Republican Party Seeks to Oust Candidate Who Endorsed Clinton

Election day was growing near and Republican congressional candidate Paul Stepanek didn’t like the writing on the wall. His opponent seemed larger than life. His own party seemed distant. He clearly needed to make a splash.

So Stepanek, a young public relations man locked in a longshot bid to unseat Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), took a bold, attention-getting step: He cast aside his own party and endorsed President Clinton over GOP hopeful Bob Dole.

While his surprise endorsement earned him some much-needed media attention in the waning weeks of his campaign, it wasn’t enough to prevent the powerful Waxman from handily winning the election, 68% to 24%.

His actions have also earned him the wrath of the Republican Party, so much so that state GOP officials are taking the unusual step of attempting to boot Stepanek right out of the party.

“It is the height of insult,” Sean McCarthy, the Westside’s GOP chairman, said of Stepanek’s actions. “He worked a sham on all of us. He absolutely betrayed the party.”

Armando Azarloza, district director for Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), compared Stepanek’s endorsements to “the chairman of Bank of America making an advertisement for Wells Fargo.”

As the first step to giving him the boot, Republican Party officials have lodged a formal complaint against Stepanek.

“We have filed formal charges,” said state party spokeswoman Victoria Herrington, daughter of the state party chairman, John Herrington. “For the party to throw someone out, it has to be something extreme. We’re not in the habit of doing that.”

The party’s bylaws explicitly forbid a GOP-sponsored candidate from endorsing an office seeker registered in another party and spell out punishments ranging from censure to dismissal from the party.

Stepanek’s fate will be decided in February when the party’s executive committee meets in Sacramento.

Stepanek was not the only Republican candidate to distance himself from Dole’s floundering presidential bid. In fact, national party leaders actually approved the tactic.

But the GOP says Stepanek went too far when he endorsed Clinton, denounced national GOP leaders such as House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), and suggested that local congressional candidate Rich Sybert’s campaign had racist overtones.

By pursuing Stepanek, GOP leaders say they are not trying to squelch differences of opinion but to maintain unity among party officers, a position Stepanek automatically assumed when he became a Republican congressional candidate.

“When a person runs for office and takes the benefits of being the party’s nominee, they take on certain responsibilities,” said McCarthy, who vowed never to support Stepanek again.

“For this guy, at the eleventh hour, to turn away and run from the party means he ought to find another party.”

Standing by his decision, an unrepentant Stepanek says it was not disloyalty that prompted him to endorse the Democrats, but a desire to stand up for his beliefs.

Before this flap, the 36-year-old Westwood businessman had been a Republican in good standing. The Indiana native had worked for the national Republican Senatorial Committee after college. When he launched his first bid to unseat Waxman in 1994, he had joined other GOP congressional hopefuls on the steps of the Capitol to sign the “Contract with America.”

But Stepanek said party leaders never appeared to take his campaign seriously. After all, he was running in the solidly Democratic 29th Congressional District, which covers the Westside and portions of the San Fernando Valley. And he was going up against Waxman, an 11-term lawmaker who raises so much in contributions that he gives it away in races nationwide.

Stepanek’s critics within the party say he harangued members of the GOP in his fund-raising pitches, ignoring the overwhelming majority of registered Democrats in the district and Waxman’s bulging war chest.

Stepanek said the only financial help party leaders offered was a list of tobacco companies, figuring that cigarette manufacturers might be so enraged by Waxman’s strong anti-smoking stance that they would support even a longshot opponent.

However, Stepanek balked at pursuing those contributions. Although he had criticized Waxman for going overboard in his attacks on cigarette companies, Stepanek had also spoken during his campaign of the need for more aggressive research into diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and AIDS. He participated in a breast cancer charity walk, proposed a disease prevention task force and ultimately decided that he could not in good conscience take money from tobacco interests.

“I didn’t feel like I got into public service to take large sums of tobacco money,” Stepanek said. “I got into this race to try to be a positive influence. It became clear to me that if I was going to get support from the party it would come from tobacco companies.”

In the end, a frustrated Stepanek decided to endorse Clinton, particularly because of his strong anti-smoking views.

Stepanek also weighed in on the nearby 24th Congressional District race in the western San Fernando Valley, although he said it was not tobacco that compelled him there.

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Stepanek criticized Rich Sybert, the Republican candidate, for appearing before an anti-illegal immigration group whose president had made derogatory comments about Mexicans. Even though Sybert denied any ties to Voice of Citizens Together, Stepanek accused him of “unconscionable pandering to [a] racist hate group,” which he said “disqualified him from consideration for a position of public trust and responsibility.”

Sybert said it was simple revenge that prompted Stepanek to publicly denounce him. When Sybert spoke at the West Los Angeles Lincoln Club shortly before the election, Stepanek fired off an angry letter criticizing him for entering Stepanek’s turf. Enclosed was a map of the 29th Congressional District reminding Sybert of the boundaries.

Despite the disagreement, Sybert, who also lost his congressional bid, says the Republican Party should back off and leave Stepanek alone. “Let’s just put the whole thing behind us,” he said.

For Stepanek, the state party’s action means that his campaign is continuing beyond election day. Now, instead of battling a prominent Democrat, he is fighting to stay in his own party.

The many expletive-filled telephone calls he received have reinforced for him how strongly many in his party feel about his act.

But Stepanek says parting ways with the party felt, and continues to feel, right.

“I feel great,” he said. “I did the right thing. That’s what my campaign was about.”