Sanchez Is a Power Behind Santa Ana Politics

Quietly, a rebellion is taking shape in Santa Ana politics.

Already, lines are being drawn in a municipal election that could determine who pulls the strings in Orange County’s most populous city.

But this year’s race will be more than a fight for control of City Hall. It will be a battle for the heart and soul of the city.

The 2000 campaign promises to be a contest between the old guard and the vanguard. Between entrenched interests and the needs of new immigrants. Between the establishment and the disenfranchised.

Certainly, these wars have been fought before in the county seat, where a predominantly white City Council rules a predominantly Latino population. Dissidents here have railed against the powers that be for two decades, to no avail.

The opposition has remained a weak and ineffective minority. Some challengers just bang their heads bloody, then self-destruct--like outgoing Councilman Ted R. Moreno, who is fighting a federal indictment for political corruption.

But this year is different, because the influence of one of Orange County’s most powerful and respected politicians is casting a long shadow over the local electoral landscape.

Watch out, Santa Ana. Loretta Sanchez is in town.

As you’ll recall, in 1996 the then-political newcomer made history when she unseated the ultra-conservative Bob Dornan. It was a classic underdog-defeats-Goliath scenario. Only David in this case was a woman, a Latina and a Democrat.

The Sanchez win signaled a sea change in local politics. It proved the growing importance of the Latino vote, which later led to a wave of wins for Latinos statewide.

It seemed like the so-called Sleeping Giant--the large but previously uninvolved Latino population--had finally awakened. Everywhere, new citizens and first-time voters were leaving their mark.

Everywhere except in Santa Ana.

At City Hall, it was business as usual. In fact, Latino representation on the seven-member council slipped in the last election, from three to two. And one of those Latinos, Mayor Miguel A. Pulido, often sides with the city establishment. That left only Moreno, a discredited lame duck, to advocate for change in a city dominated by powerful interest groups--the chamber of commerce, police and fire unions, developers and affluent neighborhood associations.

Nobody could beat The Regime, as one pundit puts it.

“It’s like running against the PRI,” said Santa Ana College trustee Enriqueta Ramos, referring to the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, the political party that has controlled Mexico for seven decades. “Siempre ganan. (They always win.) So why bother?”

Ramos is a former Pulido ally who has soured on the mayor. She says the city needs new blood--”a person who’s going to represent the people of Santa Ana, rather than the just the elite, the business interests and the artists from Laguna Beach.”

She ‘Encourages’

Some say Sanchez may be the one who can make that happen.

“I think she’s the power broker right now,” said Ramos. “We didn’t have a national figure before that could pull so many votes. That’s going to make a big difference in Santa Ana.”

Sanchez downplays her role in the local race. She denies rumors around town that she is behind a slate of three council candidates who will try to forge a populist majority on the council.

“I have no slate,” Sanchez said in an interview Thursday. “Do I like to see a variety of people run, and do I encourage people who are not put up by the power elite? Yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m sitting around sharpening my pencil trying to figure out how to get control of the City Council.”

Yet, nobody can deny that Sanchez is unusually close to this campaign. One of the candidates, council challenger Mauro Morales, works as the congresswoman’s own district director. So far, he’s the only candidate Sanchez has officially endorsed.

Two others, neighborhood leader Michele Morrisey and Deputy District Atty. Claudia Alvarez, just happen to pop up at the same events and fund-raisers, sometimes introduced by Sanchez, herself.

That introduction, alone, can open the doors--and wallets--of the county’s influential Latinos.

“In the Latino community, her blessing is powerful,” said Morrisey, who got Sanchez to attend one of her recent campaign events. “She lends clout and credibility and viability to my race.”

Maybe there’s no slate. But some of these candidates are singing the same tune. They’re talking about empowering the powerless and giving voice to the voiceless. They’re saying all people deserve to be heard, whether they vote or not.

That’s not a slate, says Morrisey. That’s a “shared agenda.”

In better days, the now-disgraced Moreno ran all-Latino slates of candidates in attempts to crack the majority hold on the council. He recruited inexperienced but eager unknowns, and pitted them against his council colleagues, who got a surprising run for their once-secure seats.

They never forgave him.

Moreno Made Enemies

Moreno made enemies, but he proved the establishment was vulnerable. He ran his slate campaigns like a guerrilla war.

He attacked the exorbitant salaries paid to city staff, for example, and raised questions about a sweetheart deal the city gave a big trash company without going out to bid.

In Santa Ana’s hardball politics, that’s enough to make you a marked man. The council majority stripped Moreno of his appointees to city commissions and blocked his pet initiatives, including construction of a new community center for Delhi, a historic and poor barrio.

Delhi residents have been fighting for that center for 10 years. They felt betrayed when the city dragged its feet on the project, some say, just to spite Moreno and prevent him from taking credit for its completion.

The Delhi fiasco is now campaign fodder. It’s mentioned by critics, including Sanchez, as an example of skewed priorities in a city that ignores needy neighborhoods but splurges resources on building a palace for police and creating an Artists Village to gentrify downtown.

Sanchez, who lives in West Floral Park, one of Santa Ana’s nicer neighborhoods, said the city’s poor don’t know how to work the system. They don’t know how to advocate for what they want. But they want to learn and they turn to her for help.

“It’s coming from the grass roots,” she said. “I mean, the people empower themselves.”

That may be. But it’s always more convenient to have somebody come by the house with a voter registration card. Thanks to the campaigns for Sanchez and other Latino candidates, more and more immigrants have become voters. Now, City Council challengers in Santa Ana can expect to ride the wave of that mobilized electorate.

No matter who wins this year, city officials can no longer be content to serve only those who give money or who come out on election day.

“I think they’ve probably been catering to the most aggressive voice,” said Morales, an attorney with experience in the nation’s capitol. “And that’s fine. We should listen to people who know how to use the system. But other segments of the community also deserve a seat at the table. . . .

“We can all come up together. Nobody needs to feel left behind.”

Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com