Bigger Fish Have Walked but D.A. Plays Hardball With Steel

With all due respect to the Costa Mesa councilman, Chris Steel is a small-potatoes guy. He lives alone in a modest little house in the low-rent end of town. He says he’s an investor, but part of his aura around City Hall over the years has been that of a semi-mystery man.

He ran nine times for council without success. On his 10th try, last November, he got 10,000 votes and finished first in an 11-candidate field.

The thrust of the staunchly conservative Steel’s candidacies has been that the city is too friendly to Latino immigrants and is heading who knows where because of it. He’s said his gripe is with the city--not the immigrants. But that often gets lost in the translation. As such, some in Costa Mesa think the 60-year-old is right on the money; others think he’s way out there.

He is such a political nonplayer that you wonder if that’s why the Orange County District Attorney can drop the hammer on Steel with impunity and charge him with two felony counts relating to signature-gathering for his filing petition.

After all, Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas made a point during his 1998 campaign of suggesting that his predecessor, Michael Capizzi, had been overzealous in prosecuting political cases. Rackauckas’ comments came at a time when many GOP leaders were angry that Capizzi had filed criminal charges against Republican Assemblyman Scott Baugh of Huntington Beach.

Rackauckas didn’t specify that case in his remarks back then, but said he thought Capizzi was misdirecting resources from more serious crimes. The Baugh case was a complicated mess involving allegations that GOP operatives got improper petition signatures and that Baugh submitted false campaign-finance reports. The case against Baugh eventually fell apart when the state attorney general, a Democrat, took it over and declined to prosecute.

The local and state GOP lined up against Capizzi, effectively scuttling his run for state attorney general in 1998.

So, what has Steel done to deserve the Baugh treatment?

He’s conceded that a man in his neighborhood last year signed his and his wife’s names to Steel’s nominating petition.

For that violation, the D.A. offered to let Steel plead guilty to a misdemeanor and resign. Steel refused. Then, investigators discovered that in 1998, Steel had signed the name of an elderly woman on his nominating petition.

Steel says that the woman was a supporter and that he signed her name, in her presence, only because her eyesight was failing. The woman, who would have been 88 in 1998, has since died.

Those two incidents are the case against Steel.

Candidates must follow the law. But what Steel did is different than someone, for example, who makes up names for a petition.

The D.A. can argue, with persuasiveness, that Steel wouldn’t have gotten on the 2000 ballot without the improper signature.

Still . . .

For a D.A. who implied that Baugh’s case was a stretch, that minor violations shouldn’t be criminalized, this seems awfully close to that threshold.

Mr. Rackauckas disagrees.

“We disagree that this is a minute matter that should be handled by the FPPC [Fair Political Practices Commission],” his spokeswoman Tori Richards says. “One of these is a forgery case. We don’t consider that a minor violation.”

Steel could have copped to a misdemeanor, but chose not to, she notes. That, and the subsequent disclosure of the 1998 incident, she says, led to the felony filing.

She disputes that the case is the kind Rackauckas criticized Capizzi for in 1998.

“We don’t file every political case that comes to us,” she says. “We get requests all the time, people complaining about council members or school board members . . . that did this or that illegally. We look at them all and there are a number of them where we don’t have the proof to file. In this case, we did have the proof.”

She says Rackauckas distinguishes this case from others that might involve technical violations on campaign disclosure reports, such as mistakenly identifying the contributor’s occupation or the exact amount donated.

I agree those can be harmless mistakes. Given such charity, I’m not sure why Steel doesn’t qualify for a break.

Former Costa Mesa Mayor Joe Erickson disagrees with Steel on practically everything, politically. But as for the charges against him, Erickson says, “It’s not a big enough deal to go to jail or lose his seat. To go after Chris Steel on this one, I don’t think it’s right. A moderate fine would be appropriate, with a promise never to do it again.”

I can’t read Rackauckas’ mind. He’s been under fire from various quarters, and I suspect he’s trying to placate someone by playing hardball with Steel.

As for Steel, I knocked on his door early Friday afternoon. On his attorney’s advice, he says, he can’t discuss the case.

He greeted me wearing tennis shoes, khaki green socks, blue patterned Bermuda shorts and a bright-red shirt.

In that eyeful, an instant and overpowering truth emerges: What an easy target.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.