Pressed Not to Run, GOP Candidate Says : Politics: Pringle aide denies to trying to block primary campaign against Irvine assemblywoman.

A first-time GOP legislative candidate charged Wednesday that Republican Assembly Leader Curt Pringle’s chief of staff warned him to stay out of the 70th District race, “threatening” to use the party’s resources against him if he took on the incumbent.

Despite what he described as a last-minute demand from Pringle aide Jeff Flint at the Orange County registrar of voters office Nov. 29, Jacob “Jim” Rems of Irvine took out nominating papers to challenge Assemblywoman Marilyn C. Brewer (R-Irvine) in the March primary.

Rems said he has also filed a complaint against Flint with the district attorney’s office. Officials there could not be reached for confirmation Wednesday.

“It was equivalent to ‘run and we will break your legs’ in my mind,” said Rems, 45, who owns a land surveying company and is a member of the influential, conservative Lincoln Club. “I don’t take kindly to that kind of threat. . . . It’s what I considered to be a corruption of the electoral process or a subversion of it.”

Flint, reached Wednesday in Monterey, acknowledged speaking to Rems by cellular telephone that day, but described the conversation as cordial and said he made no threats. He portrayed Rems’ charges as “a publicity stunt.”

“I did talk to him, but I don’t think that is an accurate representation of the conversation,” Flint said. “All I did was ask Jim, ‘Why are you running against Marilyn Brewer?’ I said, ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea.’ . . . I didn’t intimidate him at all, but I did say I didn’t think he was making a good decision.”

Flint, who said he was speaking for Pringle on the matter and who tracked the candidate filings on Pringle’s behalf, said he and other Republicans routinely monitor the registrar’s office on filing days “as part of our statewide election effort.”

Although Pringle is not directly involved in the Brewer race, as GOP Assembly leader he “doesn’t believe it is a good use of party resources to have [other Republicans] run against incumbent members when they have done a good job,” Flint said.

Rems said he was at the registrar’s office in Santa Ana to declare his intention to run for Brewer’s seat when a man he still cannot identify approached him and “told” him not to run.

Rems said the man--identified Wednesday by Flint as another Pringle aide, Mark Denny--”badgered” him and subsequently demanded that he talk to Flint on a cellular telephone he was carrying.

Rems said the man “bumped” him several times while he was at the counter and “shoved the cellular phone in my face.” Rems said Flint demanded that he not run for the office, and told him, “ ‘We will do everything in our power to make sure Marilyn Brewer wins that race,’ ” Rems recounted.

“Here I am, for the first time making a very difficult and very personal decision, standing at the counter and I have a cellular phone shoved in my face,” Rems recalled. “That put me off to begin with. . . . It’s frightening.”

Rems said he began considering a run for office after Orange County Republican Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes addressed the Lincoln Club, urging its members to get involved in politics. He said he believes Brewer is too liberal.

Tina Vega, supervisor at the registrar of voters office, said she remembers the incident.

“I didn’t hear their conversation, but I saw a man interrupting [Rems],” Vega said. “I was trying to talk to [Rems] and do the filing, but [the other man] kept interrupting.”

Vega, an employee at the registrar of voters office for 10 years, said filing deadlines routinely are busy days. Ropes have been placed in the area to cordon off candidates from other people.

Pringle, of Garden Grove, is attempting to wrest the Assembly speaker’s post away from Brian Setencich (R-Fresno). The recent election of Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) to replace recalled Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) was supposed to give him enough support to capture that post.

Flint and other Pringle aides worked to defeat Allen, and Pringle endorsed Baugh.

The district attorney’s office is investigating whether Baugh committed campaign law violations during the race to succeed Allen. And Orange County Democrats have accused one or more Republican officials of engineering the aborted Assembly candidacy of Democrat Laurie Campbell to siphon votes from Baugh’s main Democratic rival in the replacement race, Linda Moulton-Patterson.

Campbell was thrown off the ballot before the Nov. 28 election when a judge determined that her nomination papers had been falsified. Baugh, Pringle and other GOP leaders have denied any role in fostering Campbell’s candidacy.

William R. Mitchell, chairman of Orange County Common Cause, a local political watchdog agency, said Republicans have never made a secret of their distaste for primary challenges in their party.

“It is well known that the political leadership of the Republican Party actively dissuades primary opposition. That’s just a truism,” Mitchell said. “I think it’s undemocratic, particularly in a one-party county like this.”

As a first-time candidate with little name recognition, Rems appears to be a longshot against incumbent Brewer. He said he has worked for the Republican Party and with Flint on the successful campaign to defeat Measure R, the proposed sales tax increase that supporters said was needed to help the county recover from bankruptcy.

Rems also said he has known former Assemblyman Gil Ferguson, an Allen supporter and rival of Pringle who is running for state Senate, for about 20 years.

Along with Rems and Brewer, four other candidates are expected to seek the seat in the coastal 70th Assembly District, an area that includes Newport Beach, Irvine, Costa Mesa and Laguna Beach. They are Shirley Palley, a Democrat; Marjorie Pantzer, a Republican; Paul Fisher of the Natural Law Party; and Gene Beed, a Libertarian.

To have their names placed on the ballot, the candidates must file their final papers by Dec. 29.