House Unlikely to Act in ’97 on Dornan Claim

The chances that a special election for Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s seat could take place before late May are decreasing even if the House of Representatives finds sufficient voter fraud to invalidate last year’s election.

That would place the special election just ahead of the June 2 primary for the Orange County seat Sanchez won from former Rep. Robert K. Dornan.

Both sides in the contested election agree that the House has all but run out of time to vote on the issue before it adjourns in November. If the House does not vote by then, the issue won’t come up again until late January, when House members return to the Capitol for the State of the Union address.

Under California law, the governor sets a special election approximately four months after a vacancy occurs. That would place a special election in late May--at the earliest.

“At the rate at which they are going [in the House], I think it is extremely unlikely that they will get this done before they adjourn in November and that is deeply disappointing,” said Michael Schroeder, Dornan’s attorney and chairman of the state Republican Party.

Citing “foot-dragging,” Schroeder said it is long past the time when the House Oversight Committee should have acted on what he believes is convincing evidence that voting by noncitizens and other irregularities changed the outcome of the election in the 46th Congressional District.

Sanchez spokesman Steve Jost said the House leadership has decided to push the issue over into the next year because it lacks hard evidence of fraud. He called the delaying tactics purposeful and a continuing burden on the freshman congresswoman, who won the election in the central Orange County district by 984 votes.

“We are not happy that it is being dragged out,” Jost said. “But the longer it is dragged out, the clearer it becomes that this is about partisan political motives. They are trying to steal back a seat that they lost.”

House Oversight Committee Chairman William M. Thomas on Friday declined to be specific about a deadline for ending his panel’s inquiry.

“I am not trying to create an outcome that includes a special election, so I am not governed by some timetable,” he said.

The Bakersfield Republican said Republicans want Democrats to “accept the work” of the INS or California Secretary of State Bill Jones, also a Republican, in determining who was ineligible to vote.

Jones says prospective citizens are ineligible to register to vote until they have taken the oath of citizenship, and that votes cast by people who “jump the gun” on registration are invalid.

Democrats say a vote should be valid if someone was a citizen on election day, regardless of that person’s status at time of registration.

Democrats also have been critical of using Immigration and Naturalization Service data to assess who was not a citizen when they voted in the race. They say INS records are unreliable and that a list released last spring of about 300 ineligible voters in the 46th Congressional District included numerous errors.

One factor that almost certainly puts the issue beyond the adjournment date is Thomas’ request last month asking Jones to “review, analyze and verify” confidential information on suspected ineligible voters in the election.

As of Friday, Jones’ office had not received the voter information, nor had a meeting been scheduled to either sign off on a privacy agreement to protect the INS data or even to turn it over, said Undersecretary of State Rob Lapsley.

Should Congress decide in late January--when it returns from recess--to declare Sanchez’s seat vacant, Gov. Pete Wilson would have 14 days to issue a proclamation setting a special election.

The election must be on a Tuesday and must occur between 112 and 119 days after the issuing of the proclamation. A primary for the special election would be held eight weeks before the election, placing the primary in late March.

The governor would have the option of consolidating a special election with the June 2 primary. It would cost $400,000 to hold the special election and its March primary, registrar of voters officials said. If a special election is consolidated with the June primary, it would cut the cost in half.

If Congress vacates the seat after March 6, the governor has the option of leaving the seat open.