ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Recall of Allen an Empty Exercise?

It should now be apparent that voters in Orange County’s 67th Assembly District simply have traded one political mess for another in recalling Doris Allen and replacing her with novice Scott Baugh. They ought to question whether the long and expensive recall effort really was much more than an exercise in political gamesmanship.

How much of the recent controversy is smoke and how much is fire is still being explored. A state Republican conservative leader, Michael Schroeder, this week complained about Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi’s investigation into links between the short campaign of Democratic candidate Laurie Campbell and Baugh, a Republican. However, it is clear that Baugh has invited precisely this kind of scrutiny.

He has acknowledged returning a $1,000 cash contribution from Campbell’s husband that went unreported on financial disclosure forms until hours before the polls closed Nov. 28. It is illegal in California for a campaign to receive or make any payments in cash in excess of $100, and the omission on financial disclosure forms raises a legitimate question of whether an attempt was made in the Baugh camp to conceal any relationship with the Campbells. It is also now clear that Baugh knew Laurie Campbell much longer than he first said.

For all the manufactured urgency of Allen’s critics, voters find that in filling a seat for a remainder of a term they have sent to Sacramento a representative whose defenders are reduced to trying to make a virtue of naivete. More disturbing should be the recognition that in replacing a veteran assemblywoman, they have substituted an untested politician who has come out of the gate demonstrating that he has a problem being entirely truthful.

The controversy also has provided a glimpse of operations in the offices of a couple of leading Orange County elected officials. Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), a hopeful for Assembly speaker, now says an aide participated in gathering signatures for Campbell even though he would not have approved it. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher acknowledges that his own campaign manager was “peripherally” involved, despite his orders to the contrary, in efforts to recruit Campbell as a candidate. But Rohrabacher was also Baugh’s advocate, and the choice now reflects unfavorably on the congressman as political mentor.

Taken together, the acknowledgments and revised statements suggest a pattern of political intrigue. In the case of Baugh himself, there are questions about compliance with election law. All of this points to the need for a well-qualified field and robust campaign when the full term comes up.