GOP Abortion Rights Backers Win Brief Victory

California Republican abortion rights supporters won a short-lived victory Saturday in their attempt to eliminate the anti-abortion plank from the national Republican Party platform.

The Resolutions Committee of the California Republican Party voted 52 to 15 in favor of a measure proposing that the Republican National Convention platform be silent on the abortion issue when the platform is adopted in San Diego in August.

But the vote was nullified minutes later when Resolutions Committee Chairman Michael De Manouel of Fresno declared that the committee lacked a quorum, shortly after at least six members hurriedly left the meeting room, the measure’s sponsor said.

The committee adjourned without official action on any of the 37 resolutions submitted to it.

The resolution, authored by Marjorie Van Nuis of San Diego, recognized the divisive potential of the abortion issue in the party. It declared that it was in the party’s best interest “to acknowledge the heartfelt convictions of all its members” on the abortion issue.

The measure resolved, “The California Republican Party, keenly aware that honorable Republicans hold differing beliefs regarding legal abortion, should urge the Republican National Committee to adopt an ‘abortion-neutral’ platform in 1996.”

Because the measure was Item No. 1 on the agenda, dissolving the committee meant that it would send no resolutions before the official business session of the semiannual Republican State Convention today.

Van Nuis said that at least six members of the Resolutions Committee abruptly left the room after the vote, in an apparent attempt to deny the committee a quorum, and that when an attempt to establish a quorum was made by roll call, only 68 of the 144 committee members answered the call. It takes 73 to make a quorum, De Manouel said.

He overruled the arguments of Van Nuis and her supporters that a quorum had existed when the vote was taken, and that it should be considered official, Van Nuis said. Reporters were barred from the meeting room during the quorum debate.

A competing resolution, which was not heard by the committee, called on the state party “to support our party’s national pro-life platform and support its retention at its next national convention.”

Ordinarily the platform would have been debated and adopted at this election-year convention. But state party Chairman John Herrington had sought to avert any abortion debate during this three-day convention, which was designed to serve as a pep rally of sorts for GOP activists in the final six weeks before the March 26 California primary.

When the party last met--in Palm Springs in September, more than a year before the 1996 election--Herrington had the body routinely reaffirm the California party platform, which also calls for prohibition of legal abortion.

State party officials had hoped in September that all the Republican presidential candidates would be here this weekend to address the delegates and appeal for their support in the California primary. They wanted the approximately 2,000 delegates to focus on the presidential sweepstakes, and not become embroiled in an emotional fight over abortion rights.

But all the candidates were in Iowa this weekend for that state’s caucuses Monday. Six of them did address the California delegates by telephone: Sen. Bob Dole, Patrick J. Buchanan, Steve Forbes, Rep. Robert K. Dornan, Alan Keyes and Lamar Alexander.

Looking forward to the fall campaign, California Gov. Pete Wilson vowed Saturday that the GOP would not make the same mistake it did in 1992, when the George Bush reelection campaign wrote off California as lost to Democrat Bill Clinton early in the contest.

“That not only cost us the White House, but it had devastating consequences for every other race on the ticket,” Wilson said.

The abortion discussion occurred at the beginning of the Resolutions Committee meeting Saturday. At first, Chairman De Manouel ruled the resolution out of order on procedural grounds. But Wilson aide Julia Justice moved that the decision of the chairman be overruled, and the committee voted to do so, participants said. Van Nuis’ measure was passed on a standing vote.

The only way the resolution could be brought before the full convention now is to suspend the rules, which requires a two-thirds vote of the entire body.

Times staff writer Dave Lesher contributed to this story.