LOCAL ELECTIONS DISTRICT ATTORNEY : Enright Forces a Serious Campaign

When Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. James G. Enright decided just 24 hours before the closing deadline to run for district attorney, he knew it would be on a shoestring. He had no staff, money or plans.

But that’s all changed now that Enright has forced Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi into a November runoff. At a fund-raiser at the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach last week, Enright was backslapping with longtime friends and thanking them for donations.

The total isn’t in yet, but Enright said his financial advisers have told him that there were close to 100 paying guests, with an average donation of about $250.

“It was a good first fund-raiser,” Enright said. “But you can bet it won’t be the last.”

Certainly, he has a long way to go to catch Capizzi, who has already raised close to $300,000 and expects to hold more fund-raisers before November.

Capizzi followers said they consider the Enright fund-raiser a weak show by their opponent, but Enright has unquestionably come a long way from the primary, when he could barely afford a handful of newspaper ads and had no help.

He now has a campaign committee, headed by former County Administrative Officer Bob Thomas. Others running his campaign include Santa Ana lawyer William L. Anderson and financial adviser Robert Duff. Assistant Dist. Atty. Edgar A. Freeman, who also ran as an anti-Capizzi candidate in the primary, is a chief campaign adviser.

“The backing is here,” Thomas said. “We just had to nudge Jim a little and convince him he could win.”

The fund-raiser turnout included Westminster Municipal Judge Dan C. Dutcher, a longtime friend and golfing partner of Enright’s, and criminal lawyer Sylvan B. Aronson, who represented county builder Leroy Rose--one of those Capizzi helped send to prison in the early 1980s in a political corruption campaign by the district attorney’s office.

Another person sent to prison in that campaign was County Supervisor Ralph Diedrich, a close ally of Thomas’.

Dutcher complained about the state judicial ethics code, which severely limits the role a judge can play in supporting a candidate for a non-judicial office. While Dutcher cannot give Enright more than $100, his wife is under no such restrictions, so she donated $1,000 to Enright.

Aronson was buoyed by the varied types who came by to wish Enright well and make a contribution.

“Jim Enright has a lot of friends in the defense bar in this county,” Aronson said. “Jim has a clear understanding of our roles. He’s the prosecutor and we represent the defendant; but we are both officers of the court. We’re part of the same system. Mike Capizzi doesn’t understand that.”

Some cheered when one speaker suggested that Capizzi had simply been a hatrack for Cecil Hicks. Before Hicks resigned as district attorney to take a judgeship in January, Capizzi had been his chief assistant and longtime protege. Their relationship came at the expense of Enright, whose power and prestige within the office deteriorated greatly as Capizzi’s career moved on.

Capizzi was unanimously appointed by the Board of Supervisors in January, with Hicks’ public blessing, just before Hicks took the bench. The supervisors were lavish in their praise of Capizzi, and all have since endorsed his candidacy.

Though Capizzi was the top vote-getter in the November primary, most of the supporters at Enright’s fund-raiser last week said the numbers favor Enright. Capizzi got 41% of the vote.

“That tells me 60% of the people don’t want him,” Aronson said, because all of the other candidates had run anti-Capizzi campaigns.

Nevertheless, Enright trailed Capizzi by nearly 40,000 votes. And Capizzi has picked up most of the county’s heavyweight endorsements, including almost every police association that exists, plus the prestige of the support from the county’s own association of deputy district attorneys.

How does Enright plan to overcome that support?

“I really believe that financially, we’re not going to have a problem,” Enright said. “We’re going to have enough to put on the campaign we want. But what we’re counting on is enough volunteers to do things like walking precincts for us.”

The only way to win, Enright said, is through hard work by the candidate and his committee. Enright said he remains undecided about whether he will take a leave of absence or substantial time off before the election.

While the Enright camp is excited that he is off to a good start, Capizzi said last week that he is not worried about his opponent and does not plan to change his schedule.

“I’m at my desk,” Capizzi said. “I’m working. I’m trying to be the best district attorney I can.”

Both men report they have a cordial working relationship within the office.

One question that remains is whether Enright will begin picking up some of the anti-Capizzi zeal in his campaign that some of his supporters have. During the primary, Enright rarely spoke about Capizzi by name, but did make remarks about his distaste for “politicians taking over the district attorney’s office”--a reference to the Board of Supervisors’ appointing Capizzi instead of waiting for the 1990 election to determine a successor for Hicks.

“I don’t think voters will respond to a negative campaign,” Enright said. “I’m just not going to get into that kind of thing.”