Campaign by Dornan Foe Is ‘Condemned’ by GOP Ethics Panel : Politics: Judith Ryan is accused of defamation, inaccuracy and distortion. Her campaign manager scoffs.

The Orange County Republican Party’s ethics committee announced Monday that Judith Ryan’s primary campaign last spring against Rep. Robert K. Dornan was guilty of “character defamation, inaccuracies and distortions.”

The committee voted to formally “condemn” Ryan’s campaign following a complaint last month from Dornan (R-Garden Grove) that listed 12 allegations of improper election tactics by his opponent.

The committee’s three-paragraph statement, however, did not identify what specific problems it saw in Ryan’s campaign.

A spokesman for the committee also declined to describe what Ryan’s campaign had done that was considered “negative and inaccurate.” There was also no elaboration on a charge by the committee that Ryan committed “personal attacks including a negative reference to Congressman Dornan’s religion.”

“The (party’s) policy is that the release is sent out and that’s the end of it from our point of view,” said Greg Haskins, executive director of the county GOP.

Ryan was invited to a hearing before the ethics committee about Dornan’s complaint last month. But she and her campaign aides declined to attend because they charged that the county’s Republican leadership is controlled by conservatives who are biased in favor of their incumbent lawmakers.

Ryan was out of town Monday and unavailable for comment. But her campaign manager, Eileen Padberg, dismissed the finding. Padberg charged that Dornan’s campaign was even more negative, particularly his reference to the women’s groups supporting Ryan as “lesbian spear chuckers.”

“Is Bob Dornan’s comment that people who supported Judy are ‘lesbian spear chuckers’ any (less) negative or strident?” she said.

Padberg said she has not decided whether to formally respond to the committee’s decision.

The ethics committee’s finding is non-binding and its only punitive tool is the public disclosure of its action. Republican Party leaders created the group about three years ago in hopes of deterring Republican candidates from divisive primary campaigns that could damage the party’s nominee.

Dornan, who won the June primary against Ryan by a wide margin and was reelected last month, told the committee in a written complaint that his opponent “went far beyond the scope of ethical campaigning.”

His list of improper campaign tactics included an allegation that a photographer for Ryan trespassed on Dornan’s property in Virginia to take pictures of his home for a campaign brochure. He also said there was improper collusion between Ryan and the National Abortion Rights Action League.