Dornan Says He’ll Run in June Primary

Former Rep. Robert K. Dornan said Monday that he will run in the June primary seeking the Republican nomination to challenge freshman Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove).

Dornan, who had left Republicans wondering for months whether he would get in the race, said he will formally announce his candidacy at a press conference Saturday in Garden Grove.

“It is my Valentine’s Day present to the hundreds of people whose votes were canceled out by illegal votes,” he said, referring to his claim that voting by noncitizens and other ballot irregularities cost him the election in 1996. Sanchez won by 984 votes.

The House Oversight Committee last week dropped its investigation of the election, saying it could prove only that 748 people had voted improperly, not enough to erase Sanchez’s victory margin. The committee blamed uncooperative witnesses and stonewalling by the Immigration and Naturalization Service for making it impossible to determine if other votes were cast illegally.

Democrats said that even the 748 was vastly overblown, encompassing errors and hundreds of people who became citizens before the election but registered before being sworn in.

Dornan, who served nine terms in Washington before being defeated by Sanchez, telephoned his three prospective Republican opponents in the primary to let them know of his decision to run. He has about $300,000 in his campaign fund now, far more than any of his Republican rivals.

They are Superior Court Judge James P. Gray, divorce lawyer Lisa Hughes and Anaheim City Councilman Bob Zemel. Hughes and Gray have said they would run regardless of Dornan’s decision, but Zemel has equivocated. Both Zemel and Dornan draw from the same anti-abortion, conservative constituent base, and Zemel’s campaign has acknowledged that it would be difficult to raise money if Dornan were in the race.