Central O.C. Candidates Begin Testing Waters Early

A year before the 1998 primary election, jockeying for advantage has begun between the two major political parties and among a bevy of candidates for county, state and federal offices from central Orange County.

At least one of the contests in the county’s heartland will draw national attention, while another may decide which party controls the state Assembly. There also will be a significant fight over the supervisor’s seat being vacated by William G. Steiner.

Though only a few candidates have formally announced a firm decision to run, Democratic and Republican leaders already are juggling potential candidates in the Assembly, Senate, congressional and supervisorial districts that overlap in the major cities of Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Anaheim, where the major contests will take place.

“There is a lot of putting toes in the water to see what the temperature is,” said GOP County Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes, who is trying to steer the candidates into races where they can do the party the most good. “At this early stage, I don’t have any insights into anyone having any of the contests locked up.”

Perhaps the key race once again will be in the 46th Congressional District, where Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) ousted incumbent Robert K. Dornan by nearly 1,000 votes last November. Big money and political interest nationwide will certainly be drawn there.

“We are certainly going to focus on the central county and certainly see Loretta as the head of a dramatic cluster,” said Wylie Aitken, Sanchez’s campaign chairman and head of the Democratic Foundation of Orange County.

Sanchez cracked the solid GOP hold on legislative offices in the county last year, and Democrats want to use her as a wedge to expand their power.

Aitken sees Sanchez as leading a slate of Democrats running in the fall in the 68th and 69th Assembly and 34th State Senate districts, all of which are within her congressional district.

“We are going to make a major commitment on behalf of Loretta, and it will have spillover for the other seats,” Aitken said.

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GOP leaders say Sanchez is vulnerable in a nonpresidential year, when Democratic turnout is likely to be lower than it was in 1996. Further complicating the picture are federal, state and local investigations into voter fraud in the last election.

Dornan has charged that he lost because of widespread voting by noncitizens and other electoral irregularities. A congressional committee is considering his challenge and could order a new election, as early as this summer.

Dornan has not said if he will run in 1998, though last week he said that his son, Mark Dornan, might be a candidate.

Regardless of what the Dornans do, Republican Lisa Hughes of Orange, a family lawyer, has announced that she will challenge Sanchez. She already has a campaign staff and has hired Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange) as her political consultant.

Hughes, however, could face opposition from the right in the primary. She got a chilly reception last month from some at the GOP Central Committee meeting, where some activists declared her not sufficiently opposed to abortion. While Hughes supports repeal of the Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade so that states could decide the abortion issue separately, she opposes criminalizing first-trimester abortions, said her campaign manager Brian Jones.

A Republican who would consider running if Robert Dornan does not is Dr. Ken Williams, who was elected last year to the Orange County Board of Education.

“A lot of people are looking for a good fiscal, social and cultural conservative,” he said. Those people, he added, are not “enamored of Lisa, because she is not a social and cultural conservative, nor does she speak up for the pro-family agenda.”

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In the 68th Assembly District, which includes Garden Grove and Anaheim, the GOP field is muddled, as several people want the seat being vacated under term limits by Assembly Minority Leader Curt Pringle. Garden Grove Councilmen Ho Chung and Mark Leyes have all but announced, and GOP leaders say several other candidates also may emerge.

On the Democratic side, Audrey Gibson, who ran unsuccessfully against Pringle, has said she will run again. She could face La Habra Police Chief Steven H. Staveley, who also serves on the board of the Magnolia School District.

“Several people have asked me, and I am thinking about it,” Staveley said. “The politics of it is not interesting to me; the governance is.”

The 69th Assembly District race in Santa Ana and Garden Grove could be a rematch in November 1998 of the contest won in 1996 by not quite 100 votes by Assemblyman Jim Morrissey (R-Santa Ana). He beat Lou Correa, who wants to run again.

Several other Democratic names are being talked about, however, including Santa Ana trial lawyer Joe Dunn. Correa is considered to have the inside track with the Assembly’s Democratic leadership, which wants to take the seat from the GOP.

“Morrissey’s will be one of the top three targeted seats by Democrats in the state,” said GOP State Chairman Michael Schroeder. “But they couldn’t beat Jim last time, and that is as good as it gets for them.”

Though Democrats very much want to field a strong candidate against Sen. Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove), no one has emerged.

“Right now, there is a lot of talk, there are a couple of people who are interested, and maybe something will shake out,” said Democratic County Chairman Jean Costales. She declined to say who had expressed that interest.

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The 4th District supervisorial seat being vacated by Steiner is drawing the attention of several Anaheim politicians. Mayor Tom Daley and Councilmen Lou Lopez and Bob Zemel all are being mentioned as candidates, as is County Board of Education member Eric Woolery.

Daley, the lone Democrat, has made a career of winning the hearts of Republicans in Anaheim, although GOP leaders hope that his recent alliance with Sanchez (he took a job as her special advisor) will backfire.

Lopez said he “will know in a couple of months” whether to get into that race. Zemel said he also will consider a run for Congress in the 46th District.

“I need to know what Bob Dornan is doing first,” he said. “In my mind, he is still the incumbent Republican.”

To Fuentes, it is almost an embarrassment of riches.

“All of those candidates sort of fit in any one of those races,” he said. “There could be movement and realignments there. I think it is at a very early stage.”

In addition to those electoral battlefields, the GOP also will see some internecine warfare, as insurance agency owner Wesley Bannister has decided to challenge incumbent Republican Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach in the 47th Congressional District.

Bannister said he sees Rohrabacher as too radical and distanced from issues important to the coastal district. He expects to benefit from the first open primary, in which Democrats will be able to vote for Republicans. Bannister said his stands on abortion--he does not oppose abortion rights--and the environment are more in tune with the district than Rohrabacher’s.

“I am conservative, but Dana is more of a radical person,” he said. “I am more of a business-oriented person.”

Rohrabacher’s office declined comment.