Parties Reworking Identities to Attract More Voters

As military lawyers, Robert L. Gallaway and Kevin Ready were trained to promote good order and discipline in the ranks.

As the leaders of Ventura County’s Democratic Party, they are trying to bring a little discipline to a group that revels in freewheeling, free-thinking behavior.

“It is loose,” Chairman Gallaway says of the local Democratic Party structure. “Certainly more can be done with a tighter organization.”

The two former members of the military’s Judge Advocate General Corps are tightening the rules on who can vote at party meetings and cracking down on members who go AWOL.

These are no McGovernites. They are moderate Clinton-style Democrats, former Army and Navy officers who want the party to accomplish something in Ventura County that happens less and less: They want Democratic candidates to win.

Yet Gallaway knows he must proceed cautiously with shaping up the apparatus of a party that takes pride in its views on tolerance and pluralism. To restrain the party’s unruly nature could stifle its members’ creativity and energy.

“If you run the place like a military organization, you are going to frustrate the very people you are trying to encourage to participate,” Gallaway said. “We walk a fine line.”

Ventura County was Democratic territory until 1984. Then the Republican Party took the lead in voter registration, fortified by Los Angeles County Republicans moving into Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley and Moorpark.

Republican registration now outnumbers Democrats by 13,000 voters. And, the Republican Party, despite the wrangling between moderates and social conservatives, has mounted a much stronger effort in recent years registering voters, raising money and assisting candidates.

Gallaway wants to change all that--a position underscored by the decline of Democrats in key public positions.

State Sen. Jack O’Connell, who recently moved to San Luis Obispo, is the only Democrat in the county’s five-member delegation in Sacramento. Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson, whose district stretches into Thousand Oaks, is retiring from Congress, and Democrats are scrambling to hang onto that seat.

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Earlier this year, Democratic officials had trouble recruiting candidates to challenge incumbent Republican lawmakers.

Only after a last-minute scramble did party officials manage to assemble a full slate of candidates, so that none of the Republican incumbents had a free ride during the November general election.

Hoping he does not have to face that again, Gallaway has launched a major effort to groom Democratic candidates for the future.

His idea is to get Democrats involved at all levels of government, including appointed positions on various commissions and nonpartisan offices. After gaining some experience, these Democrats would be able to use their name recognition to seek higher office.

“That’s the best way to go, moving up through the system instead of jumping from the middle of nowhere,” Gallaway said.

Matching Democrats with appropriate interests and skills to various appointed positions has another benefit, he said. “It also makes sure our government is open to the ideals of the Democratic Party.”

The Democratic Central Committee is supported by the Greater Oxnard Organization of Democrats and clubs in Camarillo, the Conejo Valley, Ojai and Ventura.

Gallaway wants to foster the development of these clubs as a source of candidates and volunteers and to launch similar clubs in Moorpark, Simi Valley and other communities.

The party also has a club at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. Gallaway hopes to establish such clubs at Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura colleges as well.

He sees it as paramount to the party’s future growth. “If we don’t get people involved in party politics when they are young and idealistic,” he said, “we don’t stand much chance when they reach mid-20s apathy.”

Gallaway, 45, grew up the son of an Army officer, living in Germany and other posts around the nation. He went to college on an ROTC scholarship at UC Davis and then attended Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. He earned a master’s degree in tax law at Georgetown University while serving in the Army.

Gallaway completed his five-year obligation with the Army and switched to the Army reserves as a captain. He has continued in the reserves and is now a lieutenant colonel.

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In 1981, he began practicing law in Sacramento until he met his future wife, Sara Essa, a Ventura College history professor. She coaxed him to Ventura County, where he has lived since 1985 and practiced tax law.

In his fine suits and brown Mercedes-Benz, Gallaway has the appearance of a conservative tax attorney. One wouldn’t think that he was the county Democratic party chief.

Since his election as chairman in July, he has taken plenty of ribbing from the largely conservative partners at his law firm.

When Gallaway was elevated to chairman, he kept Ready as his first vice chairman.

Ready, a lawyer who works for Santa Barbara County government, made a name for himself last year as a candidate challenging Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley).

A twice-enlisted military officer and former federal prosecutor, Ready bashed Gallegly for waffling on anti-crime legislation and even questioned how Gallegly avoided the draft in the ‘60s.

Ready decided not to run this year for Gallegly’s seat because of personal commitments. But he is enthusiastic about helping Gallaway shape up the Democratic Party.

“We needed somebody like Bob [Gallaway],” Ready said. “He’s got spirit and the intelligence and diplomacy. As a business attorney, he knows the practicality of getting things done.”

Gallaway insists that he has no aspirations to take his political career further.

“It takes a lot of luck to win public office,” he said. “I used up all of my luck jumping out of airplanes in the Army.”

He managed to walk away without injury from an accident in which both his main and reserve chutes failed on his first training jump at the Army’s jump school.

His lack of interest in a political candidacy seems genuine.

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Despite his military leadership training, his legal experience and Kennedyesque looks, Gallaway seems more comfortable in the role of a behind-the-scenes organizer than as a politician maneuvering for center stage.

At a recent central committee meeting, the state Democratic Party’s regional director, Bob Handy, publicly praised Gallaway for working long hours--often late into the night--recruiting candidates and breathing new life into the local party.

“In this man, you have a jewel,” Handy told the central committee members.

Gallaway did not lap up the public praise, as most aspiring politicians would.

He blushed.