House to Pay Dornan Costs of Vote Challenge

Infuriating Democrats and Latinos alike, a House committee decided Wednesday to give former Rep. Robert K. Dornan $320,526 to cover most of the costs for his failed bid to overturn his 1996 election defeat, thus revitalizing his campaign to regain the seat this fall.

Democrats accused the GOP leadership of giving the conservative Republican a six-figure gift of public funds. Dornan said last month that his campaign was nearly broke with only $4,500 in cash on hand.

“This was a back-room deal that they cooked up at the last minute so they could give Dornan a campaign contribution of $320,000 in taxpayer money,” said Rep. Loretta Sanchez, the Garden Grove Democrat who upset Dornan in a close race.

“He didn’t have money before, and they found a way to hand him” the money, she said.

Sanchez, who has $1.1 million in campaign funds left, received $252,536 to reimburse her costs in defeating Dornan, but she cannot tap it for her campaign because it came from a restricted legal defense fund.

After his election loss two years ago by 984 votes, Dornan challenged the result in the House, alleging that Sanchez was aided by local Latino rights groups to register noncitizens to vote. After an extensive investigation, the House found that 748 noncitizen votes were cast, not enough to overturn the election. In a separate probe, an Orange County grand jury declined to issue indictments.

Dornan’s camp was elated with the decision by the committee, which has the final say on the matter.

“The vindication is in the money. We got the lion’s share,” said Dornan’s campaign manager and son, Mark Dornan. “Bob Dornan proved his case of voter fraud.”

The rematch between Sanchez and Dornan promises to be one of the most expensive congressional races ever. Each has raised more than $1 million, though Dornan spent most of it on legal bills and other expenses to win the GOP primary in June.

The committee’s decision may be the first time the House has reimbursed the loser of an election dispute.

House Oversight Committee Chairman William Thomas, a Republican from Bakersfield, said a losing party has been reimbursed at least once before, but House Democrats disagreed, labeling the action a troubling precedent for future challenges. The decision came on a party-line vote of 4 to 3, with Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers (R-Mich.), who headed the election investigation, abstaining.

The committee put a cap of $125-an-hour on the legal fees, a standard amount set by the Department of Justice. It also deducted $73,000 in Sanchez’s expenses because it refused to pay for her court action challenging the constitutionality of House subpoenas.

Largely because of the cap, Dornan received 69% of his $468,000 in expenses. Sanchez received 61% of her reduced expenses of $410,000. She said she would use the money to pay $300,000 in attorneys’ fees.

Among the angry Democrats was Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, who said the decision smacked of a partisan payback for Dornan. The former Garden Grove Republican congressman had loudly complained that GOP leaders let him down by refusing to invalidate the election returns.

“Mr. Dornan raised a big stink, and Mr. Dornan doesn’t have a lot of money in his kitty,” said Hoyer, the only Democrat on the investigative task force.

Sanchez said the money for Dornan would have been better spent for real needs in the 46th Congressional District in central Orange County. She said $320,000 would pay annual benefits for 750 Orange County military veterans, 160,000 school lunches, six new classrooms or four more police officers.

“Bob Dornan lost,” she said. “This isn’t a wise use of taxpayer funds, it’s a political contribution to one of their own.”

Mark Dornan said his father deserves the money because he used campaign funds to prove that illegal votes had been cast in the election.

“It’s not so much about money, it’s about perception,” Mark Dornan said. “The committee recognized the serious injustice that was done to my father.”

Some local activists were outraged by the decision to pay either candidate’s legal fees because some Latino groups subpoenaed during the investigation also incurred substantial legal expenses that won’t be reimbursed.

Such a precedent could keep small political groups from fighting back against powerful political figures who have an unlimited bankroll, said Art Montez, past president of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

“It intimidates any group that does not believe in whatever policy is being set by people in power, whether it be right, left, middle or whatever,” Montez said. “It becomes a McCarthyism situation because all you do is get caught in a financial drain, and where does it stop?”

Dornan’s challenge alienated many Latinos from the Republican Party, which has been trying hard to woo them back. Party opponents, though, see the House committee’s action Wednesday as one more blunder in the important voting community.

“The Republicans on one hand say they want to outreach to Latinos and build bridges with Latinos, and then they remind the Latino community why they’re so hateful,” said California Democratic Party official Bob Mulholland.

But 20 of Dornan’s former colleagues said in a July 29 letter that Dornan should be reimbursed because his challenge uncovered significant evidence that noncitizens had voted in the election. They also said Sanchez should be reimbursed because she was the victor.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), one of the 20 former colleagues, asserted that the committee’s decision was proper and not partisan. “There was ample evidence that fraud played a major role in that election, so [Dornan’s] legal expenses should be paid,” he said.

Elliot Zaret of States News Service in Washington contributed to this report.