Election Officials Are Hard to Please, but So Is the Electorate

RUNNING ON EMPTY: It is official: the “Dragon Lady” will not appear on the April ballot alongside the four candidates for the 5th District City Council seat.

Despite relentless appeals, Lea Purwin D’Agostino, the 17-year prosecutor with a never-say-die attitude, could not persuade election officials to put her name on the ballot after they determined that she failed to submit the signatures of 500 valid voters on her nominating petition.

But the incident raises questions: How did a well-educated attorney who employs a professional campaign staff fail to meet the first basic requirement of a candidate?

Her campaign puts part of the blame on election officials in the city clerk’s office.

Under city election rules, each candidate is allowed to submit signatures up to five days before the Feb. 14 deadline. If election officials find that fewer than 500 signatures are valid, the candidate can go out and collect additional signatures before the deadline.

But D’Agostino says election officials told one of her campaign workers during a phone conversation on Feb. 9 that the signatures could not be submitted early and must be filed on the day of the deadline.

Relying on that advice, D’Agostino’s campaign waited until the last day to submit 679 signatures.

Unfortunately for D’Agostino, election officials counted only 380 of the signatures as valid. After she appealed, election officials agreed to count another 61 signatures. D’Agostino appealed again, this time to Superior Court Judge Robert O’Brien, who ordered election officials to count another 24 signatures. But that only brought her up to 465 signatures, still 35 short of the mark.

Darry Sragow, D’Agostino’s campaign manager, said that if it were not for the erroneous information from election officials D’Agostino would have known early on that she did not have enough signatures and would have had time to gather more before the Feb. 14 deadline.

He also accused election officials of being “hyper-technical” for rejecting dozens of signatures that were later found to be valid.

But why didn’t campaign workers submit more than 679 signatures in the first place to increase the chances of reaching the 500 mark? And why didn’t someone question the erroneous information that the campaign got over the phone? After all, the campaign had copies of the campaign guidelines, which said signatures could, in fact, be submitted early. And, finally, if election officials were being “hyper-technical,” wouldn’t they be “hyper-technical” with all the candidates?

Sragow agrees that, in hindsight, the staff could have submitted additional signatures and double-checked the erroneous information. But Sragow still defended them, saying: “I think everyone in this campaign did a good job.”

And as for the “hyper-technical” attitude of election officials, he said he is not sure if the other candidates got the same treatment.

“Some supporters say there was a conspiracy against Lea,” he said. “We are not saying that.”

If D’Agostino still wants to run for the post, she is left with two options: find an appellate judge who will order election officials to count more of her signatures or sign up as a write-in candidate.

To be a write-in candidate, she must pay a $300 filing fee or submit the signatures of 500 registered voters. And she would not be allowed to use the signatures she has already gathered. She would have to start from scratch.

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WHOSE TERM LIMITS ARE THESE, ANYWAY?: Sacramento politics is riddled with ironies, not the least of which is the amount of mileage longtime lawmaker state Sen. Don Rogers gets out of riding the anti-government wave.

Rogers, a conservative Republican representing the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, has served eight years in the Assembly and nine in the Senate.

Still, he is successful at casting himself as an outsider. Much to his critics’ chagrin, Rogers is a popular speaker before groups embracing the so-called “patriot movement” stirring up fear and distrust of government.

But voter-approved term limits for state legislators will force Rogers out of the Senate next year. Word now is that he’s one of a handful of state senators considering turning around and running for the Assembly, the original springboards for their Statehouse careers. This could buy the veteran legislator another six years in the Capitol.

Prospects of such a trend have political reformers crying foul--and pointing out that what voters really wanted was new blood in Sacramento.

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SPEAKING OF TERM LIMITS: The House Judiciary Committee approved a constitutional amendment this week that would limit congressional terms. But, just as in Sacramento, the plan will not necessarily do away with career politicians.

Intense wrangling on the committee killed the more stringent plans under consideration.

Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale), for instance, broke ranks with his fellow Republicans on the committee Wednesday and helped vote down a six-year limit for members of the House.

Moorhead, now in his 12th term, was one of five Republicans who joined the Democrats on the committee--including Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City)--in opposing the six-year limit for House members.

That plan, Moorhead and other critics argued, would have put House members at a disadvantage to their Senate colleagues and changed the balance of power between the two chambers. So instead, the committee endorsed a 12-year term limit for the House and Senate.

But the amendment that will be considered by the full House in the coming weeks contains a loophole for those who want to sidestep term limits. The provision allows lawmakers to return to Congress after their 12 years are over by simply skipping one term before running again.

Moorhead, for one, does not expect many members to take advantage of that. And the veteran lawmaker considers the whole issue moot for him personally.

“It doesn’t affect me either way,” Moorhead said. “I’m going home to my hometown of Glendale. I just want to leave this place in good shape.”

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POWER FREEZEOUT: One of the Assembly’s brightest newcomers saw his prospects dimmed last week by Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

James Rogan, a Republican who quit his Municipal Court judgeship last year to represent Glendale-Burbank in the Assembly, was frozen out of a leadership position in spite of a gentleman’s agreement between Brown and the Republicans.

Rogan was the Republican designee for a job-sharing arrangement in which he and Democrat Joe Baca (D-Rialto) would take turns as co-speaker pro tem, or second-in-command of the Assembly.

Trouble was, Brown followed through on the deal for Baca but not for Rogan, according to Phil Perry, top aide to the Assembly’s Republican caucus.

When the time came for someone to second a motion to install Rogan as co-speaker pro tem, Brown refused to recognize the move. “He very conveniently didn’t notice people who wanted to second a motion,” Perry said.

Consequently, Rogan was left adrift. He wasn’t picked to chair any Assembly policy committee because it was thought he needed to turn his full attention to his leadership job. Now he has neither.

Republicans are not pleased. “That didn’t sit too well with us,” said Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard). “These are some of the little quirks which goad us into dissatisfaction.”

Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills) said the episode reaffirms Republicans’ contention that Brown bends the rules to suit his wishes.

But this is not the end of the story, says Perry. Rogan will bounce back when Republicans regain an advantage in the Assembly, he predicted.

“In effect, Mr. Rogan is being underutilized,” Perry said. “He’s too valuable a commodity to let sit idly by.”

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ON THE DOLE: Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole is not moonlighting as president of the San Fernando Valley-based Dole Food Co.

But the mayor of a small town in Turkey doesn’t know that.

Mayor Burhanettin Ozfatura recently banned the sale of Dole bananas at several government-run grocery stores in Ismir on the Aegean coast. Ozfatura took the action to send a message to Sen. Dole, whom Ozfatura blames for an attempt in Congress to block American aid to Turkey.

Dole, the fruit company based in Westlake Village, has no connection to Dole, the Kansas Republican, company officials insist. The company bears the name of founder James Dole, who died in 1972 and was no relation to the Senate biggie.

Martin reported from Los Angeles, Craft from Sacramento and Lacey from Washington, D.C.