Democratic Supervisor May Be in O.C.’s Future

A four-way race next year to replace Chuck Smith as central Orange County’s supervisor could put the first Democrat on the Board of Supervisors in 16 years.

Assemblyman Lou Correa of Anaheim and Garden Grove Mayor Bruce Broadwater, both Democrats, are running against two Republican city council members -- Brett Franklin of Santa Ana and Kermit Marsh of Westminster. If none wins a majority in the March primary, a runoff will be held in November.

Though the job of supervisor is nonpartisan and party identification isn’t on the ballot, politics has never been far from the Orange County board. Most candidates emphasize their partisan roots to voters in the GOP-rich county, and party officials have boasted for years that the local board is dominated by Republicans.

Correa’s entry into the race, however, signaled an end to politics as usual. An unapologetic Democrat who, by law, must leave the Assembly at the conclusion of his third term next year, Correa brings to the campaign significant cash, a grass-roots volunteer base and a list of partisan votes that drew scorn from the county GOP.

Among them: Correa voted in September to grant marriage-type rights to gay and lesbian partners after having abstained on an earlier bill, and last month voted against the repeal of a controversial law that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses.

Broadwater has a less partisan public profile, though he routinely is included in lists of the county’s prominent Democrats. He is known in Garden Grove more for his support of redevelopment and revitalization projects. When he won his fifth term as mayor last year, critics nicknamed him “Bulldozer.”

Broadwater became the first candidate to mail a voter appeal, sending an absentee ballot application form Thursday with a message targeted to Westminster voters in Little Saigon.

Franklin is a bilingual real estate broker elected to the Santa Ana City Council in 1996; Marsh, an attorney, was elected to the Westminster City Council in 1998.

With Democrats firmly ensconced in overlapping Assembly, state Senate and congressional districts, the prospects of a Democratic supervisor joining them are good, political consultants said. Democrats outnumber Republicans by 8% in the district, which includes all of Santa Ana and Westminster and parts of Garden Grove.

That compels Republicans to focus on issues of local concern, rather than ideological appeals.

“If a Democrat wins, it won’t be because he’s a Democrat as much as he’s the best candidate,” said public affairs consultant Christopher Townsend, a Democrat based in Irvine who isn’t involved in the race.

“For example, the reason Brett Franklin believes he can be competitive [in a Democratic majority district] is not because he’s a Republican,” Townsend said, “but because he’s well known for his work in Santa Ana, which is the largest city in the district.”

But Correa’s camp says it assumes partisan politics will play out in the election. “It’s impossible to believe that the partisan nature of this race won’t become an issue, whether we make it one or not,” Correa’s Sacramento-based consultant Gale Kaufman said.

Correa has the largest campaign account, thanks primarily to fundraising in Sacramento. Earlier this year, he transferred $340,000 from his Assembly account into his supervisorial race, a move Franklin and others said violated a 1992 Orange County law banning campaign transfers.

A court hearing is scheduled Jan. 6 in Orange County Superior Court on a lawsuit filed by Franklin challenging the transfer. If a judge upholds the transfer ban, it also could affect a similar transfer by Broadwater of $35,000 from his City Council campaign account.

“Up until 1998, when I got elected, Orange County didn’t have a Democrat in the Legislature,” Correa said. “Things are changing; not just the demographics, but the constituency. They want someone to listen to them. At the end of the day, my constituents are Democrats and Republicans and everyone else.”

Orange County hasn’t had a Democrat on the Board of Supervisors since Ralph B. Clark retired in January 1987. Clark was first elected in 1970 and served four terms before he was replaced by Don R. Roth, a Republican who vacated his seat after pleading guilty to conflict-of-interest charges.

Before Clark, two Democrats were elected in 1968, but the board had gone 26 years before that with only Republicans.

In 1979, Gov. Jerry Brown appointed another Democrat, Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war Edison W. Miller, to the board to fill a vacancy.

Miller served 18 months before he was defeated by former Republican Assemblyman Bruce Nestande in a nasty race with accusations that Miller was a traitor during his captivity as a POW. A 1973 letter of censure in Miller’s military file was later ordered removed by a judge, who ruled there was no evidence that Miller had betrayed his fellow soldiers.

Correa likely will become the focus of Republican fire if only because of his front-runner status, several local consultants said. His campaign cash is formidable, now more than $450,000, especially given the county’s $1,400 limit on campaign contributions.

Correa’s voting record has been an equal-opportunity target. He was criticized by the left for being hostile on some gay-rights bills; he has been faulted by the right for, among other things, sponsoring a bill in 1999 that doubled generous retirement benefits for California Highway Patrol officers and allowed local governments to do the same for their police and firefighters.

That benefit, adopted by most local counties and cities, including the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and many Orange County municipalities, is draining hundreds of millions of dollars from general revenues as once-fat investment accounts seen as the source for future payments shrank with stock losses.

If Correa wins, he “is going to walk into a budget problem that he created,” said county Treasurer-Tax Collector John M.W. Moorlach, a Republican. “It might even be poetic justice if he wins.”

Correa pointed out that the Orange County board -- all Republicans -- unanimously adopted the retirement perk in 2002. “We gave local governments the option and they chose to exercise it,” he said. “What am I missing here?”

The campaign comes at a pivotal time for the Orange County board, which will undergo a makeover in the next three years. Supervisors Jim Silva and Tom Wilson will complete the last of their two four-year terms in 2006; Wilson is a candidate for a south county Assembly seat next year and, if he wins, it would open his seat earlier. Supervisor Bill Campbell, a former Assembly Republican leader, has been on the job less than a year and drew no opponent in March. Supervisor Chris Norby was elected last year.