Bennett Speaks at Pringle Fund-Raiser : Campaign: The federal drug czar criticizes the state Legislature in a Newport Beach visit that underscores the Assembly race’s importance to GOP.

Assemblyman Curt Pringle’s Garden Grove district is one of the tougher battlefields in the nation’s war on drugs. Part of the reason, White House drug policy adviser William Bennett said Friday, is that the California Legislature has been soft on crime laws.

At a luncheon fund-raiser for Pringle’s reelection campaign, Bennett said he and the freshman assemblyman share an opponent in California--Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

“This country is changing its drug laws, and if California doesn’t, it’s going to pick up more business,” Bennett said. “The people who are selling drugs know where the laws are tough.”

Pringle’s campaign theme has been about the damage to anti-crime efforts by the state’s “liberal Democratic leadership.” Friday’s visit by Bennett, the director of the president’s Office of Drug Control Policy, was a chance to underscore the point.

It also demonstrated how important the 72nd Assembly District race is to state Republican leaders. Democrats consider it one of their best chances this year to gain another seat in Sacramento.

Democrats also recognize that crime and drugs are the most important issues to the area’s voters. As a result, their candidate is a former federal prosecutor supporting many of the same tough crime laws as Pringle.

Democrat Tom Umberg has even attacked some of the same Sacramento Democrats as Pringle in his appeal to the conservative voters in the district, which includes Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Anaheim and Westminster.

“Not a single prosecutor, judge, police officer or other individual from the law enforcement community serves on the Legislature’s Public Safety Committee,” Umberg said recently. “Is it any wonder that the laws enacted by the Legislature are filled with loopholes to (impede) law enforcement and prosecutors?”

He sounded a lot like Pringle at the luncheon Friday.

“The only place in California where the death penalty is sure and swift is in killing bills in the Public Safety Committee,” he said.

Pringle has attempted in speeches and mailers to link Umberg with Speaker Brown. On Friday, he said, “Willie Brown is looking to replace me with his handpicked candidate. . . . When it comes time to pass tougher laws against drug traffickers, whose side will Tom Umberg be on, Willie Brown’s or our community’s?”

Attempting to insulate himself from the charge, Umberg mailed voters a pledge this week, saying he will “take my guidance” from voters and not legislative leaders such as Brown.

A key part of this close race is also going to be money. Neither side has disclosed its resources since June and the next reporting date is not until next week.

Bennett spoke to an audience of about 100 on the patio of motor home magnate John Crean’s posh estate overlooking Newport Beach’s Back Bay area. The event was outside of Pringle’s district because aides said Bennett needed to be near the airport.

The luncheon cost $250 per person, but it was unclear how much Pringle’s campaign collected because not everybody in the audience paid.