Abortion-Rights Group Targets Pringle for Defeat

A bipartisan Orange County abortion rights group announced Thursday that it will focus its efforts this year on removing Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) from the 72nd District seat.

Linda Schwarz, chairwoman of Pro-Choice Orange County, said the group has made Pringle a target because he “is definitely anti-choice . . , and we are trying to work in areas that are electable.”

Schwarz said the group will not endorse either of the two Democrats who could be Pringle’s opponent--Tom Umberg or Jerry Yudelson, both of whom spoke at the rally Thursday at the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel.

“Whoever wins in the primary, we’ll be backing him,” she said.

Offering hope to the abortion rights forces Thursday was state Sen. Lucy Killea (D-San Diego), who scored an upset last year in a conservative district after abortion became a key issue in the race.

“There are those who say, ‘Look at the numbers’ and bet on the favorite,” Killea told a crowd of more than 300, “but we demonstrated convincingly that people aren’t looking for partisanship, they are looking for people they can trust.”

Karla Bell, a spokeswoman for the group, pointed out that abortion rights advocates have a narrow margin in the state Senate and in the Assembly, and that victory in the 72nd Assembly District could be crucial to preserving that advantage.

Pringle’s district is the only one in the county in which Democrats outnumber Republicans. He was elected to the seat in 1988 by just 843 votes. That election also saw the Republican Party use security guards at polling places to discourage non-citizens from voting, a move that brought several lawsuits and offended many Latinos, Democrats and Republicans alike.

Pringle, however, said he does not think the abortion issue will be a decisive one for the race.

“People in this community are not single-issue voters,” he said. “This group sort of came out of the woodwork last year. . . . This is their first shot at anything, and we’ll see how they do.”

The political action committee was formed after the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year giving states new authority to restrict abortion. “We wanted to form a group and raise money for electable candidates,” Schwarz said.

The group, which is composed of both Republicans and Democrats, was unsuccessful in one of its first efforts--backing abortion rights supporter Ron Isles, a Republican, in a special primary for the state Senate seat vacated by William Campbell.