<i> A behind-the-scenes look at Orange County’s political life</i> : On Issues of Decency, Congressmen Tackle Those Bare Essentials

We don’t want to say Orange County’s delegation in Washington has gone wild and crazy with sex, but there was a certain theme to some of their doings in D.C. last week:

* Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) co-authored a bill that would give parents, not the government, the power to block children’s access to erotic pictures and sexually explicit materials on home computers. It differs from a recently approved Senate bill, which bans indecent or obscene communications on the Internet and makes the originators criminally liable.

* Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) was one of several conservative House members who sponsored an “obscene art” exhibit on Capitol Hill. The graphic display of art depicting sex acts was organized by the Christian Action Network to lobby against continued funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.

* Rep. Jay C. Kim (R-Diamond Bar) went to the House floor in support of the flag desecration amendment, arguing that burning Old Glory and claiming freedom of speech offended him as much as someone “running around naked trying to express their freedom of speech.”

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But seriously . . . Local congressmen returning home this week for the Fourth of July recess are a little bruised from recent “discussions” with their colleagues.

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) was leading the debate on his appropriations bill to cut congressional perquisites when a floor fight erupted. Democrats howled that voting on a key amendment was cut off just as two from their ranks were about to vote. The Democrats, it turned out, had lost by two votes. The GOP agreed to redo the vote and the Democrats won--sparing from the budget knife an agency that does research for Congress. Packard vowed to continue the battle after the recess.

In another budget debate, Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton), a leader of the “Porkbusters Coalition” singled out two “pork” projects in the military construction budget--including a new gymnasium--that were not requested by the Pentagon. He was met with a wall of criticism--one member called him “disingenuous”--because Royce, too, had requested money for projects in his own district in the past. The Royce amendment failed.

In what the National Journal calls a looming “messy floor fight,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and Rep. Carlos Moorhead (R-Glendale) continued to lock horns over their competing patent law changes. From the House chamber, Rohrabacher assailed Moorhead for not allowing the bill to go through Moorhead’s “obscure” committee that has jurisdiction. Rohrabacher called the move “arrogant.”

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Where’s Doris: Conspicuously absent from a recent mailer touting the reasons why “Orange County Republicans Are Voting No on Measure R” was any mention of the senior member of the Assembly, Speaker Doris Allen (R-Cypress). Photographs of nearly all the other members of the county delegation were prominently displayed on the mailer, including county Republican Party Chairman Tom Fuentes.

Republican political consultant Mark Thompson, who helped create the mailer, said the GOP-backed recall attempt targeting Allen had nothing to do with her absence. She’s not there because he never received word from Allen that he could use her name, Thompson said.

But Tom Rogers of San Juan Capistrano, a key strategist for the No on Measure R forces, said Allen was the first county politician to respond to his call to fight the measure when he began the campaign early this year.

“Doris Allen was the best of the bunch. She was absolutely opposed to the tax increase and was straightforward in her opposition to it,” Rogers said. “She told me I could use her name any time.”

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Cannons fodder: Stopping for a fund-raiser at Cannons Restaurant above Dana Point Harbor that drew about 100 people Wednesday was Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan.

After spending Tuesday morning live on KABC-AM’s Michael Jackson Show, where he declared the GOP “a Buchanan Party now,” Buchanan came to Dana Point and found about 20 gay and lesbian protesters outside the cliff-top restaurant, one of them carrying a flag bearing a swastika.

Bill LaPointe of Laguna Beach, publisher of the Blade, a gay and lesbian news magazine in the county, said the group was targeting Buchanan for his unabashed opposition to the homosexual lifestyle.

“We’re here to dispel the lies Buchanan keeps perpetuating on the gay and lesbian community as being responsible for the breakdown of traditional family values,” LaPointe said. “All we are looking for are the same rights that most U.S. citizens take for granted, and that’s the right to commit ourselves to the person who touches our hearts.”

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No problem: During the months of the heated Measure R campaign, many local observers questioned whether the wounds caused by the daily political battles would heal quickly after Election Day.

There is no question that the bankruptcy recovery measure created a large rift in the Republican Party and made adversaries, at least temporarily, of key GOP leaders. Measure R proponents such as Sheriff Brad Gates, Donald L. Bren and Gary Hunt of the Irvine Co., Newport Beach attorney Dana Reed and taxpayers’ advocate Reed Royalty, all faithful Republicans, were pitted against the party’s county central committee and its elected state and federal officials, who opposed it.

But as the measure went down to defeat last week, Reed predicted there would be no political fallout and the party would quickly reunite.

“That’s because Measure R is not a partisan issue,” Reed said while awaiting returns at Antonello’s restaurant in Santa Ana. “Once this is over, we’ll all get back to the immediate partisan issue at hand, that of replacing Bill Clinton.”

Compiled by Times staff writer Len Hall, with contributions from Times staff writer Gebe Martinez.

Politics ’95 appears every Sunday.