Voters Soon to Grade O.C. Congressmen

As Orange County’s congressional delegation heads home to seek reelection, their report cards will show strident conservatism on all issues, from immigration and welfare reforms to supporting a slowdown of spending on Medicare.

While other Republican Congress members across the country face some political heat for unsuccessful attempts to curtail future spending on Medicare, education and the environment, Orange County’s congressmen generally make no excuses, only wishing they could have done more.

“You will note a bias, but we have passed more significant legislation, changed the political debate and determined the agenda,” boasted Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) of the GOP legislative package that included historic limits to social services through new welfare and immigration legislation and attempted to limit abortion rights and same-sex marriages.

“Some things had to change,” Packard said. “For far too long, we have been rewarding people for doing the wrong thing at the expense of people doing the right thing.”

In control of Capitol Hill, Republicans took charge of all committees, boosting three of the six Orange County members--Packard and Reps. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach)--into influential subcommittee chairmanships. Also, Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), was elected chairman of the GOP’s policy committee, the fifth-ranking leadership post.

With so much power and opportunity to lead, Orange County’s congressmen tended to take a more global and less local view of their jobs as legislators.

Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach)

Like Packard, Cox rates the Congress “pretty highly because of all that was passed.” And on numerous legislative fronts--from budget negotiations to foreign policy resolutions to local issues, including the acquisition of Cleveland National Forest land for Orange County Boy Scouts--Cox took a leadership role.

Not only did he win approval of new rules to reduce the number of frivolous class-action lawsuits against investment and finance firms, he also led the only congressional override of a veto by President Clinton when the White House tried to strike down the legislation.

Besides legal reforms, Cox took on some arcane legislative causes: winning congressional approval to shut down the outdated National Helium Reserve in Texas, which is $1.4 billion in debt to the federal treasury; reducing the metric conversion rules on federal construction projects; and sponsoring a new law which allows taxpayers to send their income tax returns through private express delivery services, such as Federal Express, instead of just the U.S. Postal Service.

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Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove)

More than any other Orange County congressman, Dornan used his military personnel subcommittee to carry out his brand of conservatism. He is noted for increasing public awareness of POWs, working to ban pornographic materials from military bases, and halting privately funded abortions by military personnel or their dependents at overseas hospitals.

His most controversial bill--expelling service members who test positive for the virus that causes AIDS--actually became law because it was included in the 1996 defense authorization bill. But within weeks, Congress repealed the Dornan provision, which critics labeled as “mean-spirited.”

Dornan’s other actions, however, tended to distract from his accomplishments.

He was expelled from the House floor for 24 hours early in the term for accusing President Clinton of giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy during the Vietnam War; he made a futile attempt for the 1996 GOP presidential nomination; and House Speaker Newt Gingrich punished one act of insubordination by removing Dornan as an official member of the House/Senate conference committee that negotiated the final 1997 defense authorization bill.

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Jay C. Kim (R-Diamond Bar)

Kim joked about the benefits he received as a member of the GOP-controlled Congress.

“I got a bigger office, and you don’t hear the plumbing flush through the walls,” he said.

Usually taciturn during his first term in Congress, Kim became more active in his second term. He had half a dozen measures become law, including one that protects businesses from tax audits by clarifying the definition of employees who are independent contractors.

As a member of the House Transportation Committee, much of Kim’s attention was paid to road and rail improvements for Southern California. He claims victory for securing $100 million to fix bridges and roads in states bordering Mexico that have increased traffic caused by the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Kim, a naturalized citizen who emigrated from Korea to the U.S. as a young adult, acknowledged having second thoughts about the welfare and immigration measures, which impose new restrictions on legal immigrants.

But he said he decided to support the measures after becoming convinced that the rate of immigrants collecting money from the Social Security trust fund is higher than for U.S. citizens.

“When I came here, we came here in search of American dreams. No one thought of coming here and collecting government subsidies,” Kim said.

His moments of anguish were not on the House floor but in a California federal courtroom, where South Korean businesses faced charges of making illegal campaign contributions to Kim’s first congressional campaign in 1992. Kim is also under investigation.

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Ron Packard (R-Oceanside)

With steady, statesmanlike confidence, Packard headed the appropriations legislative branch subcommittee, which cut from the budget twice-a-day ice deliveries to House members’ offices, among other things. Gingrich liked the notion so much that he often held up an ice bucket as a prop in front of television cameras.

“I cut 12 cents out of every dollar Congress spends on itself,” Packard said. “If every other part of government cut just one cent out of every dollar it spends, our books would be in the black today.”

The final version of the immigration bill approved by the House last week included two provisions originally introduced by Packard. One was the provision denying federal benefits to illegal immigrants, and the other called for doubling the size of the border patrol by adding 5,000 new agents during the next five years.

He also handled a local issue that split members of the local delegation--whether to keep open the border checkpoint outside San Clemente. Packard initially took out of the appropriations bill funding to operate the checkpoint because of the danger and traffic delays it caused his constituents. But after legislative opposition arose, Packard compromised by requiring the INS operate the checkpoint 24 hours a day and to set up an express lane for frequent highway users.

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Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach)

Rohrabacher bolted out of the November 1994 election promising to lead on major reforms and then stalled.

His top priority for the session was a bill to extend patent protections for small inventors. But his bill competed with a measure introduced by a higher-ranking member, Rep. Carlos J. Moorehead (R-Glendale), backed by major U.S. companies wanting the country’s patent laws made consistent with those of other countries competing in a global economy.

The lobbying on both sides became so intense--Rohrabacher appeared on hundreds of radio talk shows across the country--that House leaders decided to kill both bills.

On most other fronts, such as immigration, Rohrabacher became an active participant, but not a leader. And on one issue where he did lead--attempting to withhold most-favored-nation status from China as punishment for human rights violations--Rohrabacher lost the fight but left satisfied that at least he tried.

Locally, Rohrabacher cut through the local and federal bureaucracy to get reductions in mandatory flood insurance premiums for homeowners living near the Santa Ana River, where channel improvements have been completed.

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Ed Royce (R-Fullerton)

The biggest legislative victory for Royce came in the final days of the session when President Clinton signed into law his bill imposing stiff penalties for stalkers who cross state lines. The bill almost died in the Senate because of legislative maneuvering on other issues, but Royce and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) leaped over the hurdle to get it to the president’s desk.

Royce’s low-key activism on other issues placed him squarely--and at times uncomfortably--in the middle of political spats with Democrats and his fellow Republicans.

As co-chairman of the Pork-busters Coalition, Royce went to the House floor early in the session to defeat spending on pet projects. But members of the Appropriations Committee rose to attack his proposals, and Royce personally, for once having asked for special consideration for a defense project in his district. Royce and the coalition persisted, cutting about $21 billion from the 1996 military construction spending bill.