2 More Declare for Seymour’s Old Senate Seat

Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith and Anaheim Councilman William D. Ehrle on Thursday added their names to the list of Republican candidates for the 35th District state Senate seat vacated by newly appointed U.S. Sen. John Seymour.

Just one week after Seymour’s appointment was announced, six candidates have already declared for his vacant seat. State Assembly members Doris Allen (R-Cypress) and Nolan Frizzelle (R-Fountain Valley) were the first to declare, while Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) and Orange County Transportation Commission Chairman Dana Reed announced this week that they will run.

No Democrats have announced their candidacy so far in the heavily Republican district. A special primary election to fill the vacant seat will probably be held in March.

Smith has served on the Westminster City Council since 1984 and has been mayor since 1988. “We need stronger representation for Orange County cities in Sacramento,” Smith said in a statement released Thursday. He added that he is “keenly interested” in the problems of housing, education and transportation in the county.

Smith is a former U.S. Marine Corps sergeant and a retired aerospace engineer.

While Smith hails from the southern tip of the crescent-shaped district, Ehrle comes from the same city that gave Seymour, a former Anaheim mayor, his political start, and he said he hopes to keep the Senate district’s power base in the county’s second-largest city.

“Anaheim is the heart of the district,” Ehrle said. If elected, he said, he would continue to help the city fight the proposed Gypsum Canyon jail, and he would propose legislation to force the county’s larger cities to provide jail facilities or expand existing units to accommodate their own prisoners.

Ehrle, 48, a former schoolteacher who now runs a small public relations firm, is moving into his fourth year on the council. He failed in a 1974 bid to win the Republican nomination for the 60th Assembly District.