Pringle Again Denies Abetting Election Scheme

In the face of grand jury testimony suggesting his office orchestrated the scheme, Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle continued to insist Thursday he was not involved in a plot to recruit a Democratic spoiler in last year’s Orange County race to recall and replace his rival, former Assemblywoman Doris Allen.

In testimony revealed Wednesday, Laurie Campbell, the decoy candidate, said a top Pringle aide set in motion the effort to place Campbell’s name on the ballot as part of a scheme to siphon votes away from an established Democrat who already was on the ballot.

The effort was intended to ensure a Republican victory in the 67th Assembly District election, which Huntington Beach attorney Scott Baugh captured Nov. 28. Allen was recalled the same day.

Campbell said she believed one of Pringle’s top aides, Jeff Flint, acted after major Republican donors became concerned that Republicans would lose the election. She said they feared that with several Republicans and only one Democrat on the ballot, the lone Democrat might win.

But speaking to reporters in the Assembly chambers Thursday, Pringle called such comments “second- and third-hand hearsay and innuendo from people who never spoke to me.”

However, the transcripts show that Richard Martin, a Baugh campaign aide, also told grand jurors that Pringle wanted another Democrat in the race to divide the opposition.

He said he got that impression from a “conversation with Curt Pringle a month prior [to the Sept. 21 filing deadline] . . . indicating that if there were more than three Republicans on the ballot, we would need at least two Democrats there.”

Martin also quoted the speaker as saying: “We need the Democrats on the ballot.”

The transcripts show that Campbell told the grand jury that her understanding was based on a conversation with Baugh, a longtime friend, who laid out the alleged scheme for her.

“You’ll have to ask Mr. Baugh what he told Ms. Campbell,” Pringle said. “I certainly didn’t have that discussion with Mr. Baugh. I have never spoken to Laurie Campbell.”

Baugh and Rhonda Carmony, an aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), have been indicted on charges connected to the alleged plot. Maureen Werft, Baugh’s chief of staff, has been indicted on a separate charge of falsifying her absentee ballot. Three Republicans who worked on the Allen recall and Baugh election--one of them a former Pringle aide--have already pleaded guilty to misdemeanors for election fraud.

Baugh, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, declined comment this week.

Pringle said that while he heard discussion among donors and lawmakers about the candidates running to replace Allen, he was never personally involved in any recruitment and did not believe such a ploy was necessary in order to win the Allen recall and Baugh election.

“I was not recruiting Democrat or Republican candidates,” Pringle said.

Testimony to the grand jury identified the worried donors as the California Independent Business PAC, a major funder of conservative candidates, and one of its founders, Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. of Orange County. The PAC gave Baugh $10,000 and Ahmanson gave him an additional $40,000, records show.

While denying any involvement in the scheme, Pringle said that after Campbell’s role as a shill candidate became known, Danielle Madison, executive director of the PAC, called him to ask if he knew of a lawyer who could represent Campbell in a civil suit brought by Democrats aimed at knocking Campbell off the ballot.

“I told her I didn’t want to be involved in that [effort] at all, talk to other folks. I wasn’t interested,” Pringle said.

Asked why Madison would call him if he wasn’t involved in the Campbell recruitment, Pringle replied that he was Assembly Republican leader at the time, and as such received many calls for assistance.

In grand jury testimony last month, Madison confirmed that she called Pringle but made no mention of asking him about getting Campbell legal help. She said she called Pringle because she had heard that Campbell was upset.

According to her grand jury testimony, Madison said she asked him: “ ‘Curt, will you talk with Laurie? I don’t know what is going on here but, you know, she’s really upset about this. . . . ‘

“So then he said, ‘Absolutely not.’ Curt did. He said, ‘I won’t talk to her.’ That was the end of the conversation.”

But on another occasion, apparently around the same time, Madison testified, it was Pringle’s people who called her about Campbell’s need for legal help.

Madison said she was telephoned by Flint and Pringle political consultant Dave Gilliard, who asked if the PAC would “pay for Laurie Campbell’s legal fees.”

“And I said, without even a hesitation, ‘Absolutely not. We don’t know this woman. We have nothing to do with it. . . . They were very unhappy,’ ” Madison testified.

The Democrats’ suit succeeded when a Sacramento County Superior Court judge threw Campbell off the ballot before the election.

With Allen’s recall and Baugh’s election, Pringle was able to line up enough votes in the lower house to become speaker in January. On Thursday, Pringle insisted that even though one of his aides has pleaded guilty to election fraud, his 3-month-old speakership is secure.

“I think the focus will remain the Republican policy agenda,” Pringle said.

The grand jury transcripts were a major point of private discussion Thursday among Assembly members, although there has been no outward evidence of a move to dump Pringle.

Assembly Democratic Leader Richard Katz of Sylmar said Pringle likely will remain speaker at least through the November election, in part because there isn’t “anybody on his side to replace him.”

But Katz added that Republican lawmakers “at some point have to make a decision if this continues and continues to grow, what the Republican caucus will do about a Speaker who has a cloud over his head.”

While it’s not illegal to recruit a decoy candidate, those who have pleaded guilty ran afoul of the law because Campbell signed the nominating papers even though she failed to personally gather the signatures of registered voters necessary to place her on the ballot. That job was carried out by Republican campaign workers, and Campbell signed under penalty of perjury that she had personally collected the names. Carmony has been indicted for allegedly orchestrating the effort.

In her grand jury testimony, Campbell said Baugh identified Flint as the one who directed that other Republican campaign workers recruit a Democratic spoiler candidate. Once Campbell was on the ballot, Campbell said, Flint could allay concerns of Republican donors that Baugh would win.

Flint has refused to discuss the case. Pringle, however, defended him.

“I have yet to see anything wrong that Jeff Flint did,” Pringle said. “Basically what you see in those [transcripts] are very consistent with what he told me--that he wasn’t involved at all in the collection of signatures, which is the action the district attorney is investigating.”

Times staff writers Dexter Filkins and Peter M. Warren in Orange County contributed to this report.