O.C. Democrats Say Time to Beat Dornan Is Now

GARDEN GROVE —  Every two years, somebody tries to beat Rep. Robert K. Dornan, the pugnacious conservative from the heart of Orange County.

Sometimes, the contender pops up in the GOP primary, while other times the challenge comes from a Democrat. Either way, they attack from the left. But Dornan always spends lavishly and buries them from the right.

But this year, it is already different for Dornan. He has come late to the race and is scrambling for dollars.

The former Air Force pilot, famous for upbraiding political opponents, faces a well-funded Latina--Loretta Sanchez--who has the backing of a legion of Dornan enemies, including environmentalists, abortion rights groups, gay colleagues in Congress and President Clinton.

All are natural Dornan foes, drawn to her side in this heavily Latino and Democratic district because they are convinced he is truly vulnerable this time.

They cite his implausible run for president, saying it drained money from his campaign and shows he is wounded in Orange County. Dornan beat none of the active GOP contenders in the presidential balloting here, receiving 1,029 votes in his own 46th Congressional District, fewer than even Alan Keyes.

And, they say, the White House run exposes Dornan, an 18-year veteran of Congress, as an egomaniac, who is out of step and uncaring about his largely working-class district, which is almost two-thirds Latino and Asian and one-third white.

Dornan defends his presidential run, saying it was meant to focus the GOP attack on Clinton. He scoffs at Sanchez as inexperienced, naive and uninformed about the issues. He calls her “a carpetbagger from Palos Verdes” and has attacked her for associating with a convicted felon.

“She is the perfect opponent,” he said, pointing out Sanchez began the campaign by “stepping on land mines,” including going to Washington for a Sanchez fund-raiser hosted by “sodomites.” The event was organized by the gay partners of Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.) and Massachusetts Democratic Reps. Gerry E. Studds and Barney Frank.

Recently, Dornan waved a picture of Sanchez at the event, and said, “If she goes medieval on me, I will hit her so hard she will never come back and run for office again.”

Besides being a test of Dornan’s staying power, the race is among a handful in California that will help determine whether Republicans maintain control of Congress.

The contest will also show whether a Orange County Democrat can challenge a conservative Republican for the votes of Reagan Democrats and moderate Republicans. And, it will measure the voting power of Latinos in the county’s most Latino congressional district.

Polls taken for both parties show the race is close, with a large number of voters undecided. Those who see Sanchez as competitive point to Dornan’s 1992 race against Robert J. Banuelos, a social services administrator. The Democrat spent less than $5,000 to Dornan’s $1.6 million, getting 41% of the vote to Dornan’s 50%.

Primary Surprise

Sanchez, 36, grew up in Anaheim and attended local public schools before graduating from what is now Chapman University in Orange in 1982. She has an MBA in finance from American University in Washington, D.C. A financial analyst, she worked for nine years for private companies and public agencies before establishing her own small firm in 1993.

In a surprising victory this spring that demonstrated her tenacity, she defeated three white men in the Democratic primary, despite relatively meager spending. She did it by walking precincts in Garden Grove and Anaheim with members of her large family, and capitalizing on her last name with Latino voters in Santa Ana.

She has little political experience and no track record in elective office. Up until 1992, she had been a registered Republican. She ran in 1994 for Anaheim City Council as Loretta Sanchez Brixey (she married Steven Brixey III in 1990), finishing eighth out of 16 candidates.

Sanchez said there is no reason she should follow the more traditional path of serving in a state or local office before making the leap to Washington. “I am a maverick. . . . It is just as easy to run for Congress as the City Council,” she said, “As long as I can make changes this community needs.”

Her campaign is presenting Sanchez as a mainstream, middle-class professional woman, while targeting Dornan as an extremist who has angered even Republican colleagues in the Congress. Discussing her candidacy recently prior to a voter registration rally at Cal State Fullerton, Sanchez said she got into the race because the record of the current GOP Congress “was one of the worst in history.”

“If I thought Dornan reflected the values and beliefs of this community, I wouldn’t have a problem with him being our representative,” she said.

Sanchez advocates a woman’s right to choose on abortion, tax incentives for small businesses, handgun and assault weapon control, investment in higher education through student loans, sex and AIDS education and civil rights for gays.

She endorses Clinton’s tax-cut proposal, his effort to put 100,000 police officers on the street, and takes pride in his having labeled her race “my personal favorite” among close congressional contests in California. She, like Clinton, supports the death penalty.

Sam Smoot, an executive with Emily’s List--the pro-abortion rights political action committee that endorses Democratic women, gave the maximum $10,000 to Sanchez because she “has exactly the right profile needed to beat Bob Dornan” and “this is the year to take him out.”

Exchanging Charges

Dornan, a master at attack mail, promises to send out colorful brochures about his family and record, but voters can also expect to see scathing pieces on Sanchez.

In addition to calling her a carpetbagger, Dornan has raised questions about whether her financial consulting business is anything more than “a letterhead,” and questioned her association with Howard O. Kieffer, a one-time member of the Orange County Democratic Central Committee who was sentenced to prison and fined for federal tax fraud in 1989.

The Sanchez campaign says Dornan is pushing these “nonissues” because he has neglected the district and won’t address what matters to voters.

Sanchez rejects the carpetbagger charge, saying she has lived outside of Orange County for only 2 1/2 years. She and her husband now live in a rented condominium in Garden Grove, they said. Her husband owns his boyhood home in Palos Verdes Estate, the exclusive residential community in Los Angeles County. The couple lived there at one time and visit it on some weekends, they said.

Five of her six siblings live in Orange County, she said, and she intends to remain in Garden Grove or Anaheim even if she loses.

“Have I set down roots anywhere else? No, this is my home,” she said.

Dornan faced carpetbagger charges too, when he arrived here from West Los Angeles in 1984. He had been elected to Congress there but the district was erased in a reapportionment. He was so new to Orange County that he used the address of the GOP headquarters in Orange as his residence on voter registration and candidacy documents. Today, he owns a modest house in Garden Grove and a 12-room home on five acres in suburban Virginia.

There is no legal requirement that any congressional candidate live in the district.

Sanchez reported on federal disclosure documents earning $22,618 from her consulting business, Amiga Advisors, in 1995. Her campaign report values its stock at between $250,000 and $500,000. The business was incorporated in 1993 and has filed taxes each year, said state officials. However, it has no listed phone number in Los Angeles or Orange counties.

She acknowledges doing business with Kieffer after he left prison and says he volunteered in her primary campaign--even contributing $1,000--but she says he has had no role in her general election effort.

Kieffer, who was also convicted of grand theft and forgery in 1984, co-owns with his wife, Leanne Dedrick, a business called District Counsel, which collects delinquent assessments owed to special taxing agencies such as Mello-Roos districts.

Amiga Advisors was hired to find clients for District Counsel and she made use of a one-room office within the District Counsel suite, Sanchez and Dedrick say. Sanchez ran her primary campaign from that office, paying rent to District Counsel.

Democrats Hold Edge

The recent history of the district, which was redrawn after the 1990 Census, shows Dornan is most vulnerable in a presidential year. During the off-year elections, turnout is much lower among Democrats, who have a registration edge of 46% to 39%.

In 1992, Dornan beat Banuelos 55,659 votes to 45,435, with the Libertarian candidate getting 9,712 votes. During the off-year contest two years later, Dornan scored a 17,600-vote win, spending almost $2.3 million. In both elections, Dornan got the support of significant numbers of cross-over voters.

The Democrats are targeting these voters and have been pushing hard for Sanchez.

Dornan’s voting record, his clear contempt for President Clinton--he has called Clinton a “draft dodger” on the floor of Congress--has put him on the lost of seats targeted by the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee, as well as the White House.

That’s one reason Clinton chose Santa Ana--in the 46th Congressional District--for his post-debate rally Thursday and had Sanchez introduce him to a crowd of more than 10,000.

There has also been an extensive voter registration drive by both parties, with Democrats out-registering Republicans by 60% since the March primary, adding 8,000 new Democrats to the rolls.

Sanchez is betting on a large turnout, with a tide of Clinton votes from blue-collar Democrats, who are content with Clinton, and moderate Republicans, who have no stomach for the GOP social agenda.

Carol Barnes, a professor at Cal State Fullerton, is one of those voters. A Republican, she said she will vote for Sanchez, in part because she is in favor of abortion rights, but on other issues too.

“I think she is a moderate not an extremist,” said Barnes. “She is not a knee-jerk, which is very important to me as a Republican.”

Another factor is the Latino vote, a phantom force that never materializes in great numbers. Latinos comprise 49% of the people living in the district, but in the 1992 race were just 17% of the registered voters and 14% of those who voted, according to a Times voter analysis.

“Are we on the verge of a historic breakthrough?” asks political consultant Dan Wooldridge, who is based in Santa Ana. “Guys like me have been waiting for a Hispanic vote here and have been bitterly disappointed for 20 years. Is this the year? The question is, is it 1996, ’98 or 2000?”

To further complicate the election this year, there are three minor-party candidates: J. Carlos Aguirre, 48, a marketing vice president, is running on the Natural Law ticket; Lawrence J. Stafford, 69, a financial consultant and Reform Party candidate; and Thomas E. Reimer, 43, an electronics engineer, the Libertarian.

The campaigns of Dornan and Sanchez are about evenly funded.

Sanchez reported raising $259,933 as of Sept. 30, not including $48,500 in outstanding loans from herself and her husband. She had $90,321 in cash.

Dornan’s campaign reported raising $250,443 as of Sept. 30, all but $16,015 of it since mid-August, when Dornan cranked up his nationwide mail fund-raising operation. He has $81,431 in cash.

Unyielding Ideology

Dornan’s political agenda has always been sharply conservative and fervently opposed to abortion. His rhetoric is uncompromising.

He has called feminists “lesbian spear-chuckers,” the president a “multiple womanizer” and, at a recent fund-raiser, declared Clinton is hiding his medical records to conceal drug abuse.

“Cocaine, cocaine and more cocaine” was the Clinton story in Arkansas, he tells supporters at the Garden Grove dinner. “Clinton’s own brother is on tape telling state troopers that ‘my brother has a nose like a vacuum cleaner.’ ”

It is vintage Dornan. In the room of 120 supporters, the jaw-dropping statement goes down as easily as the vintage wines. To them, Dornan is a hero, the bold truth-teller ready to say the emperor has no clothes.

Dornan was first elected to Congress in 1976, serving six years from his seat in West Los Angeles, where he grew up after his family moved there from New York City. Reapportionment eliminated his district and he ran unsuccessfully in 1982 in the U.S. Senate primary, getting 8% of the vote. In 1984, he headed for Orange County, where he defeated the incumbent Democrat, Rep. Jerry Patterson.

In the 104th Congress, he followed the Republican congressional program, voting for a larger defense budget, a smaller Medicare budget and tougher welfare provisions than those eventually forced on Congress by President Clinton after the shutdown of the federal government.

He unsuccessfully pressed the GOP leadership to require the discharge from the military of anyone testing HIV positive, as well as a ban on homosexuals in the armed services.

Dornan has been an advocate for veterans’ issues, prisoners of war and gun owners and among the Congress’s leading opponents of abortion and gay rights. A champion of term limits, he wants to limit service in the House of Representatives to six years. “I refuse to leave until . . . I get term limits passed,” he said.

As the contest heats up in the final weeks, the Dornan campaign will have the support of the National Rifle Assn., abortion foes and members of the Christian Coalition, which says it will distribute 1 million voter guides as part of a get-out-the-vote effort in Orange County.

Amid a round of campaign stops last week, Dornan acknowledged that the race against Sanchez “could be the fight of my life. We will see.”

He talked about his hopes for a Dornan dynasty, with his daughter, Robin Griffin, 40, of San Juan Capistrano, running for the seat now held by Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) and his ponytailed son, Mark Dornan, 37, taking over his seat.

“That is a few years off,” he said. “Right now, we need to win this election.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Dornan Redux?

Rep. Robert K. Dornan will once again have to win over blue-collar Democrats if he is to win reelection to the 46th Congressional District race. District registration as of Oct. 15:

Democrat: 46%

Republican: 39

Decline to state: 10

American Independent: 2

All others: 3

Source: Orange County Registrar of Voters

Seeking 46th Seat

Five candidates, including incumbent Rep. Robert Dornan, wish to represent the 46th congressional district. A look at the district and those running:

THE DISTRICT

Boundaries: Most of Anaheim, Garden Grove and Santa Ana; parts of Tustin, Irvine, Fullerton, Orange and Fountain Valley

Population: 570,963

THE CANDIDATES

J. Carlos Aguirre

Party: Natural Law

Age: 48

Occupation: Vice president of a mailing service

Funds: Less than $5,000

Background: Third-generation Californian; getting involved in volunteer probation work to help juveniles

Major issue: Wants to battle crime and gangs

Robert K. Dornan

Party: Republican

Age: 63

Occupation: Congressman

Funds: $250,443

Background: Nine-term incumbent; chair of two congressional subcommittees, one on intelligence and the other on national security

Major issue: End abortion in America by ensuring constitutional right to life

Thomas E. Reimer

Party: Libertarian

Age: 43

Occupation: Electronics engineer and small-business owner

Funds: Less than $5,000

Background: Secretary of

Libertarian Party in Orange County; ran previously against state Sen. Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove); active in fight against Proposition 13

Major issue: Wants to reform Social Security system

Loretta Sanchez

Party: Democrat

Age: 36

Occupation: Financial advisor

Funds: $259,933

Background: Anaheim native; Chapman University graduate and owner of a small business

Major issue: Public safety

Lawrence J. Stafford

Party: Reform

Age: 69

Occupation: Financial consultant

Funds: Less than $5,000

Background: Wide range of experience from police officer to stockbroker; ran previously for Congress in Republican primary; active in Operation Rescue, the antiabortion movement

Major issue: Seeks to stop trade with China and renegotiate other trade agreements; opposes NAFTA and GATT unless rewritten to be more favorable to U.S.

Source: Individual candidates; Researched by PETER M. WARREN / Los Angeles Times