No Surprises Here; Just a Little Advice : * Attitude Adjustment in Order for Congress Delegation

While there are many things up for grabs in the Nov. 3 election, no surprises are expected when it comes to Orange County’s five-member congressional delegation. Three Republican incumbents--Ron Packard of Oceanside, Christopher Cox of Newport Beach and Robert K. Dornan of Garden Grove--are expected to win handily. Nor is Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), who is running in a newly drawn mid-coastal district, expected to have any trouble at the polls.

The remaining member of the delegation, seven-term Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), is leaving Congress after unsuccessfully seeking the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate last June. But even though his is an open seat, there’s little excitement in his predominantly GOP district. Republican Ed Royce of Anaheim, now a state senator, seems to have a lock on it.

Still, though predictable in its outcome, the election does provide an opportunity to review the delegation during the last two years, with an eye toward what can be improved in the next two.

Looking at the delegation as a whole, there are some accomplishments to note. Most important, the delegation brought home the bacon for Orange County in the form of $91 million this year and $78.2 million last year in funding to continue work on the $1.5-billion Santa Ana River project--the largest flood control project in the nation. The Army Corps of Engineers has identified the Santa Ana River as the greatest flood threat west of the Mississippi, estimating that a catastrophic flood could cause $18 billion in damage--more than twice the damage caused by south Florida’s Hurricane Andrew. The Santa Ana River project must continue to be a priority for the Orange County delegation.

Another delegation success: inclusion of $6.5 million in the federal budget to start the design phase of the $168-million federal courthouse in Santa Ana.

But what about the congressmen as individual representatives? Here the results are mixed. Cox and Packard continue to conduct themselves well, pursuing their district and political agendas with measured professionalism. Both will have earned their certain reelection, Cox to a third term, Packard to a sixth.

Dannemeyer unfortunately will be remembered for his sour tirades against gays and mean-spirited partisanship. Royce, while no less conservative a Republican than Dannemeyer, appears to be a politician whose style is more in line with Cox’s and Packard’s. It is encouraging to hear him talk about the importance of getting the California delegation better organized.

That leaves Rohrabacher and Dornan--two loquacious politicians.

Dornan actually can be effective when he talks less and tends to serving his constituents. But his flamboyance and pugnacity get him and others off track. Certainly, President Bush might take a cue from Dornan’s congressional colleagues and try turning a deaf ear to this four-term congressman. Bush’s attack on Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton’s patriotism for having traveled to Moscow as a college student--a shameful bit of red-baiting that apparently was hatched with the help of Dornan--seems to have backfired.

We should hear much less from Rohrabacher, too. During his second term, he moved from diatribes against the National Endowment for the Arts to non-productive invectives against illegal immigrants, including insulting all immigrants by collectively dubbing them “Pedro.”

All in all, the delegation is a mixed bag. That’s unfortunate, because Orange County deserves better.