Inquiries Seek Story of Improper Candidacy : Politics: Democrats subpoena Pringle, others to testify about Campbell’s repudiated run for party’s nomination in the 67th Assembly District. D.A. intensifies probe into falsified election documents.

Efforts to determine who aided a Huntington Beach woman’s improper attempt to get on the ballot in the 67th Assembly District race intensified Friday as the District Attorney’s office and the Democratic Party announced they are moving ahead with separate investigations.

Both the Democrats and the District Attorney’s office are seeking to question Laurie Campbell of Huntington Beach, whose name was stricken from the ballot last week by a Superior Court judge.

The Democratic Party successfully challenged Campbell’s candidacy, claiming that she lied on her nomination papers. The judge found that someone other than Campbell had circulated the nominating petitions, although she had signed an affidavit stating that she collected the signatures herself.

The Democratic Party also has issued subpoenas to take testimony under oath from Republican Assembly Leader Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove); his chief of staff, Jeff Flint; and Campbell’s husband, Kendrick. They are seeking to recover attorneys’ fees and the cost to the county of reprinting election material that contained Campbell’s name, said Wylie Aitken, executive director of the Democratic Foundation of Orange County, which has financed the lawsuit.

In the suit, the Democrats said Campbell was encouraged to enter the campaign by “one or more Republican legislators and their operatives.” Aitken said those subpoenaed were chosen based on information from numerous sources.

Republican Party leaders have rejected the charges, saying they are based on supposition.

Flint declined to comment on the subpoenas. Pringle could not be reached for comment Friday.

At the same time, the District Attorney’s office has upgraded to an investigation its previous inquiry into how Campbell got onto the ballot and who encouraged or aided her, said Guy Ormes, supervising deputy district attorney of the special assignments section.

Ormes said he has asked Campbell and her attorney C. Emmett Mahle to speak with attorneys from his office and is awaiting a response. Prosecution in the case “is certainly a possibility,” Ormes said, but added that he could not yet state whether it would occur.

Mahle said he has spoken with the Campbells about the district attorney’s request, but no decision has been reached.

Laurie and Kendrick Campbell could not be reached for comment Friday.

Prosecutors hope to learn who circulated Campbell’s petitions. A source close to the case said Campbell and those who obtained signatures for her may have violated several provisions of the state election code, which cover making false statements on nominating petitions or filing false affidavits.

The penalty for violating each of the code sections is a fine of up to $1,000, 16 months to two years in prison, or both.

Aitken, who would take the depositions, said he has asked the couple to appear Nov. 14 and Pringle and Flint to appear Nov. 16.

Campbell was one of six candidates running on the replacement ballot in the Nov. 28 recall election of former Assembly Speaker Doris Allen (R-Cypress), but her name was removed from the ballot last week by Superior Court Judge James T. Ford. The county has spent about $40,000 to reprint the elections material.

Voters in the northwest Orange County district are being asked to recall Allen and to decide simultaneously who would replace her. There now are four Republicans and one Democrat on the winner-take-all ballot. The election will help decide who controls the Assembly when legislators reconvene in January.

Campbell is a political unknown and her filing of nominating papers led to speculation among Democrat Party officials that she was a candidate put up by Republicans to dilute the Democratic vote.

In the only interview she has given, she described herself as a conservative and said she was running to keep a liberal from winning. She has refused to identify who asked her to run, but said her backers include friends, relatives, people who live outside the district and some who “are fairly well known.”

Orange County Republican leaders and other conservatives have denied any connection to Campbell’s candidacy. But they say it was part of their election strategy to limit the election field to three or fewer Republicans, and to recruit Democrats in the hope of diluting the vote for Democrat Linda Moulton-Patterson. Republican leaders and others said the tactic is common statewide.

Moulton-Patterson is an ex-school board trustee and Huntington Beach City Council member. Campbell has said that her “personal fear” was that Moulton-Patterson would win the election if another, more conservative, Democrat did not enter the race.

State law requires that the circulator of nomination petitions--whether the candidate or someone else--sign the document and declare under penalty of perjury that he or she is a registered voter in the political district. Campbell had declared she was the circulator of her petitions, but in sworn affidavits eight registered Democrats who signed the petition said they were asked to sign them by a white male between 25 and 35 years of age.

The Republican candidates in the race are Scott Baugh, Shirley Carey, Don MacAllister and Haydee V. Tillotson.

The district encompasses Cypress, Huntington Beach, Los Alamitos, Rossmoor and Seal Beach, along with almost all of Fountain Valley and La Palma and fragments of five other cities.