Lawyer Recommended for Elections Panel

Attorney Darryl R. Wold of Balboa Island has been recommended by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott to fill one of three GOP spots on the six-member Federal Elections Commission in Washington.

Wold, 56, who practices out of Costa Mesa, has long represented county Republicans. He is best known for representing the county GOP in 1988 when it was sued for hiring uniformed security guards to patrol Santa Ana polling places.

County Republican Party Executive Director Bill Christiansen called Wold an excellent choice.

“He’s the one person in the county who most of us turn to for [advice on] election law,” Christiansen said.

Kent Cooper, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, said his group has asked President Clinton to avoid appointing partisan representatives to the FEC, an independent panel that interprets federal election law. Wold must first be approved by Clinton before his name is sent to the Senate for confirmation.

“We think this should truly be an independent body,” Cooper said. “The problem in the past has been that you keep getting deadlocks of 3 to 3.”

“It would be a challenge and very interesting,” said Wold of the $115,000-a-year, full-time job.

In the 1988 lawsuit, Latino voters contended they were harassed by guards with signs saying, “Noncitizens can’t vote,” during the election won by now-Assembly Minority Leader Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove). It was eventually settled, and the party paid $400,000 to several Latino voters.