STATE SENATE : Challengers Undaunted by GOP Mystique

Challengers for the two state Senate seats at stake this year in Orange County are bumping headlong into a solid wall of conventional wisdom. It goes like this: Democrats can’t unseat GOP incumbents in the Republican bastion of Orange County.

Indeed, Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) and John R. Lewis (R-Orange) are blessed with two of the most heavily Republican state Senate districts in California. But this has already proved to be a wild and woolly political year, so Democrats Dorianne Garcia and Samuel Eidt remain hopeful.

A look at the two races:

33rd Senate District

After 10 years in the Assembly, Lewis won this Senate seat in North County last year in a special election. Hoping for peace and quiet as he began his quest for reelection, Lewis instead ran promptly into a testy primary battle last June.

Lewis survived the assault by primary challenger Todd Thakar, who labeled the conservative incumbent a “career politician” with a poor legislative record. Now he goes into the general election heavily favored--the district is nearly 57% Republican and only about 31% Democrat.

Democrat challenger Eidt is picking up where Thakar left off, labeling Lewis an effete lawmaker failing to adequately represent the district. “I agree that the conventional wisdom says this is an impossible race for me, but I’ve been blessed with an opponent who has one of the worst records of any legislator up there,” Eidt said, suggesting Lewis is often absent for votes and has failed miserably to get many bills signed into law.

Eidt, a 25-year-old insurance claims representative, said his goals are to ensure the long-term health of the economy by “solving the fundamental problems instead of looking for short-term fixes” and improving the state’s education system. He also pledges to work to fund mass transit and more freeway construction.

Libertarian candidate Doyle Guhy, 44, would like to cut government dramatically, slashing by 10% a year for five years and putting a moratorium on all state regulations, particularly air-quality laws. He also favors gradually abolishing the state’s public school system as well as privatizing the welfare system.

Lewis, meanwhile, is working hard to highlight his accomplishments and goals. One of his proudest achievements is helping spark negotiations that ended the practice of busing Yorba Linda students to distant Troy High in Fullerton.

He also authored a pro-business law limiting the Southland’s new ride-sharing regulation to only include large firms with 100 or more employees. But much of his legislation, Lewis says, ends up scuttled by a Democrat-controlled Legislature bent on blocking the efforts of conservative Republicans.

Lewis plans to work to revive the state’s flagging economy and improve the dreary business climate.

“The populace of California is overtaxed and over-regulated,” Lewis said. “Years of these restrictive policies have yielded what we see today.” He would try to cut regulations “pretty much across the board.”

35th Senate District

Many local politicos figure Bergeson will eventually return from Sacramento for good to take over the seat of county Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, who is expected to retire by 1994. Bergeson isn’t listening to any of it. Instead, she’s pressing ahead to recapture the seat she has held since 1984.

Garcia, her Democrat opponent, contends Bergeson doesn’t understand the needs of working-class people who make up the district, which runs along the county’s north coast and is 53.8% Republican and 32.5% Democrat. “She only represents the people who make $200,000 or more and the corporate CEOs and land developers,” Garcia said. “Marian Bergeson represents the Orange County of 30 years ago. It’s a diverse community now.”

A telephone company communications technician, Garcia wants to improve workers’ rights, ensure better health care, parental leave and child-care benefits. She contends that her experience in labor and management relations will help her overcome many of the partisan barriers blocking effective action by the Legislature.

Bergeson said she doesn’t anticipate a tight race and is running on her record. During her tenure in Sacramento she has helped fund a pilot program requiring teachers to be judged on competence instead of education level. Bergeson also has worked to broaden access for the working poor to prenatal health care and sponsored a bill banning the distribution of cigarette samples to children.

Eric Sprik, the Libertarian candidate, is running a low-key campaign intended to raise the profile of his party. He wants to see more deregulation to keep “businesses from packing up and moving out of California” and cut government spending. He also hopes the anti-incumbency mood sweeping the country will help Libertarian candidates.