Dornan Targeted by Abortion Rights Group : Politics: The statewide organization will work to elect Judith M. Ryan. The congressman scoffs.

The California Abortion Rights Action League said Monday that it has launched its largest Congressional campaign ever on behalf of Judith M. Ryan, the first GOP candidate to try to unseat conservative Republican Rep. Robert K. Dornan in a primary.

Robin Schneider, CARAL’s associate director, said the Dornan-Ryan race in the 46th Congressional District has become the group’s top priority because Dornan is being opposed by just one abortion-rights supporter in the June 2 primary and “among the members of Congress, he really is the worst.”

“There are probably 12 or 13 hard-core (California congressmen) who never vote for pro-choice, but Dornan has taken a leadership position on it nationally,” Schneider said. “This has been a mission and a cause for him--taking away a woman’s right to choose.”

Dornan (R-Garden Grove), a 13-year veteran in Congress and one of Washington’s most prolific fund-raisers, promised to respond in the remaining two weeks of the race with a barrage of his own mail, some of it attacking Ryan as a single-issue candidate sponsored by the political left. He has not faced opposition in a primary since moving to Orange County and being reelected to Congress in 1984. Before that he had represented a district in Los Angeles County.

About CARAL’s support for his opponent, Dornan said: “I would have been deeply hurt beyond words if I had not made this distinguished (priority) list.

“When I meet St. Peter at the Golden Gates, I want plenty of evidence that I stood tall for the helpless, innocent pre-born. The CARAL list is a veritable ‘Who’s Who’ of anti-tax, anti-big government and pro-family conservatives, and I’m honored to be a member of this group.”

CARAL launched its campaign against Dornan within the last week, mailing two letters to GOP voters followed by a door-to-door canvass of the district on Saturday by about 70 volunteers. Monday, the group also began to broadcast the first in a series of radio advertisements, and it plans several more letters.

The radio ad is largely positive in tone with a profile of Ryan that describes her work as a former Orange County Superior Court judge, as well as her support for abortion rights.

On the other hand, the two CARAL letters both contain attacks on Dornan. Under the headline “Extremist,” one letter says: “Few congressmen are more fanatically anti-choice than Bob Dornan. On this issue, few are more dangerous.”

CARAL’s effort is coordinated from a Santa Ana campaign headquarters, the only office the group has opened in California to target a specific political race.

Schneider said CARAL is operating as an independent expenditure committee, meaning that campaign finance laws for candidates do not apply. It also means that the CARAL campaign is not allowed to have any communication or coordination with Ryan’s campaign.

Dornan charged, however, that he believes that there is illegal collusion between CARAL and the Ryan campaign. “Nobody is going to convince me that they aren’t violating every law in the books because they are obsessed with abortion,” Dornan said.

Eileen Padberg, a campaign consultant to Ryan, responded: “If he thinks that’s true, he should just try to prove it.”

Ryan was unavailable for comment Monday.

Schneider said CARAL recently conducted a poll in the 46th District that found most Republican voters support abortion rights. She declined, however, to discuss other findings in the survey except to describe Ryan’s challenge as “an uphill race.”

She also would not disclose how much money CARAL plans to spend in the 46th District, which includes the cities of Santa Ana, Garden Grove and parts of Anaheim.

Dornan, so far, has focused his campaign on raising money. He’s mailed several fund-raising letters that portray his race as a vital showdown between his conservative principles against a liberal Congress.

“Can you sleep at night thinking about the safety of our great country if a Democrat captures my congressional seat in November?” one letter asks. “You see why I’m worried; not just for my job, I’m worried for all America.”

Dornan also mailed a letter to voters Monday containing an endorsement of him by Rep. Barbara Vucanovich (R-Nev.). And he promised at least a half-dozen more letters, some linking Ryan to former Democratic Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr.--who appointed Ryan to the Orange County Municipal Court bench in 1981--and others criticizing her decision not to move her residence into the district from Yorba Linda.