Loser Robinson’s Next Step: Is It Senate Race?

Richard Robinson’s decisive defeat in his bid to unseat U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) left the veteran Democratic lawmaker’s political future in doubt.

Some Democratic leaders said the loss signaled the end of Robinson’s long and controversial political career, but others said he still would be a major force should he decide to run in a special election next year for fellow Democrat Paul B. Carpenter’s soon-to-be vacated state Senate seat.

The 43-year-old Robinson was never the consensus favorite of party leaders to challenge Dornan this year. But his 12 years in the Legislature gave him name identification and fund-raising potential, and party activists were not able to field another candidate who could beat him in a Democratic primary.

Now, backers of former Cypress Mayor Otto J. Lacayo, Norwalk Councilman Cecil N. Green and other Democrats eyeing the state Senate race fear that the unpredictable Robinson is positioned to play the spoiler’s role again.

‘It All Bodes Very Well’

“He told me I had better hope he won against Dornan or else I’d see him in that (Senate) race,” Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim) said Wednesday. “I take him at his word.”

But Seymour, Republican Caucus chairman in the Senate, added: “Robinson got beat up very badly yesterday. His stock has to drop. . . . If Robinson ends up in a head-on battle with Lacayo, that is very good for us. . . . It all bodes very well.”

U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City) said Robinson, a longtime friend and political ally, may still be the most viable candidate for Democratic attempts to hold on to the Senate seat that Carpenter, elected Tuesday to the state Board of Equalization, is abandoning. Berman said he had spoken with Robinson in the early hours Wednesday morning.

‘A Republican Seat’

But Richard J. O’Neill, a former state Democratic chairman, predicted Robinson could not win and that he should not even try.

“I’m afraid that’s going to be a Republican seat,” O’Neill said. “I think it is (Norwalk Assemblyman Wayne) Grisham’s seat.”

With Carpenter’s election to the Board of Equalization, Gov. George ‘He told me I had better hope he won against Dornan or else I’d see him in that (Senate) race. I take him at his word.’

--Sen. John Seymour

Deukmejian is expected to call a special election, probably next February or March, to fill the 33rd District Senate seat.

The anticipated battle took on added significance Tuesday, as Democrats lost Senate seats in San Francisco and Kern counties. Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), seeing his position as Democratic leader becoming more tenuous as his party’s majority narrows, will no doubt invest lots of personal energy and campaign resources to retain the seat in an off-year election, when Republicans traditionally fare better.

Before Tuesday’s loss to Dornan, in a 42% to 55% vote split, Robinson had been widely regarded as the strongest Democratic contender for Carpenter’s seat, although the Assembly district Robinson has represented since 1974 does not overlap with the 33rd Senate District.

Shielded From Media

Robinson, a labor union official before entering politics, disappeared from view as returns started coming in Tuesday and remained shielded from the public and media Wednesday. Friends, associates and aides at his offices in Sacramento and Garden Grove said they had no idea when, or whether, he would concede defeat or make any public statements regarding his loss to Dornan.

“I just don’t know. . . . I can’t promise anything. I wouldn’t hold your breath,” Marjorie Swartz, Robinson’s friend and frequent companion, said Wednesday.

Big Spending

Robinson spent most of the nearly $500,000 in campaign contributions he raised in his losing effort. Political strategists for both parties are predicting that the candidate elected to replace Carpenter may have to spend $850,000 to $1 million.

Currently, 53.8% of the voters in Carpenter’s district, which includes northwestern Orange County and southern Los Angeles County, are registered as Democrats; 38% are Republicans. But the Democratic majority is a traditionally conservative group that barely reelected Carpenter two years ago.

About three-fourths of the district is in Los Angeles County, where Robinson is not well known. And Randy Economy, a political consultant gearing up to run Lacayo’s campaign, said even voters in Buena Park, Cypress, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Anaheim and Garden Grove, who may be familiar with Robinson, would still resent his moving into the area just to run for office.

‘Know Who Belongs’

“They (voters) know who belongs in the area and who doesn’t belong in the area,” said Economy, who acknowledged his candidate has a better chance if Robinson sits out the race.

Strategists for both parties say the “best possible world” would be for their party to unite behind a consensus candidate, while the other party divides its votes among several contenders.

“But you never have the best possible world,” said Orange County Democratic Party Chairman John Hanna. “We found that out in the 38th District (Dornan’s) this time.”