<i> A behind-the-scenes look at Orange County’s political life</i> : This Debate Hits Mostly Below the Belt

Then-Assembly Speaker Doris Allen (R-Cypress) blasted her Republican colleagues last week with the most memorable quote of her 13-year Sacramento career: “Do I let a group of power-mongering men with short penises tell me what to do?”

Noting a couple of other similarly themed comments, state GOP leaders faxed out this response:

“With [Tuesday’s] election of Republican Richard Ackerman to the Assembly, Republicans will have won 13 of the last 19 special elections in California. Perhaps the Democrats should spend a little more time looking at the issues and a little less time looking into their pants.”

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Back-to-back: For Cypress residents, November will bring not just one, but two recall votes.

On Nov. 7, Cypress Mayor Cecilia L. Age, Councilwoman Gail H. Kerry and Councilman Walter K. Bowman face a recall election forced by residents angered over their vote last fall to put a large carpet-distribution warehouse near a residential neighborhood.

The Allen recall, set for Nov. 28, will stretch far beyond the former speaker’s Cypress home town. It involves her entire northwest Orange County Assembly district, the 67th.

So far, three candidates have announced their intention to run for Allen’s seat. They are: Scott Baugh, a Huntington beach resident and attorney for Union Pacific Railroad in Los Angeles; Shirley Carey, a Huntington Beach City School Trustee and registered nurse at the Huntington Beach Medical Center, and Haydee V. Tillotson, a local businesswoman and former head of the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce.

The filing period for candidates runs through Sept. 21. Candidates must submit the signatures of 40 district voters who support their candidacies, according to elections officials.

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Media notes: With so many conservatives running the show in Washington, how do you distinguish one Republican from another? Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, ranked House members on a grid ranging from “A Tad Right of Center” to “Off the Grid.”

Of course, four Orange County members of the House of Representatives--Christopher Cox of Newport Beach, Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach, Robert K. Dornan of Garden Grove and Ed Royce of Fullerton, in that order--were “Off the Grid.”

That puts them far beyond the 1980, 1988, and 1995 versions of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole’s conservatism, as well as the philosophies of other GOP presidential candidates, Texas Sen. Phil Gramm and commentator Pat Buchanan.

O.C.’s two other congressmen, Jay C. Kim of Diamond Bar and Ron Packard of Carlsbad, were closer to the “center” of the spectrum, in the “Gingrichians” category.

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Missing majority: Once again, most people didn’t vote in a recent special election, Tuesday’s race that installed attorney Richard Ackerman (R-Fullerton) as the Assembly member from the 72nd District.

Ackerman, a former Fullerton mayor, was the landslide winner, but only 22,000 of the 180,000 registered voters in the district cast ballots.

The meager turnout is hardly unusual for a special election here.

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Just get the name right: Rohrabacher has been taking a lot of hits lately for being an ocean-loving “surfer congressman” who nonetheless votes against the environmentalist agenda. But his staff is all smiles over the expected inclusion of Rohrabacher and his surfboard in the second issue of George, the new slick, post-partisan political magazine published by JFK’s son, “John-John” Kennedy.

UPCOMING EVENTS

* Monday: A panel of educational experts will be the guests at a forum sponsored by the Yorba Linda Republican Women Federated from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Yorba Linda Community Center. Call (714) 779-2770 or (714) 993-9675.

* Wednesday: Barbara Stone, a professor of political science at Cal State Fullerton, will be the guest speaker at the 10 a.m. meeting of the Capistrano Valley Republican Women Federated, at the Sunset Grille and Bar in Dana Point. Call Lois Nicholson at (714) 496-8559.

* Thursday: Supervisor Jim Silva will be the guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the West Orange County Republican Assembly at 7:30 p.m. at a private home. For information, call Steve Brody at (310) 430-8400.

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Compiled by Times staff writer Len Hall with contributions from Times staff writers Gebe Martinez and Peter M. Warren and correspondent Bill Billiter.

Politics ’95 appears every Sunday.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

1995 Special Election Turnout

Percent of voters for each election and where they voted.

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Polling Election places Absentee Total March 14 primary 8.2% 6.9% 15.1% May 9 runoff 5.2 6.6 11.8 35th State Senate District June 27 bankruptcy 21.7 12.9 34.6 recovery (Measure R) 72nd Assembly District July 18 primary 7.8 6.6 14.4 Sept. 12 runoff 5.8 6.9 12.7

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Source: Registrar of Voters; Researched by Len Hall / For The Times