CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : ORANGE COUNTY CONGRESSIONAL RACES : 5 GOP Incumbents Are Virtual Shoo-Ins

Two years ago, with a pair of vacant congressional seats up for grabs, Orange County’s political stage featured a host of candidates battling it out for the rarely available, highly secure federal offices.

This year’s county congressional races haven’t provided voters with the same kind of spectacle. There are no open seats, and all five of the county’s congressmen are heavy favorites to win.

In two of the races, the incumbents face no active major party opposition at all. No Democrats surfaced to challenge 43rd District Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), who represents southernmost Orange County and northern San Diego County; his only opponents are Libertarian Richard L. Arnold, a retired Army officer, and Peace and Freedom Party member Doug Hansen.

Farther north, 38th District Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) confronts a Democratic opponent who dropped out of the race before the primary election--too late for her name to be pulled from the ballot--but won anyway. Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Barbara Jackson said last spring that she withdrew to protect her nonprofit employer, and last week she reiterated that “nothing has changed.”

In the county’s other three congressional races, the incumbents at least face spirited, though under-funded, opponents of decidedly different political convictions.

Francis X. Hoffman, the Democratic candidate in the 39th District, said he is running against Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) to give voters a choice and to raise certain issues.

“I don’t have any illusions about a landslide in November,” said Hoffman, a Garden Grove attorney and Democratic Party activist. “But I’d like to see him (Dannemeyer) answer for the votes he’s taken. . . . Two years ago, he wasn’t opposed (by a Democrat) and he wasn’t made to answer for anything.”

In particular, Hoffman takes exception to Dannemeyer’s persistent attacks on homosexuals, especially the congressman’s reading into the Congressional Record explicit descriptions of homosexual acts.

“If my kid came across this, I’d punch Mr. Dannemeyer right in the nose,” Hoffman said.

Dannemeyer called Hoffman’s position “ridiculous” and said he read the descriptions into the Congressional Record so that the public would know exactly what homosexuals do.

One of the more bizarre tactics Hoffman has employed in his campaign was taking and releasing the results of an AIDS test and a lie-detector test, in which he was asked if he had ever engaged in sex with another man or if he had ever been unfaithful to his wife.

The answers were all negative, and Hoffman wants Dannemeyer to submit to a similar test.

“I wouldn’t normally consider doing something like that, but he seems so severe in his criticism,” Hoffman said. “Leadership should be by example.”

Dannemeyer, when asked if he would consider Hoffman’s challenge, said his blood was determined to be free of the HIV virus three years ago when he donated blood. As for taking a lie-detector test to prove his heterosexuality and faithfulness to his wife, Dannemeyer said Hoffman “has the whole concept of due process turned upside down. I’m presumed innocent until someone proves me guilty or even suggests that I’m guilty of something.”

Dannemeyer and his wife celebrated their 35th anniversary last month, the congressman pointed out.

Dannemeyer said he intends to focus his campaign on such issues as the need for a balanced budget amendment, reduced government spending and a more secure southern border

A third candidate, Peace and Freedom Party stalwart Maxine B. Quirk, is also in the race and brings with her a call for action. A 68-year-old apartment owner who lives in Orange, Quirk said the electorate should sweep out the entire Congress, along with Dannemeyer.

“I think we need to get out all the incumbents,” she said.

In the 40th District, freshman Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) is also facing a candidate who says he is running primarily to keep the Democratic Party name and philosophy afloat.

“Somebody had to do it,” said Laguna Beach attorney and Democratic Party activist Eugene C. Gratz. “Particularly in the 40th District, somebody had to be willing to do it to focus voters on the issue of choice.”

Cox--whom Gratz describes as “bright” and “an effective legislator”--supports abortion rights but opposes government funding for the procedure.

But Gratz, an issues-oriented candidate who taught English and theology before getting his law degree, says the distinction is irrelevant. “You can’t seriously say that you’re not anti-choice if you’re anti-funding,” Gratz said. “The deprivation of funds is tantamount to the deprivation of the procedure.”

Cox, whose main domestic issues are budget reform and fiscal responsibility, called Gratz’s argument “fallacious.”

“Taxpayers need not subsidize yet another new spending program,” Cox said. “The notion that the government must subsidize something because it is someone’s personal choice is not logically compelled.”

In the coastal 40th District, occupied by freshman Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach), Democrat Guy C. Kimbrough is not quite ready to lump himself with candidates running solely to make a point or keep the party name on the ballot.

“I didn’t go into this race as some sort of Pollyanna to raise some issues,” said Kimbrough, a political science instructor at Mt. San Jacinto College. “I entered to win.”

Kimbrough hopes to raise money from arts supporters nationwide who may be angered by Rohrabacher’s much-publicized opposition to the National Endowment for the Arts. He said that he will also focus on the issue of a woman’s right to an abortion, which Kimbrough supports and Rohrabacher opposes.

Rohrabacher, however, said Kimbrough is on the wrong side of both issues. “If he leans toward using tax dollars to subsidize pornography and sacrilegious art in order to get money out of the Hollywood left, I think he’s making a mistake,” Rohrabacher said.

The congressman said he will not focus his campaign on the NEA, but rather on his support of the aerospace industry and his views on tax and spending issues.

“There are all kinds of things I want to try to cut out of the budget,” Rohrabacher said.

CONGRESSIONAL RACES

39th District

William E. Dannemeyer Age: 60. Party: Republican. Occupation: Congressman. Background: Elected to Congress in 1978. Former deputy district attorney. Former city attorney in Fullerton. California assemblyman, 1963-66 and 1976-77. Issues: Supports expansion of offshore oil drilling; opposes abortion rights; favors a modest reduction in defense spending; supports a return to the gold standard as a way of reducing the national debt and federal spending; opposes a tax increase to reduce the deficit.

Francis X. (Frank) Hoffman. Age: 41. Party: Democratic Occupation: Attorney. Background: Attorney since 1983; graduate of Pepperdine Law School; trustee of Orange County Board of Education since 1984; 1986 Democratic nominee in 32nd state Senate District. Issues: Opposes additional offshore oil drilling; opposes a law to prohibit abortions but would support some restrictions; favors a modest reduction in defense spending; favors federal cutbacks to reduce the deficit and opposes a tax increase.

Maxine B. Quirk Age: 68. Party: Peace and Freedom. Occupation: Apartment owner. Background: Longtime Democratic Party activist; worked in presidential campaigns of Harry S. Truman, Adlai Stevenson, Lyndon Johnson, Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern. Left the party in 1979, joined the Peace and Freedom Party. Has been a candidate for Congress twice, and also has run for State Board of Equalization and state Senate. Issues: Opposes all forms of nuclear power; favors abortion rights; thinks the federal government is involved in drug trafficking.

40th District

Christopher Cox Age: 37. Party: Republican. Occupation: Congressman. Background: Elected to Congress in 1988; graduate of Harvard Business and Law schools; attorney specializing in corporate finance; a senior associate White House counsel; lecturer at Harvard University Business School. Issues: Opposes increased offshore oil drilling; supports abortion rights and opposes government-funded abortions; supports cuts in defense spending as part of a redefinition of the country’s military role; opposes tax increases; supports a balanced-budget amendment.

Eugene C. Gratz Age: 49. Party: Democratic. Occupation: Attorney. Background: Democratic Party activist; professor of English and theology at State University of New York at Stonybrook. Argued and won a major civil rights case in California on behalf of parents excluded from an apartment complex because they had children. Issues: Opposes increased offshore oil drilling; supports abortion rights and government-funded abortions; favors increased economic integration of North and South America to balance the strengthened European community.

42nd District

Dana Rohrabacher Age: 43. Party: Republican. Occupation: Congressman. Background: Elected to Congress in 1988. Former Orange County Register editorial writer; speech writer and special assistant to former President Reagan, 1981-1988. Issues: Supports more offshore oil drilling if it is approved by the nearest community; opposes abortion rights; supports some reductions in defense spending; opposes federal support of the arts other than providing tax incentives; opposes tax increase to reduce deficit.

Guy Kimbrough Age: 45. Party: Democratic. Occupation: Political science instructor. Background: College instructor for 20 years. Former administrative positions with the cities of Huntington Beach, Garden Grove and Manhattan Beach. Was the 1988 Democratic nominee in 42nd Congressional District. Issues: Opposes additional offshore drilling and supports a phase-out of existing wells; favors abortion rights and public funding for some abortions; favors a 5% minimum cut in defense spending now and about 25% by 1995; supports a tax increase to reduce the deficit.

Richard Gibb Martin Age: 28. Party: Libertarian. Occupation: Real estate developer. Background: Graduate of USC. Chairman of South Bay/Long Beach region of the Libertarian Party. Issues: Advocates the legalization of all drugs and narcotics, imposing only restrictions similar to those on alcohol; favors an end to taxation; supports a woman’s right to an abortion.

43rd District

Ron Packard Age: 59. Party: Republican. Occupation: Congressman. Background: Elected to Congress as a write-in candidate in 1982. Former dentist and member of the U.S. Navy Dental Corps. Former member of the Carlsbad Unified School District Board of Trustees and Carlsbad City Council; served four years as mayor. Issues: Opposes increased offshore oil drilling; opposes abortion rights; would favor cuts in defense if they are coupled with cuts to entitlement programs to reduce the deficit.

Richard L. Rick Arnold Party: Libertarian. Did not respond to requests for information.

Doug Hansen Party: Peace and Freedom Did not respond to requests for information.

38TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

Robert K. Dornan Age: 57. Party: Republican. Occupation: Congressman. Background: Elected to Congress in 1984; broadcast journalist, talk show host; 1982 candidate for U.S. Senate. Served in the Air Force, 1953-1958. Issues: Supports a ban on additional offshore oil wells; opposes abortion rights; favors a modest reduction in defense spending; opposes a tax increase to reduce the deficit.

Barbara Jackson (NO PHOTO AVAILABLE) Age: 38. Party: Democratic. Occupation: Public affairs director, Orange-San Bernardino counties chapter of Planned Parenthood. Background: Has been active in women’s rights organizations and campaigns of political candidates who support abortion rights. Even though she is on the ballot, she is not actively campaigning. Issue: Supports women’s right to abortion and federally funded abortions.