Arts Group Targets NEA Stand by Rohrabacher

Rock singer Sammy Hagar and actress Stephanie Zimbalist will soon get an earful about U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita).

Zimbalist and Hagar are among hundreds of Rohrabacher’s political contributors who are being targeted in a mailing this week by a Long Beach-based group that opposes the congressman’s efforts to rein in the National Endowment for the Arts.

Rohrabacher, whose district includes part of northwestern Orange County, and other Capitol Hill conservatives accuse the federal agency of subsidizing obscene and sacrilegious art projects. But the Long Beach group, a coalition of artists and arts supporters, charges the conservatives with censorship.

“We feel like this is a way to take the debate right back to the gasoline pump of the political process,” said Michael Nash, video curator of the Long Beach Museum of Art. “We’re going to ask (Rohrabacher’s contributors) to urge him to reconsider his position and, if that doesn’t work, to reconsider their support for him.”

Rohrabacher, a first-term congressman up for reelection this year, says the vast majority of voters support his position. “I think the issue is helping me, frankly,” he said Friday. “I think most voters agree that standards should be set so tax dollars aren’t wasted on obscene art.”

The mailing, by the Long Beach/Orange County chapter of the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, is the leading edge of an effort by members of the art community to take on Rohrabacher in his back yard--the 42nd Congressional District. The largely Republican district stretches from Torrance to Huntington Beach.

Playing a prominent part in the drive is the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, a Washington lobbying group created in April by artists and art activists to support the endowment.

When the national group was formed in April, organizers said one of their first tasks would be to encourage grass-roots campaigns against two leading opponents of the NEA: Rohrabacher and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.).

A month later, the group’s Long Beach/Orange County chapter was formed. It plans to run local print and broadcast ads criticizing the effort to regulate the artistic content of NEA art projects and highlighting Rohrabacher’s role in that effort.

The local chapter says it has 50 members so far, including artists, arts administrators, educators and others opposed to limits on the NEA. It plans to hold a fund-raiser within a month to collect money for the advertisements, which are being developed free of charge by artists in the group.

Organizers say interest in the effort is growing.

“This issue strikes right at the very core not only of practicing artists, but also of individuals in society and the right to express one’s self,” said Bill Viola, a nationally recognized video artist who lives in Long Beach. “Each meeting, more people come. The energy level is really up.”

The organizers say out-of-state NEA supporters, acting individually, are also interested in taking the fight to Rohrabacher, a former Reagan speechwriter who won election to Congress in 1988.

An example is John Payson, an art dealer based in Florida who last month sent letters to the three Democratic candidates then competing in a primary campaign for the right to challenge Rohrabacher on Nov. 6.

Payson wrote that he opposed Rohrabacher’s stance on the endowment and solicited the Democrats’ views on the agency so that he could consider giving them his support.

Told Friday that Guy C. Kimbrough of Huntington Beach, the apparent winner of the Democratic primary, supports unrestricted federal funding of the art endowment, Payson said Kimbrough can expect a $1,000 contribution.

“I have been very, very upset about Rohrabacher’s stand on the NEA,” said Payson. “. . . If (Kimbrough) is indeed opposing that stand, I will send him the maximum check allowed under the law to beat Rohrabacher.”

Such sentiment is good news to Kimbrough, who appeared headed for victory over James Cavuoto of Torrance and Bryan W. Stevens of Rolling Hills Estates last week as the remaining absentee ballots in the tight primary contest were being counted.

The 44-year-old Mt. San Jacinto political science instructor begins his general election bid with next to no campaign reserves compared to Rohrabacher, who at last count has saved $100,000.

Kimbrough, who lost to Rohrabacher in the 1988 general election, also faces a 53% to 36% Republican voter registration edge over Democrats in the 42nd District.

But he said he can use the arts debate as one of several issues to pry Republican voters--and campaign contributors--from Rohrabacher. Others, he said, include abortion, which Rohrabacher favors banning, and offshore oil drilling, which the incumbent generally supports.

“Many Republicans in the district are in the arts community or are patrons of the arts,” Kimbrough said. “I think there’s a tremendous potential for this issue.”

Rohrabacher acknowledges that the arts issue could stir up some political opposition.

“When I took this position, I knew it would increase the number of people working actively against my reelection,” he said.

But Rohrabacher says voters will be receptive to his argument that placing artistic content restrictions on government art grants does not constitute an attack on freedom of expression.