O.C. Execs Want to Steer GOP to Center

With an ambitious goal of reshaping Republican politics in Orange County, a group of executives from the county’s most successful companies has raised more than $500,000 to push more mainstream candidates for office.

Calling itself the New Majority Committee, this new group of power brokers seeks to wrest control of the county GOP from current leaders long known for their ideological conservatism--including Chairman Thomas Fuentes--and position the party more in line with what they believe will draw more Republican voters.

The committee’s formation is the latest step in a long-running conflict over leadership of the county’s Republican Party, between supporters of Fuentes and foes who seek a platform that focuses away from controversial social issues.

Fuentes characterized the committee as wealthy people who think their money entitles them to power. The party’s activists will fight them, he said.

“The volunteer part of this party is animated in response to what are perceived as country club Republicans,” Fuentes said. “I have talked with [representatives of the New Majority Committee]. They tell me they are rich, and that qualifies them for leadership. I beg to differ.”

Ultimately, the committee’s leaders want to nudge the statewide Republican Party away from a core of social conservatives who vow, for example, to outlaw abortion and prevent gun regulation.

Large numbers of voters are put off by such views, the group’s leaders maintain. They say state Republicans have devastated their own fortunes over the past decade by discouraging more moderate candidates from running and alienating droves of voters, particularly women, Latinos and independents.

In 1996, Orange County Republicans lost a key congressional seat to Democrat Loretta Sanchez, whose views were more in line with a growing Latino constituency than those of incumbent Robert K. Dornan, an ideological conservative. Two years later, the party lost an Assembly seat and a state Senate seat to the Democrats.

The group cited 1998 election exit polls indicating that many voters rejected GOP candidates associated with very conservative social views. Many turned away because of a general belief that the party was too intolerant and obsessed with the wrong issues.

“We’re going to be consigned to irrelevancy if we don’t know how to communicate” with voters, said Mark C. Johnson, president of Chapin Medical Co., the group’s treasurer and a former member of the county Republican Central Committee.

Since 1992 in Orange County, Democrats have registered twice as many new voters as Republicans, while four out of five new voters rejected any party affiliation. Republicans in Orange County now account for just under 50% of registrants--a slide from 55% in 1990 and a marked difference in a county that has had a Republican majority since 1978. Statewide, the GOP accounts for just one-third of voters.

Though many are new to politics, the group’s members are a Who’s Who of successes in new technologies that stoked Orange County’s economic revival in the 1990s. Besides its leaders, the group’s 50-plus membership includes founding members Henry Samueli, founder of technology giant Broadcom; Nicolas Shahrestany, founder of Procom Technologies; Paul Folino, CEO of Emulex Corp.; Terry Hartshorn, vice chairman of Pacificare; and Don Beall, former CEO of Rockwell.

Several of the members are conservative Republicans themselves--such as Dorothy Stillwell, who with her late husband, Glenn, helped found the Lincoln Club of Orange County, which backs conservative GOP candidates. But they see local GOP leadership as being too focused on divisive social issues rather than on core economic concerns where most Republicans are unified.

Membership Roster Includes Heavyweights

Some founding members are heavyweights in local, state and national politics: Donald Bren and Gary Hunt, CEO and executive vice president, respectively, of the Irvine Co.; George Argyros, chairman and CEO of Arnel & Affiliates; and developer William Lyon.

“We feel the most valuable role we can play is to organize and coalesce people who feel the way we do to support [like-minded candidates] running for office,” said Larry Higby, president and chief operating officer of Apria Healthcare and the group’s secretary. He also is former president of the Los Angeles Times’ Orange County edition.

Given Orange County’s still-solid GOP registration and its political clout nationally, “we thought that starting here would speak volumes,” said New Majority Chairman Thomas E. Tucker, chairman of JenStar Capital of Newport Beach.

But Fuentes and conservative leaders dismiss the group, saying they want to compromise the party’s core values in exchange for political expediency.

They say the issue isn’t about social platforms. Instead, they contend, the new effort is an attempt by the county’s business elite--particularly the Irvine Co.--to soften the party’s tough anti-tax stance.

“It’s guys like [Irvine Co. Executive Vice President] Gary Hunt who are manipulating their friends in the Irvine Spectrum,” said Matthew Cunningham of Orange, a Republican Party activist and public relations director at the Sistonia Corp.

Cunningham said the move comes in part out of frustration at Irvine voters’ recent failure to pass a parcel tax. “Every time [Hunt] has tried to raise taxes and boost the Irvine Co.’s revenue, who stands up to them? It’s the county Republicans.”

“This is the Pete Wilson wing of the party,” Cunningham said. “They’re the ones that single-handedly drove Latinos from the party. Now they’re going to be the ones to bring them back? These are guys who only to go Santa Ana to shop at the South Coast Plaza.”

But Tucker said that organizers spoke with more than 100 community and business leaders before deciding how to proceed. “When we were finished, we were floored that so many people thought like we did,” he said. “I had significant discussions with my wife. . . . The Republican Party has not done a very good job listening to what women have to say.”

The New Majority leadership said it can help stem the voter drain by encouraging candidates who accept a wider range of viewpoints on social issues. The group will support candidates in the March primary locally and elsewhere in California.

Though the $500,000 raised so far isn’t staggering in a state of multimillion-dollar campaigns, it is unprecedented in O.C. The group hopes to increase its commitment to $1 million by March.

The group also pledged that it will open its doors to a range of candidates--not eliminating people because they take a certain position on abortion, prayer in schools or handgun control. It will concentrate instead on candidates pledging to expand markets in the new economy, promote economic freedom, demand a smaller and more efficient government, and promote individual liberties.

But the group’s goals go further: Its leaders envision a populist revolution retaking the party in much the same way that GOP ideologues took over in the late 1970s, redefining what it meant to be a “real” Republican.

Many of its members have been active for decades in raising millions of dollars for philanthropic causes, including UC Irvine and the Orange County Performing Arts Center. The latter has led some conservative critics to brand the group the “Performing Arts Republicans.”

Members must donate $10,000--five times the buy-in for the Lincoln Club--and are free to donate to candidates they choose. The group has a nonprofit educational group and a political action committee for campaigning. Its goal is to have 100 members by March.

The group’s efforts reflect a growing worry among business Republicans, who have formed the bulk of party donations in past years, over the strident stances taken by state and local GOP leaders. For example, state party Chairman John McGraw sent a shudder through donors last year after he was quoted in a religious publication that “killing our babies [is the] issue of the century.” He said any other issue “pales in comparison.”

Defeats in ’98 Staunched Donations

Many donors turned their backs on appeals by the state party for money, especially after Republicans lost the governorship and both houses of the Legislature in 1998. The financial drought alarmed backers of GOP presidential front-runner George W. Bush, who intends to campaign vigorously in California, and they stepped in to restore confidence.

In the past six months, control of the party’s campaign 2000 operation was turned over to state Sen. Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga), a pragmatic conservative who had been chairman of Bush’s California campaign. Argyros also was named to lead a revitalization of the state’s GOP fund-raising.

Although New Majority leaders have not named specific candidates they will support, they did say that among the first beneficiaries will be a separate group of Republican moderates that formed in Orange County four years ago to promote candidates for the central committee, the GOP’s backbone in Orange County.

That group, Republicans for New Directions, has a slate of at least five candidates running in each Assembly district. Its ultimate goal--one endorsed by the New Majority--is the broadening of views represented on the county central committee, including replacing county party Chairman Thomas Fuentes, who is seeking his fifth committee term.

In a speech this month to the Orange County Republican Women Federated, Fuentes dismissed the New Majority leaders as “a new group of liberal, wealthy men who do not appreciate the work you do as Republican volunteers.” He said the local party leadership, to the contrary, included himself as a “Hispanic Republican,” several women, an African American and “a Jew.”

In his speech, Fuentes said an opposition group called Unity 2000 had been formed to “support the continuation of responsible leadership for our local party’s governing body, and to meet the threat of the New Directions and New Majority onslaught.”

Leveling the Playing Field

Republican campaign consultant Eileen Padberg, a longtime critic of Fuentes, said he is symptomatic of the type of party leadership being targeted by the New Majority group, of which she is not a member. Having money for candidates opposed by the party structure--and the elected leadership friendly to Fuentes--is essential to overcome a closed system and level the playing field, she said.

“The first question that’s always asked by the chairman, even of judicial candidates, is how they feel about abortion,” Padberg said. “If they answer the wrong way [pro-choice], it doesn’t go any further. Then those candidates who buck the party and run [anyway] are not able to raise money because the party puts out the word not to contribute.”

Higby said the New Majority will donate an undisclosed amount to the central committee races and to other legislative contests across the state where “we can make a difference.”

“We want to open the process and encourage new participation in the party,” he said. “This effort is about inclusion and expansion.”

Republican central committee member Phillip Yarbrough, a Santa Ana resident and member of the Rancho Santiago Community College District board of trustees, said at Monday’s party meeting that whether the new committee helps or hurts the Republican Party, “it’s democracy at work.”

“The Republican Party is big enough to take in all of this,” Yarbrough said. “It strengthens the party because it brings in more people. It’s OK because everyone agrees on the core values of the party.”

*

Times staff writer Karen Alexander contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

New Majority Committee

A group of business executives has raised more than $500,000 by charging $10,000 per member to promote its own brand of Republicans for office in Orange County and California. The group hopes to broaden the party’s appeal by encouraging candidates who focus on economic issues rather than often-divisive social issues, such as abortion rights and gun control. A partial list of the group:

* Zee Allred, CEO Pool Water Products, Irvine

* George Argyros, chairman and CEO Arnel & Affiliates, Costa Mesa

* Don Beall, former CEO Rockwell, Newport Beach

* Donald Bren, chairman the Irvine Co., Newport Beach

* Derek Clark, vice president Hambrecht & Quist, Newport Beach

* Ben Du, former president Flojet Corp., Foothill Ranch

* David Dukes, former Ingram Micro executive, Santa Ana

* Stephan Erkelens, owner Centrica Venture Capital, Newport Beach

* David Fife, owner Fife Waterfield & Co., Irvine

* Paul Folino, CEO Emulex Corp., Costa Mesa

* Robert Follman, president and CEO RA Industries Inc., Santa Ana

* Doug Freeman, president Freeman, Freeman & Smiley; Pacific Symphony, Irvine

* Jim Freeman, Day Runner Inc., Irvine

* John Garrett, partner Pillsbury Madison & Sutro, Costa Mesa

* John Ginger, president John Ginger Masonry, Riverside

* Albert Goh, physician, Tustin

* Mike Gordon, chairman The Gordon & Morris Group, Newport Beach

* Frank Greinke, CEO South County Oil, Silverado; former mayor of Tustin

* Terry Hackett, Hackett Management, Newport Beach

* Terry Hartshorn, vice chairman Pacificare, Buena Park

* Larry Higby, president and chief operating officer Apria Healthcare, Costa Mesa

* Ken Himes, president and CEO Himes Peters Jepson, architects, Tustin

* David Horowitz, owner Horowitz Management, Laguna Niguel

* Gary Hunt, executive vice president the Irvine Co., Newport Beach

* Mark Johnson, president Chapin Medical Co., Corona

* Parker Kennedy, president First American Financial Corp., Santa Ana

* Roger Kirwan, president Woodside Financial Services, Newport Beach

* Mike Lutton, president and CEO PLC Commercial, Newport Beach

* William Lyon, William Lyon Cos., Newport Beach

* Richard Marconi, Global Health Sciences, Orange

* Rick Muth, president Orco Block, Stanton

* Steve Myers, president SM&A;, Newport Beach

* Richard Rodnick, Equico Resources, Irvine

* Henry Samueli, founder Broadcom Corp., Irvine

* Nicolas Shahrestany, founder Procom Technologies, Irvine

* Ron Simon, president and CEO RSI Home Products, Newport Beach

* Ted Smith, chairman Filenet Corp., Costa Mesa

* Dorothy Stillwell, philanthropist, Newport Beach

* Ron Tendler, J. Edward Co., Newport Beach

* Thomas Tierney, chairman and CEO Body Wise Inc., Tustin; UCI Foundation

* Thomas E. Tucker, JenStar Capital, Newport Beach

* Larry Werner, president Werner Corp., Corona

* Franz Wisner, vice president the Irvine Co., Newport Beach

* Robert Yellin, Calprotection Sales, Newport Beach

Source: New Majority Committee