‘B-1 Bob’ Vs. Democrats’ Darling, Round II

She came to Capitol Hill with a name for one thing: beating right-wing legend Robert K. Dornan.

That fame and Dornan’s bitter challenge of her victory helped U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) stand out in Washington when she arrived two years ago, the only Democrat and the only Latina in Orange County’s congressional delegation.

Sweeping into office as a strong symbol of the emerging power of the Latino vote, Sanchez quickly became the darling of the Democrats. But before her election, Sanchez had never held elective office, never written a law, never been in the halls of Congress as anything but a tourist. Critics say it showed.

In her first year in Congress, Sanchez gained a reputation for distraction and naivete. That hurt her efforts to overcome the usual problems freshmen from the minority party encounter in getting major bills introduced and considered.

Republicans criticized her harshly for taking credit they thought was not her due, criticism that continues to this day. She was even chided by some members of her own party who thought her new celebrity had gone to her head. And Dornan’s withering 14-month effort to overturn the election at times seemed to overwhelm her.

With the help of influential Democrats in Washington, Sanchez has worked to turn those early perceptions around and to develop a legislative record aimed at undercutting GOP portrayals of her as an ineffective lightweight.

In her first term, Sanchez got one piece of legislation passed, secured some federal money for her central Orange County district and spent more time at home talking with voters than any predecessor.

To Sanchez, all politics is local. She is trying to use the office to turn attention away from Dornan’s preoccupations with national and international policies and toward the day-to-day concerns of her constituents.

“I want to give people the opportunity to talk about the issues that they are concerned about, whether it’s getting a stop sign on the end of their street or what,” Sanchez said. “Most politicians would say that’s a local issue. For me, it’s a big issue.”

Tending to the home front is one of the better strategies a freshman legislator can take, congressional experts say, because senior members usually don’t let them do much else.

“The average freshman is very unlikely to pass any major legislation. It takes some time to get your feet wet,” said Burdett Loomis, a political scientist at the University of Kansas and a close observer of Congress. “Plus she did not have time at first to do anything other than fight” Dornan’s challenge.

In Anaheim and Santa Ana, two of the biggest cities she represents, Sanchez has managed to convince officials that she is working hard to push a local agenda in Washington, even if not all her efforts have begun to pay off.

“Loretta Sanchez has been the most aggressive representative that we have seen probably in decades, probably because she had a tough race and she wanted to be responsive to the city of Anaheim,” said Kristine Thalman, Anaheim’s government relations manager.

‘Well Taken Care of’ by Senior Democrats

Republicans are gunning for Sanchez as she heads to another showdown with Dornan in the Nov. 3 election. The rematch is one of the costliest and most watched in the country.

Since being elected, Sanchez has resisted being pigeon-holed, even as she and her savvy media team and staff of experienced Washington insiders have used her renown to pump up her public profile and build her influence.

Despite voting consistently pro-abortion rights, pro-environment and pro-labor, Sanchez has managed to win plaudits from a number of conservative interest groups.

A former businesswoman, she has pushed an image as a fiscal conservative. When the five Republican members of the Orange County delegation have voted as a bloc, Sanchez has voted with them about half the time.

She voted with them, for instance, to back constitutional amendments that would require a two-thirds vote to raise taxes and would allow Congress to criminalize flag desecration.

She also joined them in backing the 1997 Tax Cut Act, as well as bills to allow the military to patrol the border and to require adult prosecution of juveniles older than 14 charged with serious violent felonies.

With other Democrats, though, Sanchez voted against a ban on partial-birth abortion, which is a late-term procedure. She voted against a 12-year term limit for Congress members, dropping her support after a bipartisan proposal to make it retroactive lost.

Sanchez, like most new members of Congress, where building the allies and power needed to move legislation generally takes years, is working at a disadvantage.

She is young, just 38 in an institution made up mostly of men in their 50s. Her Capitol Hill office is a tiny warren compared with the august dens of her more senior colleagues. Like other freshman members, she finds herself in the role of supplicant, forced to appeal to more experienced members for help.

“The largest frustration I have is I’m always thinking about all the things we could be doing,” Sanchez said. “‘I mean, let’s face it, I’m a freshman.”

On a recent day in the Capitol, Sanchez gave voice to that frustration in meeting after meeting with California electrical workers who had come to her seeking support for labor issues.

“Listen, you guys know the game,” she said to one group of education officials who sought her out in an anteroom just off the House floor. “Knock on the door of the Republicans, get their vote. I’m already on your side, but, you know, what can I do? We’ve got to work to get those votes to make this happen.”

Despite the frustrations, Sanchez “has been well taken care of, as well taken care of as any new member I’ve ever seen,” said one high-level administration official who works as a liaison to Congress.

She is, after all, a woman and Latino, two of the fastest-growing voter constituencies in the nation, a fact that is not lost on those she approaches asking for help.

In addition, Democratic insiders in Washington and across the country rallied to her side during Dornan’s election challenge because they feared Dornan could succeed in his attempt to overturn her victory.

Dornan had alleged that noncitizens cast ballots illegally. The House found more than 700 votes had been cast by residents who hadn’t become citizens yet, but that wasn’t enough to overcome the 984-vote victory margin.

“It’s very rare for all the members of the Democratic caucus to flock around and focus all their energies on a freshman, but that is what happened with Loretta. She is clearly not an anonymous freshman,” said Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, a Maryland legislator for 37 years and one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress. “Everyone [in Congress] knows Loretta Sanchez. That is a real advantage to her.”

Hoyer and others said Sanchez was overwhelmed at first by the Dornan challenge and the tremendous pressure the subsequent investigation put on her and her staff. Initially, she infrequently attended meetings of committees on which she sits.

Sanchez, though, denies that the investigation had any effect on her job performance.

“I said to my team, I’m going to work on the things I need to get done,” Sanchez said. “People . . . need me to understand them, to get bills passed, to work on the issues.”

Success in Securing Funds for Local Needs

These days the Dornan challenge is behind Sanchez. What remains is the support for her agenda from senior Democrats who are “eager to do what we can to push Loretta’s case,” said Rep. Vic Fazio of West Sacramento, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

Leading Democrats, for instance, awarded her seats on the National Security Committee and the Education and the Work Force Committee. It is rare for a freshman legislator to earn seats on more than one committee.

As the election nears, Sanchez has started looking to build her influence in a possible second term. She has made it known that she is gunning for a seat on the powerful Commerce Committee, a plum for any member of Congress. Top Democrats say there is a good chance she’ll get it.

On funding for projects in her district--a legislator’s bread-and-butter work--Sanchez has been able to tap party leaders for help, Fazio said.

When Sanchez sought money for an Orange County Transportation Authority project, she appealed to Hoyer and other senior Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee to push the issue. The result was $2 million in federal funding for the agency this year.

Sanchez did the same to get $6.75 million for improvements to the Santa Ana Freeway in Anaheim, and an additional $5.35 million toward widening Bristol Street in Santa Ana. During his final years in office, Dornan had secured $4.1 million for the same Bristol Street project.

Stan Oftelie, a Democrat and former director of the OCTA, said both Dornan and Sanchez get high marks from transportation professionals for helping get the street improvement money.

“Loretta stepped in and she’s been great, and she’s done just as much as Dornan has done on these projects,” Oftelie said.

In the competition for grants from government agencies, the Clinton administration has repeatedly pushed Sanchez’s cause, an administration official said.

The results include a $1.3-million Economic Development Agency grant for an Anaheim business park, $1.3 million in Head Start program funding for the county and a $400,000 U.S. Justice Department grant for Orange County Drug Court.

Securing such grants is hardly remarkable, allies and foes of Sanchez agree. Republicans have criticized Sanchez for what they call grandstanding about work Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) calls “just routine.”

“Our staffs all know that if one of our cities wants something, we help them,” Cox said. “It’s not remarkable if a representative from greater Omaha asks for a grant for Omaha. What is remarkable is if he doesn’t.”

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) is a bit more generous, saying the only credit Sanchez deserves is “for lobbying the administration and certain federal agencies to send money back to her area.”

What irks her GOP colleagues is her penchant for using illusion and image to appear to have done more than she has. For example, she spends most weekends speaking at scores of ribbon-cutting ceremonies in her district, sometimes for projects for which she played little part in securing funding.

And she has been quick to take credit for accomplishments shared by Republican members of the Orange County delegation.

Sanchez likes to point out that she got one bill passed in her first term, while Dornan never got a bill passed into law in his 18 years in Congress. The new law compensates former South Vietnamese army commandos employed by the U.S. during the Vietnam War.

But the legislation was not exactly original. It was a slightly modified version of a bill Dornan had introduced before his defeat, and similar to one that already had passed in the Senate.

Republicans chafed at her claim on the law.

“People get upset when you take credit for things you haven’t done, especially when it’s things that they have,” Rohrabacher said.

Particularly irritating to Orange County Republicans is the credit Sanchez took for persuading the Immigration and Naturalization Service to extend a pilot program in the Anaheim City Jail.

The program was the brainchild of her conservative foes. Sanchez, after initially questioning the merits of the program, was the last member of the county’s congressional delegation to support it.

“We went to Cox for the INS program,” Anaheim’s Thalman said. “Initially, [Sanchez] kind of backed off from it. She was suspicious of it, but eventually she came on board and signed on with the rest of our congressional members.”

Sanchez Chief of Staff Steve Jost calls the criticism sour grapes.

“The Republicans have for a year and a half said that Loretta takes credit for things that she didn’t do. They have been less than helpful toward her, to say the least,” Jost said.

“But I would say she deserves as much credit as anybody for doing things for her district. We go out of our way in our district for anybody in our district.”

Local Presence Wins Constituents’ Praise

Back home, Sanchez earns plaudits from city and school district officials, museum directors and others she has helped secure funds. She spends hours every weekend shaking hands with constituents.

“She hasn’t been there that long, but she’s stood by her ground, she’s represented Latinos, she’s represented labor,” said Rae Sanborn, business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers chapter in Orange County.

“Obviously, when she gets more seniority she’ll be able to do more. But the important thing is that you get someone in there who cares about working folks and not just the almighty dollar.”

Latino leaders in the district say they are impressed by Sanchez’s accessibility and her support for labor issues, which affect many of the region’s Latinos.

“Accessibility is probably where she’s outscored many of her predecessors, that and her votes in support of labor issues, which are critical survival issues to the Latino community,” said Jess J. Araujo, a Santa Ana attorney and founder of the Orange County-based Latin American Voters of America.

Santa Ana and Anaheim officials said Sanchez’s staff is quick to try to get them what they need in Washington.

Thalman said Dornan and other members of Congress also were quick to respond to Anaheim’s requests for federal money. But she said city officials often were loath to go to the Republican legislators for help, knowing they were generally opposed to doling out government aid.

“Bob Dornan and his staff were always there to help us whenever we asked for it, but we always tailored our demands to his philosophy,” Thalman said.

“With Loretta, there’s this constant solicitation [from her staff] for, ‘What’s going on? What can we help you with?’ Her staff is always calling us,” she said. “So it’s made us a little more aware of the possibilities at the federal level.”

* MIXED RESULTS: A look at legislation Sanchez has introduced, her House voting record and her relative ideological standing. B3