Democrats Target Orange County’s Dornan, Pringle : Politics: The state party plans a major registration drive to break a GOP lock on the area’s state and federal seats.

State Democratic leaders said Monday that they will try to break the Republicans’ lock on Orange County’s state and federal legislative seats this year with a major registration effort aimed at Rep. Robert Dornan and Assemblyman Curt Pringle.

In an agreement reached at a weekend meeting in San Diego, state Democratic Chairman Edmund G. Brown Jr. pledged to contribute $25,000 to the registration drive and pay for a full-time staff director by March 1. He also said he will sponsor a fund-raiser for the financially strapped county party.

Cathy Calfo, executive director of the state Democratic Party, said Orange County “is crackable.”

The Pringle and Dornan seats are attractive to Democrats because both districts already have a Democratic edge in registration and the areas overlap, enhancing the impact of a registration drive.

Also, anti-war activist and Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, whose life story is told in the current movie “Born on the Fourth of July,” is considering a challenge to Dornan, a Garden Grove Republican.

Pringle, also a Garden Grove Republican, is considered vulnerable because his 1988 campaign was involved in the decision to place uniformed guards at several polling places in predominantly Latino sections of Santa Ana. The FBI and the district attorney’s office are conducting a criminal investigation to determine whether the move violated voters’ civil rights.

Pringle said Monday that he has long expected the state Democratic Party to target his seat, as it did when he narrowly won his first election in 1988.

“I’ve known they were going to come after me,” he said. “I know I have a lot of support among Democrats. It remains to be seen what the outcome will be.”

Pringle said the Republican Party is also involved in registration efforts in his district. While the county Democratic Party has no full-time staff, he noted that the county Republican Party has had a full-time registration officer and other staff for several years.

“What you’re talking about is a Democratic Party that is absolutely dead in the water in Orange County,” Pringle said.

Dornan could not be reached for comment Monday.

The agreement to bolster the Orange County Democrats resolved a dispute between county and state Democratic leaders over financing that has simmered for about a year.

The $25,000 dedicated by the state to the registration effort should generate about 10,000 additional Democratic voters in the district, Calfo said.

Currently, there are almost 89,000 Democrats and 77,000 Republicans in Dornan’s 38th Congressional district. There are about 50,000 Democrats and 40,000 Republicans in Pringle’s 72nd Assembly District.