Dornan Faces Tough Challenge in Key Race

Every two years, somebody tries to beat Rep. Robert K. Dornan, the pugnacious conservative from the heart of Orange County.

Sometimes the contender pops up in the GOP primary, while other times the challenge comes from a Democrat. Either way, they attack from the left. But Dornan always spends lavishly and buries them from the right.

This year, it is different for Dornan. He has come late to the race and is scrambling for dollars.

The former Air Force pilot, famous for upbraiding political opponents, faces a well-funded Latina, Loretta Sanchez, who has the backing of a legion of Dornan enemies, including environmentalists, abortion rights groups, gay colleagues in Congress and the president of the United States.

All are natural Dornan foes, drawn to Sanchez’s side in this heavily Latino and Democratic district because they are persuaded that he is vulnerable.

They cite his implausible run for president, saying it drained money from his campaign and shows he is wounded in Orange County. Dornan beat none of the active GOP contenders in the presidential balloting here, receiving 1,029 votes in the 46th Congressional District, fewer than Alan Keyes.

And, they say, the White House run exposes Dornan, an 18-year veteran of Congress, as an egomaniac who is out of step and uncaring about his largely working-class district, which is almost two-thirds Latino and Asian and one-third white.

Dornan defends his presidential run, saying it was meant to focus the GOP attack on Clinton. He scoffs at Sanchez as inexperienced, naive and uninformed about the issues. He calls her “a carpetbagger from Palos Verdes” and has attacked her for associating with a convicted felon.

“She is the perfect opponent,” he said, contending that Sanchez began the campaign by “stepping on land mines,” including going to Washington for a Sanchez fund-raiser hosted by “sodomites.” The event was organized by the gay partners of Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.) and Massachusetts Democrats Gerry Studds and Barney Frank.

Besides being a test of Dornan’s staying power, the race is among a handful in California that will help determine whether Republicans maintain control of Congress.

The contest will also show whether an Orange County Democrat can challenge a conservative Republican for the votes of Reagan Democrats and moderate Republicans. And it will measure the voting power of Latinos in Orange County’s most heavily Latino congressional district.

Polls taken for both parties show that the race is close, with a large number of voters undecided. Those who see Sanchez as competitive point to Dornan’s 1992 race against Robert J. Banuelos, a social services administrator. The Democrat spent less than $5,000 to Dornan’s $1.6 million, getting 41% of the vote to Dornan’s 50%.

Sanchez, 36, grew up in Anaheim and attended local public schools before graduating from Chapman University in Orange in 1982. A financial analyst, she worked for nine years for private companies and public agencies before establishing her own small firm in 1993.

In a surprising victory this spring, she defeated three white men in the Democratic primary despite relatively meager spending.

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Sanchez has little political experience and no track record in elective office. Until 1992, she was a registered Republican. She ran in 1994 for Anaheim City Council as Loretta Sanchez Brixey (she married Steven Brixey III in 1990), finishing eighth out of 16 candidates.

Her campaign is presenting Sanchez as a mainstream, middle-class professional woman while targeting Dornan as an extremist who has angered colleagues in Congress.

“If I thought Dornan reflected the values and beliefs of this community, I wouldn’t have a problem with him being our representative,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez advocates abortion rights, tax incentives for small businesses, handgun and assault weapon control, investment in higher education through student loans, sex and AIDS education, and civil rights for gays.

She endorses Clinton’s tax-cut proposal and his effort to put 100,000 more police on the streets, and takes pride in his labeling of her contest as his “personal favorite” among close congressional races in California. She, like Clinton, favors the death penalty.

Sam Smoot, an executive with EMILY’s List--the pro-abortion-rights political action committee that endorses Democratic women--contributed the maximum $10,000 to Sanchez because she “has exactly the right profile needed to beat Bob Dornan.”

Dornan, a master at attack mail, promises to send out colorful brochures about his family and record, but voters can also expect to see scathing pieces on Sanchez.

In addition to calling her a carpetbagger, Dornan has raised questions about whether her financial consulting business is anything more than “a letterhead” and questioned her association with Howard O. Kieffer, a onetime member of the Orange County Democratic Central Committee who was sentenced to prison and fined for federal tax fraud in 1989.

Sanchez rejects the carpetbagger accusation, saying she lived outside Orange County for only 2 1/2 years. She and her husband now live in a rented condominium in Garden Grove. Her husband owns his boyhood home in Palos Verdes Estates. The couple lived there at one time and spend some weekends there.

Dornan faced carpetbagger charges when he arrived in Orange County from West Los Angeles in 1984 during his two-year hiatus from Congress. He was so new to the county, he used the address of the GOP headquarters in Orange as his residence on voter registration and candidacy documents.

Sanchez reported in federal disclosure documents that she earned $22,618 in 1995 from her consulting business, Amiga Advisors. Her campaign report values its stock at between $250,000 and $500,000. The business was incorporated in 1993 and has filed taxes each year, said state officials. However, it has no listed phone number in Los Angeles or Orange counties.

She admits to doing business with Kieffer after he left prison and says he volunteered in her primary campaign--contributing $1,000--but she says he has had no role in her general election effort.

The recent history of the district, which was redrawn after the 1990 census, shows Dornan is most vulnerable in a presidential election year. During off-year elections, turnout is much lower among Democrats, who have a registration edge of 46% to 39%.

In 1992, Dornan beat Banuelos, 55,659 votes to 45,435, with the Libertarian candidate getting 9,712. During the off-year contest two years later, Dornan scored a 17,600-vote win.

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Dornan’s voting record and his clear contempt for President Clinton--he has called Clinton a “draft dodger” on the floor of Congress--have put him on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s hit list and the White House’s as well.

That’s one reason Clinton chose Santa Ana--in the 46th Congressional District--for his post-debate rally Thursday and had Sanchez introduce him to a crowd of more than 10,000.

Sanchez is betting on a large turnout with a tide of Clinton votes from blue-collar Democrats who are content with Clinton and moderate Republicans who have no stomach for the GOP social agenda.

Carol Barnes, a professor at Cal State Fullerton, is one of those voters. A Republican, she said she will vote for Sanchez in part because she is pro-choice, but because of other issues too.

“I think she is a moderate, not an extremist,” said Barnes. “She is not a knee-jerk, which is very important to me as a Republican.”

Another factor is the Latino vote, a phantom force that has not materialized in great numbers. Latinos make up 49% of the district, but in the 1992 race were just 17% of the registered voters and 14% of those who voted, according to a Times voter analysis.

Further complicating the race this year are three minor-party candidates: J. Carlos Aguirre, 48, a marketing vice president running on the Natural Law ticket; Lawrence J. Stafford, 69, a financial consultant and Reform Party candidate; and Thomas E. Reimer, 43, an electronics engineer and Libertarian.

The campaigns of Dornan and Sanchez are about evenly funded.

Sanchez reported raising $259,933 as of Sept. 30, not including $48,500 in outstanding loans from herself and her husband. She had $90,321 in cash.

Dornan’s campaign reported raising $250,443 as of Sept. 30, all but $16,015 of it since mid-August, when Dornan cranked up his nationwide mail fund-raising operation. He has $81,431 in cash.

Dornan’s political agenda has always been sharply conservative and anti-abortion. His rhetoric has been uncompromising. He has called feminists “lesbian spear-chuckers,” the president a “multiple womanizer,” and at a recent fund-raiser accused Clinton of hiding his medical records to conceal drug abuse.

“Cocaine, cocaine and more cocaine” was the Clinton story in Arkansas, Dornan told supporters at a Garden Grove dinner. “Clinton’s own brother is on tape telling state troopers that ‘my brother has a nose like a vacuum cleaner,’ ” Dornan alleged.

Though Dornan cites a book as the basis for his allegation, the book contains no direct proof that Clinton ever used cocaine or that his brother said he did.

The statements are vintage Dornan. In the room of 120 supporters, the claims went down as easily as the vintage wines. To his backers, Dornan is a hero who is ready to say the emperor has no clothes.

Dornan was first elected to Congress in 1976, serving six years representing West Los Angeles, where he grew up after moving from New York City. Reapportionment eliminated the district and he ran unsuccessfully in 1982 in the U.S. Senate primary, getting 8% of the vote. In 1984, he headed for Orange County, where he defeated the incumbent Democrat, Rep. Jerry Patterson.

In the 104th Congress, he followed much of the Republican program. Dornan has been an advocate for veterans issues and prisoners of war. A champion of term limits, he wants to limit service in the House of Representatives to six years. “I refuse to leave until . . . I get term limits passed,” he said.

Dornan has the support of the National Rifle Assn., abortion foes and members of the Christian Coalition.

Amid a round of campaign stops last week, Dornan acknowledged that the race against Sanchez “could be the fight of my life. We will see.”