Sanchez Fund-Raiser Is Moved to CityWalk Site

Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) on Friday backed down on plans to stage a fund-raiser next week at the Playboy Mansion, bowing to pressure from national Democratic leaders.

Sanchez will move the fund-raiser to B.B. King’s Blues Club at Universal Studios’ CityWalk, a decision made one day after party leaders yanked her as a speaker at the Democratic National Convention, which begins Monday in Los Angeles.

Sanchez now will be allowed to address the convention, Democratic National Committee officials said after her announcement.

Sanchez’s previous refusal to relocate the Tuesday night event benefiting a political action committee she heads--even after an appeal by presumed Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore--caused an intraparty rift that delighted Republicans. It also threatened to transform her from a prominent figure within the party to an outcast at the convention.

Democratic leaders worried that having the fund-raiser at the Playboy Mansion, especially on a night coinciding with the convention, would hurt their efforts to portray Gore as a candidate who cares about family values.

But even before Sanchez agreed to change the event’s location, Democrats drew criticism from Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner about the way the flap was handled.

He decried Gore and party leaders as hypocrites for attacking the fund-raiser’s location while in the past soliciting campaign contributions from Playboy executives.

“Hypocrisy and politics in America go hand in hand,” Hefner said in an interview with The Times. “Critics sometimes suggest we are beating a dead horse in talking abut the puritanical nature of this country. But if there was ever evidence of it, here it is.”

In a statement Sanchez sent to the Democratic National Committee, she said: “To continue to dwell on where our event is held . . . frankly makes no sense. The only real party I am interested in is a party that represents real people, with real needs. That party is the Democratic Party.”

Sanchez announced the change of venue outside her Orange County office at a news conference broadcast live on television. She quickly made clear that she would not directly address the controversy, saying, “My mother always told me if you can’t say something nice about people, don’t talk about them.”

Sanchez said she had not talked to anyone Friday from the DNC--whose chairman, Joe Andrew, had yanked her from the convention’s speakers’ list Thursday. Instead, Sanchez said she made the decision after consulting with members of her PAC, Hispanic Unity USA, which seeks to promote the political interests of Latinos.

Sanchez said her decision “in no way reflects anything other than appreciation” to Hefner and other Playboy officials she worked with on the fund-raiser.

She singled out for praise Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante for helping her find an alternative venue “with the cachet we needed.”

Also playing a role was Andy Camacho, a Los Angeles businessman and Democratic fund-raiser whose holdings include two restaurants at CityWalk. Camacho said he was approached by Sanchez allies about finding a new site for the fund-raiser and helped arrange use of King’s club.

Wylie Aitken, chairman of Sanchez’s campaign committee, said of her decision: “It had become a distraction, and the rightness or wrongness of her decision became irrelevant.”

After Sanchez’s announcement, Richard Rosenzweig, executive vice president of Playboy, said: “It’s a sad day in the political life of America. . . . [Democratic leaders] just exerted so much pressure on her and her staff and her supporters that she simply had to make this decision. I just wonder what will happen to the party as a result of this. It will be a very searing experience.”

Campaign finance records show that the DNC and the Democratic congressional and senatorial campaign committee have accepted $50,000 from Hefner and his daughter, Christie, since 1991. Hefner’s contributions to President Clinton and Gore total $9,500 for the same period.

Of that, Gore’s presidential campaign received $1,500 in 1998.

Christie Hefner earlier this year hosted a party in her Chicago home for a Democratic House candidate at which one of the speakers was Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.), the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In recent weeks, Kennedy has been among the leading critics of Sanchez having the fund-raiser at the Playboy site.

Gore said Friday that the symbolism of a Democratic Party official holding a fund-raiser at the mansion and his acceptance of campaign contributions from Playboy executives is “apples and oranges.”

Andrew said that, despite the contributions, “Playboy does not represent the values of our party. There’s a lifestyle that the Playboy Mansion represents--and that lifestyle is not one this party supports.”

Friday’s announcement culminated an anxious week for Sanchez, who had been digging in her heels against finding another location despite weeks of pressure to find a site more suitable to a family values theme.

The 40-year-old lawmaker, who gained national attention with her upset of Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) in 1996, hunkered down in her office Friday, reeling from criticism from fellow Democrats and working with her staff to negotiate a way out of the mess.

The controversy threatened to dramatically alter the political fortunes of Sanchez, who was the second-highest party fund-raiser last year--second only to Gore, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Democratic officials who previously had described Sanchez as “tenacious” and “bold” now referred to her as “defiant” and “stubborn.”

John J. Pitney Jr., associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, called the controversy “the perfect storm.”

Said Pitney: “You have three things converging at once: sex, Democratic fund-raising and ethnic politics. The whole incident has raised questions about her judgment, and it will take a while for her to repair the damage.”

About 600 people donated $5,000 each to attend the party for Hispanic Unity USA, which Sanchez has led for 1 1/2 years. The group seeks to elect candidates “that understand and care about the needs of the Hispanic community,” according to the original invitation to the fund-raiser, which featured the trademark Playboy bunny.

The group has raised about $500,000 since Sanchez took over.

Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly, who has known Sanchez for 12 years, said her initial inclination to keep the event at the Playboy Mansion stemmed from a tendency to make symbolic statements to shake up complacency and challenge new thinking.

“She’s been saying, ‘Let’s move beyond the stereotype here,’ ” he said. “You know, she shattered a few stereotypes when she became the first female to be elected to Congress in Orange County and the first Latino.”

At the same time, Daly said, she’s a “careful person who is well grounded in her district.”

Sanchez was the surprise winner of the Democratic primary in 1996, overcoming the local party’s endorsement of another candidate who spent about $500,000 on the campaign. Her odds of defeating Dornan were considered slim at best, but she waged an aggressive campaign, raised more money than the 12-year incumbent and narrowly defeated him.

Dornan challenged the results, claiming hundreds of noncitizens were allowed to vote, and a House committee investigated. The panel certified Sanchez’s election and she easily defeated Dornan in a 1998 rematch.

She benefited from the publicity of the effort to overturn her 1996 victory and her standing as a high-ranking Latina official. Last year, she was named a DNC co-chairwoman, a largely honorary position.

As the furor concerning her fund-raiser escalated, some party officials warned that she was in danger of losing that post.

According to a Playboy spokeswoman, Sanchez aides approached Playboy officials several months ago. The spokeswoman said Sanchez aides met with Playboy officials and were “adamant” that the fund-raiser had to be a “first-class event with no bunnies or Playmates because they didn’t want to send out the wrong message.”

Sanchez viewed the mansion as a big draw for her PAC. And indeed, as soon as word got out about the fund-raiser, it quickly sold out.

But some Latino leaders said they warned Sanchez early on against holding the fund-raiser at the mansion.

“Everybody, for the longest time, has been telling her since she came up with this cockeyed idea not to do it,” one Latino leader said.

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Times staff writers Greg Krikorian, Jeff Leeds, Frank del Olmo and Sunny Kaplan contributed to this story.