Fine Puts Behind-the-Scenes Man Orduna on Center Stage

Campaigning last year to keep his seat on the Carson City Council, John Anderson tried to win with some old-style door-knocking and precinct-walking.

The strategy didn’t work. His opponent, first-time candidate Juanita McDonald, had the backing of U.S. Rep. Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton). And that meant key campaign direction from Dymally’s chief political operative in the Los Angeles area: Kenneth Orduna, the congressman’s chief of staff.

“They had real sophisticated stuff, like three-colored mailers sent citywide,” said Carson Mayor Michael Mitoma, Anderson’s campaign manager in the race. “We were totally blown out.”

Said Orduna after the election: “If we are going to endorse, we are going to work.”

In recent years, Orduna has played a mainly behind-the-scenes role as Dymally’s right-hand man. His activities have ranged from overseeing Dymally’s staff to coordinating the campaigns of local candidates supported by the congressman.

But Orduna reluctantly took center stage earlier this month when the California Fair Political Practices Commission imposed the second largest fine in its 17-year history on him and Lonnie Sanders, another Dymally aide.

The penalty, $187,500, stemmed from Orduna’s unsuccessful 1987 campaign for the Los Angeles City Council. The political practices commission said Orduna and Sanders, Orduna’s treasurer in the race, committed 134 campaign law violations. Many of the counts, the commission said, involved intentional efforts to skirt a city political donation limit of $500 per person per election.

Commission officials said the violations, which were not challenged by Orduna and Sanders, included some of the most serious the commission has ever investigated. For instance, the officials said, the Orduna campaign listed contributions of unknown origin in the names of fictitious donors and received donations that were greater than $500 and then under-reported them or failed to report them at all.

Orduna has not returned repeated telephone calls placed to his office since the Oct. 2 commission ruling. But Dymally, whose district includes Hawthorne, Gardena, Carson and Harbor Gateway, has assailed the huge fine as excessive and racially motivated, asserting that white politicians receive lighter treatment from the agency for more serious offenses. Orduna and Sanders are black.

Commission Chairman Ben Davidian has taken strong exception to that charge, saying the steep fine was justified by the seriousness of the violations. The commission, he says, does not concern itself with the race of wrongdoers.

“That (racial) allegation is irresponsible and completely false,” Davidian said last week.

Dymally, appearing to underscore Orduna’s importance to him, says that under no circumstances will he consider firing his chief of staff. Said the congressman: “There is no more dedicated person than Ken Orduna. When he goes, I go.”

Orduna, a 51-year-old native of Omaha, Neb., who moved to California in 1961, has worked for Dymally for 15 years, according to Dymally’s office. A husband and father of five, he started as an administrative assistant when Dymally was California’s lieutenant governor, later rising to his current $77,000-a-year post as the congressman’s chief of staff.

Although most congressional chiefs of staff work in Washington, Orduna--in line with his focus on local issues--is based in Compton. He has gained a reputation among black community organizers here as hard-driving, competent and intensely loyal to Dymally.

He has also received wide latitude to speak and act on the congressman’s behalf, those who have dealt with him say.

“I have found his relationship with the congressman such that when you hear from Ken you are hearing from Merv,” said state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles). “When you see Ken Orduna, it is like seeing Mervyn Dymally.”

In addition to McDonald, other Dymally-backed candidates whose campaigns Orduna has helped run include Compton City Councilwoman Pat Moore and Inglewood Mayor Edward Vincent.

Some who have worked in rival campaigns praise Orduna, describing him as energetic and politically savvy. But others are critical. Orduna’s efforts, they charge, enable Dymally to meddle in local politics, an involvement that goes far beyond that of other congressmen in the county.

“We’re offended that they haul in the big guns in these political races,” said one South Bay political organizer, declining to be quoted by name.

Orduna also runs the Community Democrat, the oldest and most influential political mailer in Los Angeles County’s black community. The 19-year-old publication, which looks like a community tabloid and often carries political endorsements the week before elections, is controlled by Dymally.

And on behalf of Dymally, Orduna delves into a wide variety of local issues, some of them controversial. An example concerned the unrest in the Centinela Valley Union High School District, which has been torn by allegations that its predominantly Latino board has discriminated against black employees and parents.

After racial tension culminated in a student walkout at one of the district’s two high schools last year, Orduna--along with representatives of other area politicians--took part in what participants described as an effort to help resolve the racial problems.

But five months after the March, 1990, walkout at Lawndale’s Leuzinger High, district officials denounced the intrusion of state and federal politicians in its affairs--a charge aimed at Dymally’s office, among others. Interim Supt. Tom Barkelew asserted that the politicians were hurting rather than helping board efforts to deal with the unrest.

McKinley Nash, who was district superintendent at the time of the walkout and was fired four months later, disputes that view.

“Mr. Orduna came over to offer his assistance to the school district in an effort to help us (deal with) the students,” Nash said last week. “He was very, very effective in working with those kids.”

The reaction among black community leaders to Orduna’s fine from the political practices commission illustrates that in working for Dymally, Orduna has built up some strong loyalty of his own. Many expressed sadness that the penalty was so severe.

Said Sen. Watson: “I regret this has happened. He has been very effective.”

Said Moore, the Compton councilwoman: “It saddens me this has happened because Ken has great potential to go on and be a politician. This really taints him.”

Davidian says the seriousness of the violations by the Orduna campaign could not be overlooked. “I stand by (our) decision,” Davidian said last week. “This was pure, bald, intentional wrongdoing.”