Panel Won’t Allow Public Comments at O.C. Hearing

The public will not be permitted to speak Saturday at a long-awaited hearing in Santa Ana where a House task force will consider former Rep. Robert K. Dornan’s protest of his Nov. 5 election loss to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), it was announced Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee voted in Washington to compel community groups and individuals linked to the 46th Congressional District race--including Hermandad Mexicana Nacional and its director, Nativo Lopez--to turn over documents subpoenaed by Dornan’s attorneys.

Steve Jost, Sanchez’s chief of staff, said the congresswoman will fight subpoenas for her campaign documents and financial records before the House.

“She has no intention of turning over her rights to the Republicans,” Sanchez’s attorney Wylie A. Aitken said.

The action on the subpoenas comes less than three days before the House task force convenes in Orange County to respond to Dornan’s contentions that the election was invalid due to illegal voting.

Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.), the task force chairman, announced Wednesday that only those in “official positions” and invited by the panel would be able to speak.

Community groups preparing comments for Saturday were outraged that they wouldn’t be able to speak. Written comments will be accepted through April 30.

“We’re taken aback,” said Amin David, chairman of Los Amigos of Orange County, which planned on having at least 10 from its group speak to the task force.

“We’re dumbfounded that they’ve decided to close this. We want to go up there and be heard. There’s a different quality to speaking before the group and just writing something down.”

He said about 5,000 people are expected to gather at the Hall of Administration in Santa Ana on Saturday to support Sanchez’s election, including Latinos, union members and community members.

Mark Sturdevant, immigration advisor to Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton), said the hearing is even more crucial because it would be the first opportunity to publicly comment on the state’s honor system for voting. He conceded that the issue is emotionally charged, but argued that outbursts should be controlled, not quashed.

“It’s quite possible they’re concerned about getting into a shouting match with the emotions involved in this,” Sturdevant said. “But if you’re going to have a hearing, you should be able to hear from the public. It’s that exchange to gather information that is critical for democracy to function.”

Jost said the decision flies in the face of Sanchez’s request for the local hearing.

“She invited them to come to Orange County to hear from the citizens,” Jost said. “She’s very disappointed.”

Among speakers listed on an agenda released Wednesday are California Secretary of State Bill Jones, Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi and Registrar of Voters Rosalyn Lever. Sanchez has asked that Lever be allowed to speak after Dornan’s presentation.

Richard Rogers, the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s district director in Los Angeles, also has been invited to address the hearing, which begins at 8:30 a.m. Dornan and Sanchez each get 45 minutes for their presentations, with 30 minutes each for rebuttal.

Aitken said Sanchez asked for only one additional speaker besides herself--former acting secretary of state Tony Miller. Jost said Miller, who preceded Jones as secretary of state, is an expert in dealing with voter fraud.

Dornan’s attorney, William Hart, listed 11 possible witnesses in a letter to Ehlers, including district residents whom Dornan contends were encouraged to vote illegally by Sanchez campaign workers. A representative of the Fair Elections Group, which has assisted Dornan’s election protest, also is on his speaker’s list.

Hart and Michael Schroeder, another Dornan attorney, argued last week that they would be unable to fully present evidence of voter fraud from the election without the benefit of information from a total of 34 subpoenas.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield) said the hearing would be the first of several into the election, the first to occur under provisions of the federal Motor Voter Act that broadens opportunities for registration and voting.

After a three-hour hearing, the committee voted Wednesday to compel documents from Sanchez’s congressional campaign; from Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, its legal center and executive director Lopez’s campaign for the Santa Ana school board; from Catholic Charities and from Dump Dornan, a committee formed by former Democratic congressional candidate Mike Farber.

Dornan’s attorneys were ordered to prove why they needed information subpoenaed from two labor union officials, a Los Angeles immigration center, the Communication Workers of America, 1996 Democratic Assembly candidate Lou Correa and the Gutenberg Group, a consulting business run by Farber.

Also contributing to this report was Barbara Ferry of States News Service.