Diversity Found in L.A.’s GOP Delegates

To be sure, there are the high-profile elected officials: A former governor, the retired chairman of Arco and other corporate executives. But they’re not the only faces in the crowd of 47 delegates to the Republican National Convention from Los Angeles County.

The county contingent--the largest bloc of the largest state delegation--also includes a print shop owner, loyal Republican volunteers and an LAPD captain. There are longtime convention veterans and a host of first-timers.

They are predominately white. But there are also a sizable number of Asians, Latinos and a few African Americans, reflecting the racial makeup of California--but not the convention, whose delegates are overwhelmingly white.

“Our delegation reflects the diverse ethnic community of our county,” said Mike Antonovich, chairman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and a delegate to the convention.

Altogether, 47 of the 165 delegates from California who will take their seats on the convention floor today are from Los Angeles County communities. Their ranks are drawn from affluent suburbs and less prosperous locales.

A Los Angeles Times survey of GOP convention delegates from California found that most L.A. County delegates consider themselves somewhat conservative. Relatively few who responded to the survey, taken in June, consider themselves very conservative. A small number say they are liberals and moderates.

The most prominent officials include former Gov. George Deukmejian, state Treasurer Matt Fong, Antonovich, and Assemblymen James Rogan of Glendale and Phil Hawkins of Bellflower. There are the longtime GOP loyalists, including former state party chairmen Tirso del Junco and Frank Visco.

The corporate community is well represented by Lodwrick M. Cook, chairman emeritus of Arco, and retired Texaco executive Mary Benz.

Fully half the 34 delegates who responded to the survey are white, 20% are Latino, 18% are Asian and 12% are African American. The new faces of the Republican Party in Los Angeles are represented in San Diego.

Korean American Michelle Park-Steel of Rolling Hills said the Democratic Party makes too much of a point of distinguishing people by race or ethnic background.

“The Republican Party is open to everyone,” Steel said. “I am from a very close-knit, conservative family. That comes very much out of the Korean tradition and it fits in perfectly with what the Republicans are talking about.”

Her husband, alternate delegate Shawn Steel, said, “The racial distinctions are becoming more and more meaningless because the old definitions don’t work. We are going to be a more and more polyglot society. . . . There is no need to divide by categories any more. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Protestants make up half the delegates who responded to the questionnaire; 32% are Catholic and 12% are Jewish. Eleven of the delegates earned less than $75,000 annually, 18 earned more than $75,000 and five refused to answer the question.

In sharp contrast to the position that emerged from the GOP’s platform committee last week, a substantial majority of the local delegates who responded to the survey either opposed or strongly opposed including a constitutional amendment to ban abortions in the GOP platform.

A similar number believed that the emotionally charged issue of abortion itself does not belong in the Republican platform at all.

But the ranks of the local delegation also include Sara DiVito Hardman of Tarzana, state chairwoman of the Christian Coalition, who favors including an antiabortion plank in the party platform

As a group, most of the local delegates who responded favor Proposition 209 on the November ballot, a measure that would restrict government affirmative action programs. They believe that immigration and an across-the-board reduction in personal income tax rates will be important issues in the fall presidential campaign in California.

By a wide margin, most delegates believe international trade creates more jobs for Californians than are lost. And most of the local delegates who responded--23 of 34--had an unfavorable impression of Pat Buchanan, who campaigned against free foreign trade in his unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination that will soon belong to former Sen. Bob Dole.

Park-Steel, a controller for a law firm and member of the California World Trade Commission, said she is “interested in things like the tax cut. That makes a lot of sense and so does a reduction in the capital gains tax, where people can manage their money much better than the government can.”

Accountant Martha House of Hacienda Heights--one of the delegation’s African American members--said Dole’s running mate, Jack Kemp, will extend the GOP’s reach into minority communities. She spoke favorably of his efforts to improve conditions in housing projects while he was secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Bush administration.

Her husband, alternate Charles M. House, a retired sergeant from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, was equally enthusiastic about Kemp’s place on the Republican ticket.

“He has walked the walk, not just talked the talk,” Charles House said.

Times staff writer James Rainey contributed to this story.