O.C. Republicans Take a New Tack in Congress : Politics: They say some items in their agenda actually have a better chance with a Democrat in White House.

Freshman Rep. Jay C. Kim wants the California National Guard to hunt drug smugglers along the Mexican border.

Veteran Rep. Robert K. Dornan will push for lower taxes and a tough crime bill. And three-term Rep. Christopher Cox believes that the time is finally right for federal budget reform.

Those are only a few of the proposals that Orange County’s six members of Congress will push as the new House gets to work.

Rep. Ed Royce, also beginning his first term, will introduce a federal version of the anti-stalking bill that he shepherded through the California Legislature. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher will champion the Southern California aerospace industry, push for cooperation in space with Russia and try to beat back any attempts to raise taxes.

And Rep. Ron Packard will work for full funding for the Santa Ana River flood-control project and a new federal courthouse for Orange County as he assumes a new post on the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

While the goals are ambitious, it is far from certain that any legislation introduced by Orange County congressmen, all Republicans, will be enacted. Orange County lawmakers historically have had little luck passing their bills, largely because Republicans have been outnumbered in the House for almost 40 years and are again this year, 258 to 176.

In fact, only two measures by Orange County lawmakers were enacted in their original form in the just-completed 102nd Congress, according to a computer analysis.

One, introduced by Cox (R-Newport Beach), authorized the government to name the new federal courthouse planned for Santa Ana after former President Ronald Reagan. The second, by Packard (R-Oceanside), created a research program to promote desalination--the conversion of seawater into drinking water--for California.

Republicans spent much of their time fighting to put their mark, however small, on Democrat-sponsored legislation. Sometimes they succeeded.

At the same time, Orange County congressmen led floor fights that, while ultimately unsuccessful, highlighted conservative concerns on issues ranging from congressional term limits to a balanced federal budget.

And they worked to ensure that their districts fared well when Congress handed out federal dollars. The Santa Ana River flood-control project, for example, will receive more than $90 million in funding in the 1993 fiscal year.

Despite partisan obstacles, Orange County lawmakers argue that at least some of their agendas may have a better chance this year. With a Democrat in the White House, they say, Democrats in Congress may be more willing to go along with several Republican proposals, including Cox’s budget-reform bill and a Dornan-backed community service program to bring more college graduates into local police departments.

If reforming the federal budget process is one of the meatiest proposals coming out of the delegation, dispatching the California National Guard to the San Diego border may be the most controversial.

“We spend a lot of money on the National Guard, they’ve been practicing and exercising someplace else. I think they should come to the borderline and exercise there,” said Kim (R-Diamond Bar), who represents Yorba Linda and adjacent parts of northern Orange County.

Creating a pilot project to bring the Guard to the San Diego border would not only deter drug trafficking, it could also discourage illegal immigration, he suggested.

The freshman member, who was mayor of Diamond Bar for only a year before coming to Washington, concedes that he has not yet discussed his idea with officials of the National Guard or the Immigration and Naturalization Service. “Everything is my own idea,” Kim said. “I don’t see why we cannot use the National Guard.”

In addition to deploying the guard, Kim said, the federal government should install sodium vapor lights along the border, build a gravel road to ease law enforcement access by the border and put in place a laser-beam monitoring system to prevent unauthorized border crossings. He said he has not yet developed a cost estimate for the plan.

“I don’t think it’s that crazy or impractical,” Kim said. “I’m talking about items that are very realistic.”

In addition to the border project, Kim said he will introduce bills to speed expansion plans for Ontario International Airport, which is in his district, and further encourage private investment in public works projects, including toll roads and bridges.

Kim said he also wants to slash the budget of the U.S. Department of Education, perhaps by as much as 50%, to ensure that federal education dollars are sent directly to local school districts and not squandered on government bureaucracy.

For the past few years, one of the key elements of Dornan’s legislative package has been creation of a national police corps. The program would offer college scholarships to young men and women who pledge to spend four years after graduation working for state or local police departments. Last year, the police corps proposal was included in a major Democrat-sponsored crime bill, but the legislation died in the U.S. Senate.

“If we’re going to rid our neighborhoods of criminals, we have to increase the pool of qualified candidates for law enforcement,” said Dornan (R-Garden Grove).

The 1992 crime bill was killed by Senate Republicans, who were upset by its gun-control provisions. They were also concerned that it did not provide tough enough restrictions on criminals’ rights to appeal convictions.

In addition to pushing for a new, tougher crime bill, Dornan said he favors an economic package that would include tax cuts, a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution and line-item veto authority for new President Bill Clinton.

“We may make up buttons and sell them to the liberal (congressional) leadership, that say, ‘Let Clinton be Clinton,’ ” Dornan said. “Let’s see if he really is the moderate he claimed he was.”

Greater budget-cutting authority for Clinton also figures into the legislative program outlined by Cox. Its centerpiece is the Budget Reform Act, a bill he first introduced in the last Congress.

The legislation would revamp dramatically the way Congress enacts the annual federal budget. Among other things, it would outlaw all appropriations bills until a budget is adopted, grant the President greater authority to trim spending accounts and make it much more difficult for Congress to bypass budget-making rules.

“I’m convinced that this remains potentially the most significant legislative achievement of the post-World War II period, and this year, it’s possible,” Cox said.

“Since Democrats control everything, it may now be possible to look at (budget reform) from the standpoint of the national interest.”

Also on Cox’s agenda is a bill that would make federal education aid dependent not only on need, but academic performance, and legislation that would reform state workers’ compensation laws in an attempt to limit costs and abuses.

He also will introduce a Republican alternative to the Democrats’ health care proposals.

Instead of establishing a national health insurance program, as many Democrats propose, Cox would try to reduce the costs of health care and health insurance directly to make coverage more affordable and more available. His bill would restore the full deductibility of health care expenses, and crack down on malpractice lawsuits. Among other things, the legislation would abolish “pain and suffering” damages and require the losers in health care lawsuits to pay the winners’ legal expenses.

As his first venture into federal legislation, freshman Royce (R-Fullerton) will resurrect a bill that he pushed through the California Legislature when he served as a state senator.

Aimed at preventing assaults by obsessed stalkers, the California law was designed to give prosecutors a felony charge to level at those who commit repeated threatening acts, even when individual acts, such as vandalism, are misdemeanors. Conviction under the anti-stalking law carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison. To support a conviction, the law requires prosecutors to prove that a suspect repeatedly threatened a victim or vandalized the victim’s property in violation of an existing court order.

A federal law is needed, Royce said, to prevent stalkers from crossing state lines to harass their victims and to bar stalking behavior on federal property, including military installations.

“Many of our past Orange County cases have, in fact, involved individuals who have followed the victim not only across the state line, but from other countries, to commit these crimes,” Royce said.

Royce said he also will work with other freshmen to win a line-item veto for Clinton, and to enact a balanced-budget amendment.

Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), elected to his third term in November, has an equally well-defined program. But it doesn’t involve writing a lot of legislation.

“My No. 1 priority is to beat back the Democrats’ attempt to accomplish their No. 1 priority, which is raising taxes,” Rohrabacher said. “People who believe that the government should control more of the resources of the country are taking total power. . . .

“My prediction is that you’re going to see the most creative proposals for new taxation that you can imagine. . . . It’s not enough just to say, ‘Brace yourself.’ ”

In addition to opposing the Democrats’ spending proposals, Rohrabacher, who serves on the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, said he will work to promote the health of the Southern California aerospace industry and the space program in general. Part of that plan, he said, is to push cooperative space programs with democratic Russia. And he said he will continue to work for measures to discourage illegal immigration, especially from Mexico.

Packard, first elected to Congress in 1982, takes on a new role this year as he moves from House science and transportation committee assignments to the Appropriations Committee. He is the only Orange County lawmaker who serves on the powerful panel, which parcels out hundreds of billions of federal dollars every year.

“I will continue to work on the things that I’ve been interested in in the past,” Packard said, “and that’s transportation and water issues. But I’ll also be looking for ways to help my district and Southern California generally, and in the process hope to help the country.”

Packard said he will work especially hard to ensure continued funding of the Santa Ana River flood-control project, which ultimately will cost nearly $1.5 billion, and the new Orange County federal courthouse to be built in the Santa Ana Civic Center.