Rival to Gates Wins Backing

Turning against one of the most enduring fixtures in Orange County government, a formidable lineup of conservative power brokers is brushing aside longtime Sheriff Brad Gates to back county Marshal Michael Carona in next year’s race for top cop.

The coalition of conservatives backing Carona, who is expected to announce his entry into the sheriff’s race today, includes nearly the entire Orange County statehouse delegation as well as numerous mayors, congressmen and other county politicians.

Many said that Gates, county sheriff since 1974, has held the office long enough and grown too comfortable turning to tax hikes while establishing a virtual law enforcement fiefdom in Orange County.

“The current sheriff seems to engage in a fair amount of empire building,” said state Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange), a Carona backer. “Mike Carona can go in, reorganize things and bring about efficiencies and economies and be a little kinder to taxpayers.”

Some backers of Gates, however, said the conservatives’ real agenda is to curb the sort of strict policing of politicians that led to campaign wrongdoing charges last year against Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach). Gates is considered by conservatives to be an ally of Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi, who is prosecuting Baugh.

“Gates and these conservatives have differed over taxes for a long time,” said one backer of the sheriff. “The real reason they’ve gone out against him is you’ve got some political people who aren’t very happy their campaigns are being scrutinized. I think they would like that sort of scrutiny to go away.”

Others suggested that a few conservative backers of Carona have a vested interest in ending Orange County’s nagging prison overcrowding problems by privatizing the lockups, a concept staunchly opposed by the sheriff.

“I think a lot of this is about prison privatization and some of these other issues [that Gates’ foes] would like to open up,” said Jerry Pierson, a political consultant and former president of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs.

Lewis unsuccessfully pushed a bill last year that would have opened the door for prison privatization in California. Buck Johns, another Carona backer, is a government affairs liaison in California for a national firm that operates private prisons. But both men said prison privatization had little to do with their support of Carona.

Baugh, for one, didn’t deny that he sees Gates and Capizzi as part and parcel of a law enforcement establishment that has veered off track.

“You have a law enforcement bureaucracy that’s unaccountable,” Baugh said. “You end up with departments, and this is true in the D.A.’s office as well as the sheriff’s, where people become arrogant and unresponsive. They’re more interested in growing empires than representing the people.”

*

Gates has not yet announced whether he will seek another term as sheriff and could not be reached for comment Thursday. Lt. Ron Wilkerson, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman, said Gates is preparing a written statement addressing his future that will be “forthcoming” in the next few days or weeks.

In a statement Carona will release today, the marshal takes some jabs at Gates and vows to make new jail construction his top priority. Because of overcrowding, thousands of inmates a year are released from jail before their terms are up.

The county has been struggling for two decades to expand its jail space, largely without success.

Carona criticizes the early releases, vowing to “put an end to this potentially dangerous policy.” But he opposes the expansion of the James A. Musick Branch Jail and “construction of any new jail facility contiguous with an existing residential community.”

He said he would solve the jail crisis by transferring inmates with drug-related cases into new drug rehabilitation detention centers constructed and operated by private firms.

In his statement, Carona said he is also supported by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Santa Ana), state Senate GOP Leader Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove), Assembly Republican Leader Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), Assemblymen Bill Campbell (R-Orange) and Jim Morrissey (R-Santa Ana) as well as numerous city council members, school board trustees and GOP activists like Doy Henley of the well-heeled Lincoln Club.