Battle Brews in GOP as Foes of Abortion Target 2 Justices

GOP leaders are battling to squelch a high-decibel effort by antiabortion forces to unseat two Republican state Supreme Court justices over last year’s decision allowing minors to get abortions without their parents’ consent.

One gauge of the effort’s resilience--or maybe its death knell--could come this weekend when the state Republican Party gathers for a semiannual convention in Burlingame.

There, the justices’ opponents, among them the party’s most conservative loyalists, say they plan to urge that the GOP, itself dominated by abortion foes, come out against Chief Justice Ronald George and Justice Ming Chin. Both justices will be on the November ballot.

Preparing for a weekend fight, Brian Johnston, executive director of the California ProLife Council, predicted a series of “machinations” aimed at blocking a resolution against retention of George and Chin. “There’s no telling what throats might be cut behind the scenes,” Johnston said.

In a move that could defuse some of the campaign’s fervor, some party leaders hope to put off a decision until after the court decides another explosive issue--two cases dealing with whether the Boy Scouts must admit boys who are atheists and whether they must accept gays as troop leaders.

Gov. Pete Wilson, who appointed George and Chin, hopes to blunt their opponents’ campaign, possibly winning an endorsement for the justices. Former Gov. George Deukmejian also is involved in the chief justice’s campaign, becoming its honorary chairman.

Deukmejian, who led the unprecedented 1986 campaign that ousted Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and two other justices, signed the 1987 parental consent legislation struck down in August by the George court.

Joining the fray is Orange County attorney Ken Khachigian, a top GOP strategist who has been involved in campaigns for Deukmejian, Lungren, Wilson and others. He agreed last week to manage Chin’s campaign, proclaiming that both justices are “in keeping with the mainstream of Deukmejian and Wilson.”

Wilson, Deukmejian and Khachigian all are capable of raising significant sums of money to help the justices. George and Chin are two of four high court justices facing confirmation this year. The other two are not targets because they voted to affirm parents’ rights to have a say in abortion decisions.

Much of the GOP leaders’ motivation to shut down the anti-court campaign is linked to the race for governor. Republicans fear that a major campaign against the justices would split the party and damage Republican Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren’s chances of being elected governor in November.

“It’s a side issue to the main event--the governor’s election,” said former state GOP Chairman Robert Naylor. “It can only divide and distract.”

Making an anti-court campaign even more dicey, the next governor would appoint any replacements for the Republican jurists.

If Lungren loses, the Democratic victor--businessman Al Checchi, Lt. Gov. Gray Davis or Rep. Jane Harman (D-Torrance)--might wake up the day after the election with two vacancies to fill on the high court, which has been dominated by Republican appointees since Bird and Justices Joseph Grodin and Cruz Reynoso were ousted 12 years ago.

For some conservatives, however, Lungren’s fate may not be their prime concern.

“We’d prefer not to have Lungren lose the election because we picked this fight,” said state Sen. Ray Haynes (R-Riverside), one of the Legislature’s most vocal abortion foes. “I’d be willing to take on the fight even if it hurt Lungren. But I’m a minority.”

Lungren, the one major candidate for governor who opposes abortion, is treading carefully. Perhaps not wanting to alienate conservatives working to unseat George and Chin, Lungren declined to say in an interview whether he would support or oppose the two justices.

Rather, Lungren vowed to push for a state constitutional amendment that would guarantee parents a say over whether their daughters have an abortion.

“I disagree tremendously with their decision on parental consent,” Lungren said. He added that a state constitutional amendment overturning the decision “makes far more sense than anything else, rather than personalizing it, or getting involved in the partisanship of it.”

The battle began when the high court took the unusual step of reconsidering a 1996 ruling that upheld the 1987 statute requiring minors to get parental approval for an abortion.

In a 4-3 decision written by George and concurred in by Chin, the high court concluded in August that California’s constitutional provision guaranteeing the right to privacy permits minors to get abortions without parental consent.

Led by the California ProLife Council, abortion opponents had hoped to seize the issue of parental consent, one that cuts across party lines, by declaring the equivalent of a two-front political war.

On one front, some antiabortion activists attempted to place an initiative on this November’s ballot. The measure would have amended the state Constitution to require that underage girls obtain their parents’ consent before having an abortion, except in rare instances.

To boost the effort, they enlisted Lungren to raise money.

The second line of attack was to campaign against George and Chin. To generate support, abortion opponents have been issuing strident statements proclaiming their intention to wage what would be the first serious effort aimed at the high court in more than a decade.

In launching the dual campaigns, ardent abortion opponents hoped to position themselves alongside a majority of California voters. While most Californians support a woman’s right to an abortion, a recent Times poll found that 67% of voters believe parents should have a say over whether their daughters have one.

But in short order, much of the hot talk turned cold.

By December, backers of the initiative concluded that even with Lungren making fund-raising phone calls, they couldn’t raise the $1 million it would take to obtain enough signatures to place the measure on the November ballot.

Party Chairman Michael Schroeder said fund-raising limits then in effect restricted the party’s ability to fund the initiative campaign. Lungren said he was unable to raise money for the measure because business groups, traditionally a main source of Republican funds, had no stake in the outcome.

In addition, antiabortion groups were strapped. While there are wealthy political donors who oppose abortion, antiabortion groups in California have more dedication than money. The ProLife Council, for example, ended 1997 with $13,000 in the bank.

Only Treasurer Matt Fong, running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate and hoping to find support among conservatives, made a significant donation, $25,000.

“The stakes were $1 million. We folded. Too rich,” said Michael Bowman, head of the Capitol Resources Institute, a conservative Christian lobbying group, and who tried to raise money for the measure.

The initiative’s demise did not bother the Wilson administration. Indeed, its failure played into the administration’s effort to stymie the anti-court campaign.

In the view of some Wilson advisors, the initiative would have drawn antiabortion voters to the polls in larger than usual numbers. That would have added to the threat to the governor’s Supreme Court appointees.

“You can run through a dynamite factory with a lit cigar, but who the hell wants to?” said one Wilson loyalist.