Action’s Off Camera in GOP Battle for 69th Assembly Seat

There was no obvious winner or loser in the cable television debate taped late last week among the four Republican candidates running for the nomination in the 69th Assembly District.

A few shots were fired, but compared to the sparks that have been flying among the Democratic candidates in the 69th District race, the television forum could have left the impression that the Republicans have been pretty low key.

Think again.

Behind the scenes is a classic local GOP struggle to win the nomination on June 7 and the right to challenge the Democrats in November for the only legislative seat they hold in Orange County, the one being vacated by Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove), who has opted to run for state attorney general.

The clashes among the Republican candidates span the spectrum: party insiders versus the outsiders, conservatives versus moderates, well-financed campaign machines versus grass-roots organizations, a woman versus three men.

One of the first Republicans in the race was Anaheim manufacturer Jim Morrissey, 64, who is considered by his rivals to be the “anointed” candidate because he is backed by party conservatives, particularly state Sen. Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove) and Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange). He labels himself the non-politician who can represent the interests of small businesses in Sacramento.

Candidate Martin Ageson, 40, whose one-man law firm represents small businesses, is a moderate Republican and former president of the Orange County Young Republicans. He was living four blocks south of the district when he decided to move to Santa Ana to enter the race because he felt the other candidates did not have leadership qualities.

Judy Buffin-Edge, 49, another moderate Republican and party volunteer, worked as a bank branch manager in the district for 18 years before retiring. After licking stamps and doing other chores as a party volunteer for other campaigns, she decided to begin what she calls her “bare roots” effort to take on the “good ol’ boys” in the local party and in Sacramento.

The fourth candidate, Virgel L. Nickell, 51, ran for the Assembly seat two years ago and lost in a bitter battle with conservative Republican Party leader Jo Ellen Allen. But his grass-roots campaign and tenacity have won him some respect, as well as the endorsement of the conservative California Republican Assembly and the Gun Owners Action Committee of Orange County.

If the political guns are pointed in any single direction, it is toward Morrissey, who started his run by lending his campaign $50,000.

Morrissey’s rivals accuse him of being hypocritical in a recent campaign letter to voters, which claimed, “I am not a career politician.”

“He says it himself (in the letter) that he’s backed by 23 Republican legislators. How is he going to stand up independently and vote independently?” Buffin-Edge said in an interview last week. “I can stand alone because I’m not backed by any of them.”

Nickell also criticized the letter. “If he’s not a politician, then how come all the politicians are endorsing him?” he wondered.

Ageson said Morrissey became the “pre-selected” candidate by Conroy and Hurtt before the field of candidates was complete and while the legislators thought the contest would only be between Morrissey and Nickell.

Because Morrissey has tied himself so closely to Conroy, the Orange assemblyman also has become an issue in the race.

When a state commission recently voted to increase the annual salaries for Assembly members from $52,500 to $72,000, Conroy said the raise was justified. Morrissey said that if elected, he would donate the pay increase to charity until the state’s unemployment rate drops from 9.6% to 5.5%.

But during the taped debate, which is to be shown at various times on Comcast Cablevision of Orange County until the primary election, Ageson said Morrissey was copying a prior tactic used by Conroy. The problem with that pledge, Ageson argued, is that “this kind of promise is never enforced.”

Ageson referred to Conroy’s first Assembly campaign during a 1991 special election, in which Conroy said he would not accept an $11,000 pay raise given to legislators that year but instead pledged to donate it to charity. A spokesman for Conroy said the assemblyman donated the pay raise the first year he was in office, then began receiving it thereafter.

Morrissey defended his position during the television taping, noting that any pay raise that is rejected by a member is automatically returned to the Legislature’s leadership.

“To say that I would not accept it . . . would give this money to (the Democrat Assembly Speaker) Willie Brown to spend, because this money comes out of the budget for the Assembly,” Morrissey said.

In a later interview, Morrissey said “sour grapes” was driving the criticism about the endorsements he has received from outside the district.

“(The legislators) are endorsing me because of my business background and because, of all four of us (candidates), I am the only one that can win in November,” Morrissey said.

Buffin-Edge said Morrissey is not the only candidate with business experience. As a bank branch manager, she argued, she dealt daily with people trying to cope during recessions.

“Some people ask me, ‘Do you really think you can make a change?’ I am at least smart enough to keep my hand off of the Yes button on new taxes and on new regulations,” Buffin-Edge said.

Ageson, who has won endorsements from local officials in the district, said that while business retention is a top issue for the district, the problems facing the state require a cohesive strategy that includes finding solutions to crime and improving the education system.

“I’m the only one who’s ever talked about the need for leadership,” Ageson said during a separate interview. “(Morrissey) just wants to talk about being a businessman.”

Nickell touts the grass-roots support he is receiving in the district.

“There’s only going to be about 12,000 voters who vote in the primary,” he said. “You go out and count my 1,000 yard signs and see where the voters are.”

He also pledged that if elected, he would not change his telephone number.

“I have worked on Republican campaigns, and the day after the election, they change their phone number so that I can never get ahold of them.”