What’s a Reagan Courthouse Without a Picture of Reagan?

The soon-to-open Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana is about to be subject to an act of Congress.

The government spent all of its art appropriations for the $123-million building but neglected to purchase a single picture or statue of the former president.

“You’ve flown in and out of John Wayne Airport? Well, there’s a statue of John Wayne there,” said Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), who has tucked language into a Treasury appropriations bill instructing the government to acquire fitting images of the former president without spending another federal dime.

Among the suggestions are a rotating exhibit in conjunction with the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, as well as private donations to buy more art, Cox said.

“There’s no money. It’s not a money provision,” said Cox, who wrote the original legislation authorizing the 10-story courthouse and then naming it. “We’re trying to find other sources to pay proper tribute to [Reagan]. We want some pictures and some statues, and we want everyone involved to understand the Congress supports this.”

The government’s Art in Architecture program requires that a fixed percentage of the gross cost of federal buildings be spent on art. All that was allowed has been spent already for the Reagan building, none of it in the image of Reagan.

The art snafu was just the latest in the building’s long trip from blueprint to ribbon-cutting. Groundbreaking set for 1993 was delayed two years when a federal task force headed by Vice President Al Gore called for a moratorium on new federal office buildings.

The courthouse survived the moratorium, but with $40 million cut from its budget. Then the elegant structure, which will include 14 courtrooms, missed its scheduled completion last year when the travertine marble being quarried in Tivoli, Italy, for its walls was delayed by winter storms.

Meanwhile, judges and other federal workers have been working out of trailers and a cramped modular complex with a leaky roof and buckets spread about to catch the drips when it rains.

The new courthouse is scheduled to open in December, and if Cox has anything to say about it, a statue of Reagan will be displayed somewhere on the 600,000-square-foot site.

“We are getting cooperation” from federal officials to obtain art of Reagan, Cox said, “but we want to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.” His legislative provision, he said, “is a sort of belt-and-suspenders approach” to make sure the statue materializes.