Zeke Hernandez Opens Bid for Umberg’s Assembly Seat : Politics: The Santa Ana businessman is one of three Latinos expected to seek the Democratic nomination for the 69th District. About 37% of registered Democrats there are Latino.

A 47-year-old businessman from Santa Ana announced Thursday he will seek the Democratic nomination for the 69th State Assembly District, possibly setting up a three-way contest among Latino candidates.

Zeke Hernandez said he will run in the June 7 primary against two other Latino candidates in a district where 37% of registered Democrats are Latino. The others, Ted R. Moreno, a Santa Ana councilman, and Enriqueta L. Ramos, a member of the board of trustees of Rancho Santiago College, are expected to announce their candidacies later this month.

They, along with Republican candidates Virgil Nickel, assistant director of Veteran’s Charities of Orange County, and Jim Morrissey, an Anaheim businessman, will pursue the seat that is expected to be vacated by Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove), who announced plans to run for state attorney general. Umberg is the only Democratic legislator in the county.

All three Latino candidates are members of the Democratic Chicano Caucus and have discussed at monthly meetings the possibility of rallying behind one candidate so that the Latino vote would not be split. But each opted to stay in the race to give the community a broader choice, said Dorianne Garcia, chairwoman of the Orange County Democratic Party.

“It may make things difficult as far as splitting up the vote, but they have all committed to running clean campaigns,” Garcia said. “They wanted the community to have its choice in this race.”

Although the district, which represents Anaheim, Garden Grove and Santa Ana, is largely Democratic, it has a reputation for electing Republicans.

If Hernandez, Ramos or Moreno win in the general election on Nov. 1, it would mark only the second time a Latino has won an Assembly seat in Orange County.

In his last of four unsuccessful campaigns for Santa Ana City Council, Hernandez received about 21,000 votes, establishing a base that he said will continue to support him in his run for the Assembly.

Hernandez served as the state director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, and board member of the Santa Ana Housing Advisory, a group that was instrumental two years ago in overturning a redevelopment plan of the Santa Ana City Council. The plan, according to the advisory group, would have displaced Latinos living in low-income areas.

The Santa Ana native also was a member of a group that filed a complaint against the county health and transportation departments in 1992 alleging that Latinos were being excluded from planning and administrative posts there.

Hernandez, making his announcement at the Catholic elementary school he attended 40 years ago in Santa Ana, pledged to make crime fighting his first priority.

“Some of our children are gaining self-esteem through a gun. We need to replace that with more respect for people,” he said. During the hourlong conference, he said he would work to get more police officers out on the streets and develop preventive programs such as youth recreation centers.