Questions About the Senate Primary

* The opportunity to elect a new California state senator to represent our coastal community is, for all practical purposes, over. If tradition holds, the primary is the only vote that really counts in this huge Republican stronghold.

The winner, our new state senator, was Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-Placentia). He moved here just prior to the election to qualify for the race. The day after the election he closed his office, disconnected his telephones, pulled up stakes and moved back to his official home in Sacramento.

It was an election that few of us as Americans or as local citizens can look back on with any sense of pride. Few of the 800,000 people in our district, which stretches from Seal Beach to Laguna and inland to Costa Mesa and Tustin, even bothered to go to the polls.

Actually, of the 400,000-plus registered voters, only 60,000 or 15% bothered to vote. That means (Johnson), who received 18,546 votes, was elected by less than 3% of the people who live here. The powerful political interests behind the scenes are amazed at how easy it was. And more important, politicians everywhere learned some very valuable lessons.

First, a precedent was created when neither the secretary of state or attorney general objected to Assemblyman Johnson abandoning the voters of his district and establishing his legal residence totally away from and outside the district he represents. This has already encouraged several other members of the Assembly, those facing term limits, to begin packing their bags for a move into some Senate district that could offer them an opportunity to remain in politics.

Whether or not Johnson proves to represent us well or not, only time will tell. However, there are many things voters knew about Gil Ferguson and Doris Allen prior to the election that they should have known about Johnson, such as: Who is he? Who supplied the $500,000 for his campaign and why did the county chairman of our (Republican) party join with other political “king-makers” to dictate the elections outcome? What is their agenda?

Had the newspapers and many Republican clubs, business and civic groups in our community taken an active part in the election and asked the tough questions, we would have known. They could also have encouraged more people to vote.

Perhaps involving more voters would not have changed the results of the election, but at least those who did vote would have been better informed, and we would have gotten beyond the slick mailers.

Isn’t that what democracy should be about?

JAMES MEEHAN

Costa Mesa