Dannemeyer Announces Bid for U. S. Senate

Declaring that California Republicans are tired of politicians “who blow in the wind,” Rep. William E. Dannemeyer of Fullerton filed documents Tuesday that formally make him a candidate for the U. S. Senate seat now held by Republican John Seymour of Anaheim.

Dannemeyer, 62, a Democrat when he served in the California Assembly from Los Angeles County in the early 1960s, now is considered one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress. In recent years, his major crusade has been to oppose the granting of legal protections to gays and to isolate those who have contracted the AIDS virus from the general population.

The statement Dannemeyer issued Tuesday in conjunction with his filing concentrated on a two-part program for economic recovery: repeal of 1990 federal tax increases and of many of the provisions of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, and a rollback of environmental regulation.

Dannemeyer also proposed suspending enforcement of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act until an economic recovery is under way.

“The time has come for California Republicans to send their message,” Dannemeyer said. “They are tired of tax-and-spend programs and politicians who blow in the wind.”

Dannemeyer faces Seymour and two other candidates in a contest for the Republican nomination for election to the final two years of the Senate term of Gov. Pete Wilson. Wilson resigned from the Senate to be inaugurated as governor in January, 1991, and appointed Seymour to the vacancy.

Wilson and Seymour are considered moderates on most issues. They have angered Dannemeyer and his supporters on a variety of matters including their support for abortion rights, their willingness to consider granting certain rights to homosexuals and the $7-billion state tax increase Wilson signed into law last year.

Dannemeyer is one of many Republicans from the conservative right who were outraged by Wilson’s appointment of Seymour, partly because of Seymour’s switch away from an anti-abortion position.

“The voters want more than 30-second sound bites, so I am putting forward specific solutions that I plan to fight for as the next U. S. senator from California,” Dannemeyer said in his statement.

The first head-to-head debate between Dannemeyer and Seymour is expected to come Friday night at the opening session of the Republican state convention in Burlingame.

At the start of this year, Seymour was running about 3 to 1 ahead of Dannemeyer in campaign contributions. The senator is expected to launch a major television advertising campaign this spring in his attempt to win the GOP nomination in the June 2 primary. Dannemeyer has given or lent his campaign much of the money it has raised so far.

After losing an election for a state Senate seat in the 1960s, Dannemeyer changed parties and won another Assembly seat. He was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1978 and has been reelected six times to the 39th Congressional District seat in central and eastern Orange County.

Dannemeyer, a native of Los Angeles, graduated from Valparaiso University and the University of California’s Hastings School of Law.