Orange County Congressmen to Shift Focus

Battles over AIDS, abortion and federal funding for controversial artwork thrust members of the Orange County congressional delegation into the national spotlight during the first session of the 101st Congress last year.

This year, the county’s congressional representatives are pushing a host of less publicized measures that address concerns about space exploration, freeway congestion, health insurance, Social Security, Eastern Europe, the American flag and Congress itself.

In contrast with 1989, a year overshadowed by ethics scandals, “this should be a very productive year,” said Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), whose 43rd Congressional District includes southern Orange County. “We know we’ve got a lot to do.”

Getting things done is often more difficult for the five conservative Republicans who represent Orange County, because the House is controlled by Democrats.

“A lot of the time, you can introduce legislation and it just goes nowhere,” said freshman Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita), who represents the 42nd Congressional District, which includes Cypress, Seal Beach and parts of Huntington Beach and Garden Grove.

“It’s not how much legislation you introduce,” he said. “It’s how effective you are on the issues, and what you’re using your influence to push along in Congress.”

Last year, Rohrabacher made a splash when he aligned himself with conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) to push a measure that would have prohibited federal funding of “obscene” or “indecent” art. Congress eventually passed a watered-down version of the proposal.

But Rohrabacher has complained that the press paid too much attention to that issue while ignoring much of his other work. One cause Rohrabacher said he will continue to push this year as a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is an aerospace plane.

Still in the embryonic stage of development, the plane would take off from a runway like a conventional aircraft, fly into orbit at speeds of up to 17,000 m.p.h., then land again. In an unusual arrangement announced last month, the plane will be developed for the government by a consortium of four major defense contractors that includes McDonnell Douglas Corp. and Rockwell International Corp.

The program had been on the verge of collapse because of federal budget cuts. But the 1991 budget unveiled last month calls for spending a quarter of a billion dollars on space-plane development. Rohrabacher said he lobbied hard for the money behind the scenes.

Although the program could directly benefit Rohrabacher’s district, home to one of the Rockwell divisions in the project, Rohrabacher said that is not why he has supported the program:

“My feeling always has been . . . unless it’s good for the United States of America, it’s not good for my district. It just so happens, we’re heavy on aerospace.”

In addition to pushing high-technology ventures, Rohrabacher said he will continue to fight attempts by the House Ways and Means Committee to reduce the tax incentives for worker participation in Employee Stock Ownership Plans.

The political revolution sweeping Eastern Europe is a priority of Rep. C. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), who, like Rohrabacher, is serving his first term in Congress.

Cox, whose 40th Congressional District stretches from Newport Beach across the center of Orange County, is pushing legislation that would permit investment of private U.S. capital in new business ventures in former East Bloc nations. The freshman Republican successfully amended a foreign aid bill last year to create such a program for Hungary and Poland.

“If we do anything with respect to aid to Czechoslovakia, or Bulgaria or Romania or East Germany or Yugoslavia, it shouldn’t be direct assistance to those governments, even if they are post-Communist governments,” Cox said.

“The model should be assistance to private entrepreneurs, and it should be in the form of authentic (private) risk capital, instead of government grants. . . . You can’t move from communism to free enterprise with a government program.”

On the home front, Cox is working for a bill that would free millions of dollars from the federal highway trust fund to combat freeway congestion. Originally drafted by Cox when he was a candidate for Congress, the Gridlock Relief for Interstates Program (GRIP) was introduced in the House last year by Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.)

The bill would establish a formula to deliver new construction money to areas with the most freeway miles and the most heavily used freeways. It will be debated as the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation drafts new legislation designed to rewrite the government’s aid program for highway construction.

As the interstate system nears completion, Congress in the next year will create a new program for dispensing the billions of dollars in revenue that are collected through the 9-cent federal gasoline tax. Cox said he hopes that the GRIP concept will help shape the new highway program.

Cox is also pushing legislation to pay for building a federal courthouse for Orange County, which is part of the federal judicial district that includes Los Angeles County. Two federal judges now hold court in temporary quarters in Orange County.

Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), best known as a vocal opponent of homosexual rights and an activist for making acquired immune deficiency syndrome tests mandatory, has health concerns of a different kind on his mind this year.

Dannemeyer represents the 39th Congressional District, which includes Fullerton and Brea and parts of Anaheim, Santa Ana and Orange.

In the coming weeks, Dannemeyer is scheduled to unveil a radical new initiative intended to reduce health insurance costs and provide protection to the estimated 37 million Americans who are not covered.

The plan would offer tax incentives to those who buy lower-cost, no-frills health insurance that omits coverage for such procedures as “hair transplants, in-vitro fertilization, chiropractic services and plastic surgery,” Dannemeyer said.

Other tax credits would encourage citizens to open “health IRAs” to create a fund they could draw on to pay for health care not covered by the no-frills insurance.

The point, a Dannemeyer aide said, is to encourage people to buy less expensive health insurance policies with higher deductibles and to use their own money, deposited in health IRAs, to pay for incidental medical expenses.

To further encourage thrift, Dannemeyer would make taxable the health insurance costs that companies pay on behalf of their workers, once those costs reach $3,000 a year.

“We would limit the deductibility to the employer of the cost of a health policy for an employee to $250 a month a family. . . . If the premium costs more than that, then . . . to that extent it would be taxable to the employee, not deductible for the employer,” Dannemeyer said.

That would encourage workers to accept lower-cost health care packages and negotiate with employers to make up the difference by increasing salaries, Dannemeyer aides said.

Dannemeyer said he wants to see the Republican leadership in Congress offer elements of his plan as an alternative to health care proposals being prepared by the Democrats.

On another front, Dannemeyer said he will continue efforts to speed the licensing of nuclear power plants. Legislation introduced by Dannemeyer would eliminate the second stage of the two-stage process by which utilities must seek permission first to build and then to operate a nuclear power plant.

Dannemeyer said he will also continue to work to require the federal government to issue gold-backed securities as a way to end deficit spending. And he will push legislation to create a separate federal judicial district for Orange County.

Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), the only Orange County representative likely to face a major electoral challenge this year, introduced more legislation last year than any of his county colleagues. Even so, Dornan said, “it was a slow year for me.”

Among the bills that bore Dornan’s name were measures dealing with abortion, animal rights, child abuse, Asian refugees, military pensions, the Nicaraguan contras and college scholarships for police recruits.

This year, Dornan said, “I’m going to work my narcotics committee like never before . . . and the intelligence committee, which you’ll never hear about, but I’m going to work that very hard.”

Dornan is a member of both the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. His 38th Congressional District includes Garden Grove, Stanton and parts of Santa Ana and Anaheim.

The six-term congressman said he will continue his fight against legislation that would liberalize the right to abortion.

But he is also pushing less publicized goals. One of Dornan’s pet peeves is the lack of an American flag at the apex of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington.

The architect of the memorial, he said, “deliberately avoided an American flag to create an image of shame. It’s a downer.”

The congressman is ready to introduce legislation that would require placing a flag on the memorial. But he said he may await completion of the Korean War Memorial, which he expects to feature a flag, to help him make his case.

Dornan is also pursuing legislation that would limit members of Congress to 12 years of consecutive service--two terms in the Senate and six in the House. Dornan’s six terms were broken up by a two-year hiatus, in 1982-84, when he unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate.

Packard intends to focus this year on issues involving Social Security, the commercial exploitation of space and transportation.

Packard wants to eliminate the earnings cap for Social Security recipients: “I want to see if we can repeal the entire cap and allow seniors to earn whatever amount they are able and willing to earn, without forfeiting their Social Security benefits.”

Packard continues to push legislation to promote developing a commercial space-launch industry by requiring the federal government to buy more space services through commercial procurement procedures. The Science, Space and Technology Committee has had one hearing on the legislation.

As a member of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, Packard said he is interested in freeing up the surpluses in the trust funds established for highways and aviation to build more roads and make improvements in air transportation.

“I’ve been looking to use those trust funds that have been building up for some time, and certainly one area the (aviation) trust fund could be used (is for) modernizing our air traffic control system,” he said.

Finally, Packard said he favors relaxing trade restrictions with former East Bloc nations: “I’m looking at legislation that might make it easier for some of our Eastern European countries to trade with the free world now that they’re moving toward democracy and the open-market system.”