edward R. Royce of Anaheim--will sit out this campaign season. Royce won reelection in 1986 and will not face the voters again until 1990.

Financial Superiority

The 12 Orange County incumbents who are on the ballot this year had a total of more than $1.3 million in their campaign war chests as of May 21, according to campaign finance reports filed with the secretary of state. The challengers had amassed a combined total of less than $50,000.

The incumbents will put their financial superiority to use in districts in which, in most cases, voter registration is weighted heavily to the advantage of their party.

Ferguson, for example, if he wins in the primary, will rest easy with the knowledge that 62% of his district’s voters are, like him, registered Republicans, while only about 27% call themselves Democrats.

The district represented by first-term Assemblyman Richard E. Longshore (R-Santa Ana) is an exception to that rule. Unopposed in the Republican primary in his district, Longshore may face a tough challenge in the fall.

Voter registration in Longshore’s 72nd District, which includes parts of Anaheim, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Stanton and Westminster, is about 50% Democratic and 39% Republican. GOP candidates often overcome such numerical disadvantages because Republican voters tend to go to the polls in higher numbers and be more loyal to their party. But Democrats are hoping that President Reagan’s departure from the national scene--and the ballot--will help them recapture the hearts and minds of their own party members.

Longshore will be running in the fall against Democrat Christian Thierbach of Anaheim, a deputy district attorney.

70th District Race Hot

The most hotly contested legislative primary of the year has been in the 70th Assembly District, where Newport Beach City Councilwoman Evelyn Hart and Laguna Beach environmentalist Michael Mang have challenged Ferguson.

Hart and Mang have hammered on Ferguson for several weeks at campaign forums, in mailers and in the media, blaming the two-term incumbent for Orange County’s transportation problems and reminding voters that Ferguson’s personal and political finances are under investigation by the FPPC and reportedly by the FBI.

But Ferguson, who said the voters “still identify with me,” predicted that he would prevail on Tuesday.

“I’m confident we’re going to win,” he said. “The things I represent are mainstream in that district. My ideals on family values, on criminal justice and advocating the interests of the Republican Party are the shared goals of the people there.”

The winner will face Democrat Michael K. Gallups, a San Juan Capistrano teacher and union leader, in November.

North County Competition

In the 64th District, which includes the north county cities of Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Fullerton, Orange and Placentia, Hughes Aircraft administrator Ronald Newton is challenging Johnson, who has served in the Assembly since 1978.

Newton, who has no experience in partisan politics, said he decided to run against Johnson after concluding that the conservative assemblyman is not addressing the problems facing “mainstream” Republicans.

“The Republican leaders have a ‘no’ mind-set,” Newton said. “The Democrats present an idea and the Republicans say no. But Republicans have to develop aggressive leadership and aggressive answers. It’s time for the Republican Party to stand up and show some compassion and take some leadership again.”

Newton said Johnson is ignoring such issues as child care, education and programs for the elderly while concentrating almost solely on law-and-order concerns.

Johnson replied that he has done plenty for his district since he was swept into office the same year--1978--that California voters approved Proposition 13, the measure that cut property taxes.

“The people of north Orange County pretty well know what Ross Johnson is all about, what he stands for,” Johnson said. “I’ve got a record of supporting strong law enforcement legislation. I’ve got a record of being a watchdog for the taxpayers.”

Johnson said he and other Assembly Republicans have helped Gov. George Deukmejian set a new direction for California, and his efforts to help oust California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, he said, brought about “an historic shift” in the Supreme Court.

The voter registration in Johnson’s district is 54.5% Republican and 36% Democratic, so the GOP primary winner is expected to have an easy time dispatching Democrat Donald Heuer, a Fullerton carpenter, in the fall. Heuer is unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

Incumbent Senators Run

The two other contested primaries in Orange County feature competition for the opportunity to unseat incumbent Sens. Campbell and Green.

Both primaries feature races between philosophically compatible candidates who are trying to position themselves as the most electable challenger for the fall.

In Green’s 33rd Senate District, which includes Cypress, Buena Park, La Palma and parts of Anaheim and Garden Grove, the Republican primary pits Maggie Vineyard against Donald Knabe. The Democrats enjoy a 53% to 38% advantage in the district.

While Knabe has waged a more active campaign and has vastly outspent Vineyard, he has done so with an eye to the general election.

“I see our battle as against Cecil Green,” said Knabe, a former Cerritos councilman who is chief of staff for Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana. “There’s very little philosophical difference between Maggie and myself. It’s basically a matter of putting our credentials before the Republican voters and letting them decide who they want to carry the banner against Cecil Green.”

Knabe briefly ran in the primary for the same seat in last year’s special election. But he withdrew after party leaders pressured him not to engage in a divisive primary race with Assemblyman Wayne Grisham (R-Norwalk), who was later defeated by Green in one of the most expensive Senate contests in state history. Vineyard said she also wanted to enter the race last year but deferred to Grisham.

Vineyard was the district’s GOP nominee in 1984, when she mounted a strong but ultimately unsuccessful challenge against then-Sen. Paul Carpenter (D-Cypress). Carpenter left the Senate last year when he was elected to the State Board of Equalization, setting the stage for the special election.

As of late May, Vineyard said, she had spent only $107, contrasted with about $75,000 that had been spent by Knabe.

“I’m not one to take any chances,” Knabe explained, saying he was attempting to build name recognition in preparation for the general election.

He has hired the Orange County political consulting firm of Buchanan & Campbell, opened a campaign headquarters in an Artesia shopping center and is using mailers and phone calls to spread his name around the district.

Vineyard, declining to predict how much she will spend in the final days of the campaign, said Knabe’s spending is inappropriate for a primary contest.

Says She Knows District

While Knabe’s campaign stresses his political experience as Dana’s chief of staff, Vineyard argues that Knabe’s Los Angeles job takes him outside of the Senate district. As owner of an Hawaiian Gardens muffler shop and president of the local Chamber of Commerce, Vineyard, a former Hawaiian Gardens councilwoman, said she spends her days in the district and is more familiar with it.

In the 31st Senate District, Janice Lynn Graham and Stan Caress are waging a similar battle, except that both candidates are running low-budget efforts for the Democratic nomination.

Caress, who ran unsuccessfully against Campbell in 1984, is a political science lecturer at Cal State Fullerton who said he sees the campaign trail as a kind of living laboratory.

Caress did political research for state Controller Gray Davis in 1986 when Davis defeated Campbell for the controller’s job. He said he has stockpiled material about Campbell’s voting record that he would use against the senator in the fall campaign.

But with just 37% of the district’s voters calling themselves Democrats, compared to 54% for the Republicans, Caress acknowledges that any Democrat who hopes to unseat Campbell faces an uphill battle. Caress, who said he has lived in the district most of his life, received 25% of the vote against Campbell in 1984.

“Realistically, my function is to hold the legislator accountable, to make him realize there are people keeping tabs on his voting record,” Caress said. “I hope that makes him vote more in accord with what the people want.”

Newcomer to California

But Graham, a newcomer to California, said the Democrats deserve more from their nominee than an effort to “keep Campbell honest.” She said she thinks she can beat Campbell, who was elected to the Assembly in 1966 and moved to the upper house 10 years later.

“I don’t think you should be in a race if you have the attitude before you start that you can’t win,” Graham said.

Graham, who said she taught school in New York and ran a bed and breakfast inn in North Carolina before moving to California a year ago, said she would press Campbell on issues such as child care, public health care, the homeless and other social issues.

“If we can raise the minimum wage and get some comprehensive health care coverage, we can get people off welfare,” Graham said. “They can’t afford to get off welfare now.”

Campbell said he is confident the district’s voters will return him to Sacramento for a fourth term. But he said he doesn’t take the challenge lightly.

“I always run scared,” Campbell said. “I learned a long time ago that you never take anything for granted. We intend to campaign very vigorously. We’ll be getting our message out.”

Uncontested Races

Because the other Orange County primary races are all uncontested, the fall lineup is already in place in most legislative districts.

In the 35th Senate District, incumbent John Seymour (R-Anaheim) will be running against Democrat Mike Balmages, a Santa Ana lawyer, and Peace and Freedom candidate Maxine Quirk, who is listed on the ballot as a peace activist.

Seymour, a former Anaheim mayor, has held his post since 1982. The district’s boundaries reach from Anaheim to Newport Beach and from Westminster to East Tustin.

In the sprawling 37th District, Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) will be seeking a second term in a race against Democrat Pat McCabe of Huntington Beach, an accountant, and Libertarian J. Mark Sugars, a UC Irvine teaching assistant.

Bergeson was elected to the Assembly in 1978 and has served in the Senate since 1984. The 37th District stretches from Huntington Beach to San Clemente on the coast and inland to the Riverside County line. It also includes parts of Riverside and San Diego counties and all of Imperial County.

Republican Dennis Brown of Signal Hill will defend his 58th Assembly District seat against Democrat Andrew Kincaid, a Long Beach businessman, and political organizer Richard Green, also of Long Beach, who is the Peace and Freedom candidate.

Brown, who was first elected in 1978, will be seeking his sixth term. The district includes Seal Beach, Sunset Beach and parts of Rossmoor, Westminster and Huntington Beach.

East County Race

In the 67th Assembly District, incumbent John R. Lewis (R-Orange) will be running against lawyer Bruce Fink, a Santa Ana Democrat.

Lewis has served in the Assembly since 1980. The mainly east Orange County district stretches from Anaheim to Irvine and east to the Riverside County line.

In the 69th Assembly District, Republican Nolan Frizzelle of Huntington Beach will defend his seat against Democrat Marie H. Fennell, also of Huntington Beach, who is a psychiatric social worker.

Frizzelle was first elected in 1980 to represent the district, which includes parts of Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, El Toro, Garden Grove, Irvine, Newport Beach, Santa Ana, Tustin and Westminster.

Other Assembly Districts

In the 71st Assembly District, incumbent Doris Allen, a Cypress Republican, will run against Sheriff’s Deputy Art Brown, a Buena Park Democrat.

Allen has been in the Assembly since 1982. The district includes parts of Anaheim, Buena Park, Garden Grove, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Rossmoor and Westminster.

And in the 74th District, Assemblyman Robert C. Frazee, a Carlsbad Republican, will be running against teacher James Melville, a San Clemente Democrat, and businessman John Flannagan, a Libertarian from Carlsbad.

Frazee was first elected in 1978. Most of the district is in San Diego County, but it includes a strip of southern Orange County near Camp Pendleton.

Times staff writer Bettina Boxall contributed to this article.