Feinstein Seeks Dismissal of Challenge : Politics: Democrat asks Senate panel to dismiss Huffington’s charge of voter fraud. She says he has failed to present any evidence.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked the Senate on Monday to dismiss an effort by her defeated opponent to overturn the results of the November election, claiming that former Rep. Mike Huffington’s petition to unseat her is filled with nothing but “speculation and innuendo.”

Feinstein, a Democrat sworn into her second term Wednesday over the protests of a vanquished Huffington, contends that the Republican failed to identify a single improperly cast vote and offered only “a mere possibility” that as many as 170,000 people registered or voted illegally.

“Mr. Huffington has presented no evidence of voter fraud,” Feinstein said as her attorneys made the request to the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which is reviewing Huffington’s claims of widespread voter fraud. “I sincerely hope that the (committee) will read and evaluate the petition, realize it is devoid of evidence, and dismiss it.”

Meanwhile, the Rules Committee announced Monday that it has hired two bipartisan attorneys to review the challenge. Feinstein aides have begun a phone solicitation blitz to raise money to defray their mounting legal costs. Attorney fees are adding to a campaign debt that stands at nearly $500,000, not to mention about $2.5 million Feinstein loaned to her own campaign that has not been repaid.

“We learned long ago not to underestimate how low Congressman Huffington would stoop, and he’s stooped beyond the point we thought possible,” said Feinstein press secretary Bill Chandler. “She is going to raise the money in the event the legal costs escalate.”

Huffington--who spent a record $28 million of his own money on the campaign and lost by about 165,000 votes--based his case on a study by the Orange County-based Voter Fraud Task Force. The study sampled 84 of about 25,000 precincts statewide, identified so-called suspicious votes, then extrapolated the numbers to apply to the entire state.

But a review by the registrars of voters in Fresno and Alameda counties have since revealed that some of the so-called dead voters who appear to have cast ballots were alive and fully eligible to vote, Feinstein noted. In other cases, election officials mistakenly recorded dead people as voting when it was live voters who signed their names on the wrong line.

Even if Huffington’s claim of 170,000 fraudulent votes proved true, Feinstein contended, virtually every one of them would have had to have voted for her to alter the outcome. Since Feinstein received 46% to Huffington’s 44%, the improperly cast votes would likely be split accordingly, making Feinstein the winner still, her lawyers argued.

“Nixon lost to JFK by fewer votes and showed he was a sportsman. Huffington is showing he’s a spoiled rich kid who always got his way,” Chandler said.

But Huffington reiterated the charges Monday. “Sen. Feinstein wants to cover up the fraud that took place in the 1994 Senate election,” he said. “The people of the state of California deserve better. It is unfair to the citizens of this great state to have their votes negated by illegal votes of non-citizens.”

The challenge does not keep Feinstein from performing her duties as senator, and her aides term the matter “an inconvenience.” But it could cost her a lot of money to contest.

At least two lawyers have been assigned to fight the challenge. The request filed Monday was signed by Lloyd N. Cutler, former White House counsel and one of the most powerful attorneys in Washington.

Anticipating a Huffington challenge, campaign workers who should have been cleaning out their desks were monitoring absentee ballots the day after the election, officials said. “On Nov. 9, the meter started running,” said former campaign manager Kam Kuwata.

Registered Democrats have been receiving calls since last month from Feinstein aides making “an emergency appeal to our supporters” and asking for contributions of $150 or more to help Feinstein assemble a team of experts in election law.

Kuwata said about $200,000 had been raised and is being handled by a nearly dismantled 1994 campaign staff.

“Even though the challenge is totally unfounded, we are preparing to raise adequate funds to meet the legal challenge,” Kuwata said. “We may need to hire more attorneys to make sure Michael Huffington’s millions are not going to be able to buy and/or steal this election.”

Some experts noted that if nothing else, Huffington could prove a nagging thorn in the senator’s side as she goes about the business of lawmaking. Huffington gave up his House seat to challenge Feinstein and has virtually unlimited time and resources to devote to the challenge.

“The guy has got nothing to do. He doesn’t have to go to work at 8 every day. At the very worst, he keeps his name in the press,” said Mark P. Petracca, associate professor of political science at UC Irvine.

Even before Feinstein’s request for the dismissal was filed, Senate Rules Committee leaders announced Monday that two attorneys have been hired to review Huffington’s petition and help the panel decide whether full-scale hearings should be conducted.

Attorney William B. Canfield--a Washington lawyer who has served as U.S. Senate counsel and staff director of the Office of the Secretary of the Republican Conference, among other Republican groups--was selected by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the Rules Committee chairman.

Attorney Robert F. Bauer--managing partner of a Washington firm, an expert in federal election law and counsel for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee--was selected by Sen. Wendell H. Ford (D-Ky.), the committee’s ranking minority member.

“The Rules Committee has always been objective and fair, and I’m certain that will be the case in this matter,” Ford said.

The Senate has the power to decide who should be seated in office, but there are no clear rules for decision-making. The Senate’s record on contested seats is unpredictable, several scholars said.

Historically, the Senate has taken up hundreds of election challenges, but in few cases is the challenge successful, said UC Irvine’s Petracca, citing a 1972 Senate report identifying 164 contested elections. When challenges did succeed, they were usually in cases where the challenger belonged to the party in power. Huffington’s party took control of the Senate in the 1994 elections.

But Feinstein has a considerable amount in her favor. She is a member of the Rules Committee that is examining the case and, although she undoubtedly will have to recuse herself from any vote, she will be judged by friends and colleagues with whom she has served since 1992.

Political experts and sources on Capitol Hill said the Senate would have little to gain from voiding Feinstein’s victory and would be loath to interfere in an election where the victory margin was 1.9%--no small spread by California standards.

“I really don’t think the Republicans are going to want to open this can of worms,” said Barbara Sinclair, professor of political science at UC Riverside who studies Congress. “The temptation would be enormous if it made the difference in which party was in control.”

But one more Republican in a Republican-dominated Senate would not make the party veto-proof or filibuster-proof. And voiding the results in the Senate race would pave the way for challenges all over California.