GOP Doesn’t Need Opposition to Lose This Battle for Votes

Free advice to congressional Democrats: Don’t do anything to stop the Republicans from pursuing voter fraud in Orange County’s 46th Congressional District. Nothing you could dream up to derail them could possibly be as damaging as the stuff they’re doing to themselves. Let them stay on the train until it jumps the tracks and ends up a fireball.

I suspect a Democratic mole has infiltrated GOP leadership and is calling the shots in this Great California Fraud-Hunting Contest. How else to explain why the Republicans have spent so much time investigating the Loretta Sanchez/Bob Dornan congressional election of ’96 and come up with so little? And at such great future political risk.

Surely, the House Republicans aren’t doing this for Bob Dornan. Surely, they can’t be frightened by the political career of Loretta Sanchez. This has got to be a counterintelligence operation run from the Democratic National Committee.

Some dear readers will insist that the GOP truly believes that massive voter fraud occurred in the 46th and that, darn it, we just can’t have that in America and that’s why the doughty Republicans are pressing the case. Readers may be that pure of heart, but political party leaders aren’t. They have something bigger in mind. If that something is, truly, voter fraud, someone ought to explain to them the concept of winning the battle and losing the war.

Dornan claimed fraud shortly after the election. (He lost by just under 1,000 votes of about 106,000 cast.) That was a year ago. Six months later, in front of a three-member House panel convening in Orange County, he and other Republicans said it again. Here we are another six months later into the game, and they haven’t moved the political football an inch.

It’s now a near-certainty that, regardless of any official findings, a new election couldn’t be held before the ’98 primaries. In light of that, this might be a good time for the GOP to compute the cost-benefit ratio of what it’s done.

I don’t mean to suggest that if there was fraud in the 46th, it should be covered up. From the start, everyone in both parties should have said they opposed any voter irregularities and that, if found, the source should be investigated.

Keep in mind, though, the Republicans have proved nothing so far. Nor have they accomplished anything, except to anger untold numbers of Latino voters in California.

Therein lies the major blunder of the entire GOP operation. This “search for the truth” should never have been about overturning the Sanchez victory. Not having any smoking guns in hand, the GOP should have never talked about invalidating the election. Rather, it should have raised the prospect of problems in registering voters and devoted its efforts to cleaning up whatever those problems turn out to be.

A strategy like that would truly have been color-blind. No one who favors pure elections could have objected to a review of registration procedures, nor could anyone object to whatever improvements needed to be made.

Instead, the GOP shot first and asked questions later. It spoke of “fraud” before finding out whether what really occurred was a misinterpretation of eligibility requirements. It spoke of “fraud” among Latino voters in the 46th District, then said, “nothing personal,” and then acted surprised when the people who voted took offense at being associated with the inflammatory charge. Most stupid of all, the GOP talked about overturning an election even knowing from the outset that no one would be able say for which candidate any alleged fraudulent votes were cast.

Last week, as if to underscore how little it has proved on its own so far, the House GOP leadership said it wanted the California secretary of state and the Immigration and Naturalization Service to validate the House’s “list” of potential ineligible voters.

Why not? Without knowing how reliable the validation process is, why further antagonize Latino voters with talk of “lists”? Watch the fur fly the first time a “validation” proves invalid because of faulty INS documentation.

Democrats, stand back. Let the Republicans prove that the “fraud” they uncover will turn out to be a bunch of people who passed U.S. citizenship classes and who then voted, believing they were entitled to. Let the GOP explain to you the horrific danger of having such “frauds” in our midst.

Then just wait until the next election season rolls around when these “frauds” remember who so callously made political mountains out of molehills.

Clarification: In Friday’s column about a dispute between residents in San Juan Capistrano, I quoted one man as saying David Chorak once brandished a gun at him. Chorak denies having done so and correctly points out that the other man never filed a complaint with police. Chorak also denies that a fight in which he was involved left the other man bloodied, as mentioned in the column.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821, by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.