A behind-the-scenes look at Orange County’s political life

The balmy day in Irvine’s Shady Canyon had all the trappings of environmental history in the making. As television cameras zoomed in, U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and three other pen-toting dignitaries gathered to sign a pact hailed as a landmark compromise between ecological and business interests.

A federal press release trumpeted: “Interior Secretary Signs First-of-Its-Kind Species Habitat and Open Space Conservation Plan in Orange County, Calif.”

In fact, Babbitt didn’t officially sign the July 17 agreement. Signing instead was Michael Spear, regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who put pen to paper in advance of the ceremony.

So why did a news photograph capture Babbitt signing a white paper? At first, Interior officials couldn’t say for sure. Finally, they faxed a page from Washington, showing the secretary’s name scrawled in a blank space on a back page of one of 20 copies of the pact.

That signature is purely “ceremonial,” said another Interior representative, explaining that Spear’s signature is the one with legal clout.

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Big Donations: So how fat are Orange County’s political donations compared to others nationally?

Three Orange County-based companies were among the top 50 national individual or political action committee contributors to the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns during the first half of 1996, according to a ranking recently released by the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.

ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. (including Milan and Sally A. Panic) ranked 30th on President Clinton’s national donor list, for a total $18,000.

Republican Bob Dole had two major Orange County donors among the top 50: Allergan Inc. (Gavin and Ninetta K. Herbert), which ranked 43rd with $16,000 in contributions, and Fluor Corp., which tied for 49th with $14,500.

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Water Wars: When a bill by Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) to consolidate Orange County’s plethora of water districts went down the drain last weekend, his staff made no bones about whom they blamed for the defeat: South County Democratic bigwig Richard O’Neill.

As the Pringle troops tell it, O’Neill helped persuade Senate Leader Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) to keep the bill bottled up in committee, ensuring its death as the legislative year ended.

O’Neill, a big contributor to Democratic causes and former state party chairman, tells a slightly different tale. He says a Lockyer staffer called him for an opinion on the Pringle measure. O’Neill, whose family owns the 38,000-acre Rancho Santa Margarita, said he believes the district consolidation plan seemed “sort of suspect.”

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Money and Votes: Orange County campaign finance attorney Dana Reed is back in court seeking to strike down Measure T. The initiative, overwhelmingly approved by Orange County voters in 1992, prohibits candidates for county office from accepting donations of more than $1,000 from a single source during an election cycle, generally four years.

Reed claims in federal court that the law prevents him from giving about $8,500 to a committee he helped form, California Taxpayers for Responsible Government, which would then mail brochures supporting county supervisorial candidate Mark Leyes and incumbent state Assemblymen Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) and Jim Morrissey (R-Santa Ana).

The lawsuit argues the local measure may be unconstitutional because the U.S. Supreme Court rejected federal efforts to curb spending by political committees.

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Compiled by Times political writer Peter M. Warren with contributions from Gebe Martinez, Eric Bailey, Frank Messina, Dexter Filkins and Leslie Wright.

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.

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Majority GOP

Four years ago, then-President Bush eat BIll Clinton in Orange County, while independent Ross Perot attracted a substantial number of votes. Bush’s margin of just under 120,000 votes was not enough to offset Democratic margins upstate as Clinton carried California and won the presidency. How will President Clinton do this year? A poll taken between the two conventions showed him with a 10 percentage point lead over challenger, Bob Dole. Here’s how the county vote split in 1992 and 1996 party registration:

1992 Orange County Vote

George Bush: 44%

Bill Clinton: 32%

Ross Perot: 24%

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1996 Registration *

Republican: 52%

Democratic: 32%

Independent: 11%

Others: 3%

American Independent: 2%

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* As of August

Note: Other parties include Reform, Libertarian, Natural Law, Peace and Freedom and Green

Sources: California Secretary of State, Orange County Registrar of Voters