A behind-the-scenes look at Orange County’s political life : With Gramm a Goner, Key Local Backers Elect to Switch to Undecided

Some New Hampshire voters are this week facing the same decision now confronting Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), state Sen. Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove), Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) and Assemblyman Jim Morrissey (R-Anaheim): Who do you support now that Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) has dropped out of the presidential race?

All four had endorsed Gramm for president. Cox was chairman of Gramm’s California campaign. So now what?

None of the four has made a decision yet, although Cox says he definitely will not endorse Patrick J. Buchanan.

“I have too many substantive disagreements with Pat Buchanan to support him,” said Cox, who added that itemizing the list of “would take me all day.” Cox said he would “feel comfortable” supporting Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and that former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander “is a good man and would make a fine candidate.”

Hurtt, the GOP leader of the state Senate, is “still watching the field,” said his spokesman, Rob Stutzman.

Likewise for Pringle and Morrissey.

“I’m going to hold off and do some thinking on it. I’m just not sure at this point. I’m going to reevaluate everybody,” Morrissey said.

Gary Foster, Pringle’s press secretary, said his boss might remain neutral through the March 26 California primary and joked that “he feels like his endorsement didn’t do Sen. Gramm much good, so he’s not sure if anybody wants his endorsement.”

Katherine Smith

Labor loves a Republican: Organized labor in Orange County has taken that rarest of steps: It has endorsed a Republican.

Katherine Smith, who is challenging Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) in the March GOP primary, has won the backing of the Orange County Central Labor Council and the California Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.

It’s the first time that the local labor group is endorsing a Republican and no Democrat in the primary. Smith, a 30-year Anaheim resident and the wife of a physician, is also the only Republican congressional candidate in the state to win the backing of the state labor federation.

Bill Fogarty, head of the Orange County Labor Council, said Dornan’s support of free trade and his record of opposing worker safety, an increase in the minimum wage and the assault weapon ban are anathema to workers.

“That’s just a shot at me from labor,” Dornan responded. “That’s organized labor still going in an opposite direction from the rank-and-file workers.”

Smith favors disbanding the Internal Revenue Service and replacing it with a national consumption tax, and wants to end parole for violent felons. She has pledged to serve just three terms, then retire from Congress.

But what if she somehow topples Dornan in the primary?

“We will evaluate on the day after the primary. . . . We will be again interviewing the Democrat and will look at Kathy again,” Fogarty said. “She would still make a fine congressperson.”

Gary Copeland

Domicile dispute: Gary Copeland, who is running for the 1st District supervisor’s seat, listed his business address at 17280 Newhope St. in Fountain Valley as his residence when he registered to vote last October. That was a change from his previous voting address at 3700 Plaza Drive in Santa Ana.

Copeland’s problem is that the Santa Ana home, where his wife and two children reside, is in the 2nd Supervisorial District. Is Copeland illegally using a business address as his domicile to run for a seat in a district where he does not live?

No, says Copeland, who maintains he actually lives and sleeps at the Fountain Valley address “most of the time.” He was also registered to vote there from 1988 to 1993, according to county records.

He changed his registration in 1993 so he could help a Libertarian friend, Richard Newhouse, gather signatures on nominating documents for two failed runs for office. “I just forgot to switch it back,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the registrar’s office says candidates must register at their domiciles. Under state law, a domicile is “where you call home, where you go back to,” even if you have several residences, said Tina Vega, a supervisor in the registrar’s office.

The registrar has forwarded a package of information on the matter to the district attorney’s office. “We will review it,” a spokesman there said.

Copeland believes it is much ado about very little.

“Where do you live? I live everywhere,” he said in an interview from the Fountain Valley office/residence. “I lived in my van for 10 years. . . . Sometimes I sleep at 3700 [in Santa Ana] because that is where my wife is. She doesn’t like the bed over here.”

UPCOMING EVENTS

* Monday: Orange County Charter Debate on Measures T & U: KOCE, Channel 50 airs its debate at 6:30.

* Monday: Republican Party Central Committee meets at 7 p.m. at the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel, Costa Mesa.

* Wednesday: Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) and Paul Fick, author of “The Dysfunctional President--Inside the Mind of Bill Clinton,” at Capistrano Valley Republican Women Federated, 11 a.m., Dana Point Hilton. (714) 489-9889 or (714) 493-4787.

* Friday: 3rd Supervisorial District candidates lunch and debate sponsored by Conservative Women’s Leadership Assn. Holiday Inn, 25205 E. La Paz Road, Laguna Hills. $20 for members, $25 nonmembers. (714) 493-8783.

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Compiled by Times staff writer Eric Bailey, with contributions from staff writer Peter Warren and correspondent Sarah Klein.

Politics ’96 appears every Sunday. Items can be mailed to Politics ‘96, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or faxed to (714) 966-7711.