Democrats Seek Deposition From Campbell : Politics: Attorneys also want to force Assembly GOP Leader Curt Pringle to tell all in their effort to prove there was a Republican conspiracy in the crucial Doris Allen recall election last month.

In a legal fight rife with statewide political implications, attorneys will do battle here Friday over whether a Democrat placed on the ballot with Republican help to fuel a GOP victory in a key Orange County election last month should be forced to tell all.

Attorneys for the Orange County Democratic Party are attempting to get candidate Laurie Campbell as well as Assembly GOP Leader Curt Pringle of Garden Grove to sit down for a deposition in hopes of proving a Republican conspiracy.

The Democrats also are eager to force Pringle’s chief of staff, Jeff Flint, as well as Campbell’s husband, Rick, to tell what they know under oath.

Aside from making political hay, the Democrats hope to recapture attorney fees they incurred in October while pressing a civil case that prompted Sacramento Superior Court Judge James T. Ford to toss Campbell off the ballot for submitting falsified nomination papers when she ran in the replacement election for recalled Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress).

The Democrats’ attorneys will take the case back to court today and say they want to force participants in the scheme to reimburse the county of Orange for the $50,000 it cost to reprint new ballots in the contest, which was won by Assemblyman Scott Baugh, a Huntington Beach Republican supported by Pringle.

Lawyers for Campbell will argue that their client, whose role in the episode is part of a current investigation by the Orange County district attorney, should not be forced to talk about the case until it is clear she cannot be hit with criminal charges, according to court papers.

Attorneys for Pringle and Flint, meanwhile, maintain that their clients were not involved in putting Campbell on the ballot.

“They want to drag me into a lawsuit I’m not a party to,” Pringle said Wednesday.

Flint and another Pringle aide, Mark Denny, have been accused by another GOP campaign worker of helping Campbell with her nomination papers. Flint has staunchly denied he had any role.

Pringle said he avoided the topic with his aides for fear he might be queried by the Democrats if forced to testify in a deposition. But he acknowledged this week that he finally questioned both his aides last week, and Denny admitted that he had helped gather signatures for Campbell.

The case is being closely monitored in Sacramento, where Pringle is in the middle of a pitched fight as he tries to wrestle the Assembly leadership away from Speaker Brian Setencich, a Republican freshman from Fresno supported by the Democrats.

Pringle has yet to be directly linked to anything, but lawmakers in both parties say the political fallout from a barrage of news stories has already proved a serious problem for his chances to capture the speakership and could potentially threaten his position as Republican caucus leader.

In court papers, Democratic attorneys say Campbell wants to delay her deposition because of fears it would undermine her 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination in any criminal case. But the Democrat attorneys contend that the argument as well as her husband, Pringle and Flint--have yet to even exercise their Fifth Amendment privilege.

“Life is not so simple,” wrote George Waters, the Democrats’ attorney, in court papers. “If and when Ms. Campbell actually asserts the Fifth Amendment, she may possibly be entitled to a stay of her deposition. . . . We can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Democrats contend Republican leaders or elected officials orchestrated Campbell’s candidacy to siphon Democratic votes from the party’s candidate, former Huntington Beach Mayor Linda Moulton-Patterson, who finished second to Baugh.

In her only interview since the scandal broke, Campbell described herself as a conservative and has said she was running to keep a liberal from winning.