Ferguson Seeks Showdown Aimed at Ousting Hayden From Assembly

SACRAMENTO —  Likening it to a soldier’s duty in battle, Orange County Republican Assemblyman Gil Ferguson is gearing up for his long-promised effort to oust Assemblyman Tom Hayden from the Legislature for what Ferguson calls Hayden’s traitorous conduct during the U.S. military conflict in Vietnam.

“It is like having to land in the morning at 0500,” said Ferguson, a freshman assemblyman from Newport Beach. “You wish you didn’t have to do it.”

Ferguson informed legislative leaders this week that he will make a motion on Monday saying Hayden (D-Santa Monica) is unqualified under the state Constitution to hold public office.

The vote on the motion, should it occur, is likely to split the Assembly along party lines.

Republican Assembly members, who discussed the issue during a closed-door caucus Thursday, predicted that all who attend next Monday’s session will support Ferguson’s motion. Democratic legislators, who enjoy a 47-33 edge, said they had not yet caucused on the move.

But earlier this week, Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco declared emphatically: “I will protect Tom Hayden. Period. I will support Tom Hayden’s right to be a member of this house.”

Expects to Remain

Added Hayden: “I have no comment on what is going to happen Monday other than I expect to be here Tuesday.”

Ferguson, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who fought in three U.S. conflicts, has been vowing since his first Assembly floor speech more than a year ago to force a vote on Hayden’s qualifications to hold public office.

In that teary-eyed speech, during debate on a resolution honoring Vietnam veterans, Ferguson called Hayden a “traitor,” telling the two-term Democratic assemblyman from Santa Monica that patriotic Americans will “never forgive” him--not even “when you are dead and buried in your grave.”

Hayden, 46, the soft-spoken, well-groomed husband of actress Jane Fonda, was an outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in Vietnam who traveled to Southeast Asia four times during the 1960s and 1970s. Anti-war statements he made during trips to Hanoi, critical of U.S. foreign policy and then-President Lyndon B. Johnson, were broadcast over government-sponsored radio stations.

That, said Ferguson and leaders of several veterans groups, makes Hayden unqualified for office under a provision of the state Constitution that prohibits a person who “advocates the support of a foreign government” during “hostilities” from holding public office.

Hayden said that Ferguson’s charge was “utterly false” and that his interpretation of the Constitution is flawed. He said also he suspects that the election-year move “is 100% political.”

Answer to Voters

Ferguson and veterans’ leaders acknowledge that they want to force a recorded vote on Hayden’s qualifications so that legislators who support him will have to answer to voters back home.

“I don’t have a poll on it,” Hayden countered, “but I believe that the vast majority of Californians believe they are entitled to the representative they have chosen in a free election.”

Hayden has twice been comfortably elected from his west Los Angeles County district, and he polled 77% in the recent primary.

Ferguson is timing his motion to coincide with the annual state convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Several busloads of veterans attending the meeting at a nearby hotel are coming to the Capitol for an outdoor rally Monday morning. Some have reportedly obtained floor passes and will be in the Assembly chamber during Ferguson’s motion.

VFW officials say veterans’ representatives have met with all 79 of Hayden’s colleagues and have obtained some commitments. A petition drive spearheaded by Mickey Conroy, president of the Santa Ana-based California War Veterans for Justice, has reportedly gathered 258,000 petitions demanding Hayden’s ouster.

But on Ferguson’s advice, the veterans have not yet presented those petitions to legislators, fearing a repeat of their effort several years ago when similar petitions were referred to the Assembly Elections Committee and no vote was ever taken.

Veterans Group Files Suit

Conroy and the War Veterans for Justice have sponsored and contributed to several candidates who have run against Hayden. In 1984 the organization filed a lawsuit challenging Hayden’s qualifications under the state Constitution.

But in January, the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles upheld a lower court’s dismissal of that lawsuit. Associate Justice Eugene McCloskey ruled that the lawsuit was “patently frivolous in contrast to simply lacking merit.”

The decision cited extensive Supreme Court precedent, noting that it is the Legislature’s exclusive role to judge the qualifications of its members.

Speaker Brown said Wednesday that he would “follow the rules scrupulously” in dealing with Ferguson’s motion. His press secretary, Susan Jetton, said Thursday that Brown “has not at this point made any plans,” but added that his office had started trying to decide “where all the TV cameras are going to be.”

Considering Options

Democratic sources said, however, that options under consideration include ruling Ferguson’s motion out of order, introducing a similar motion to expel Ferguson, allowing discussion but no vote, or simply debating the issue and then voting it down.

VFW representatives have armed all 80 legislators with material that includes transcripts of Hayden’s Hanoi radio broadcasts and his testimony before congressional committees.

Hayden, in turn, has sent his colleagues a package that compares his voting record on veterans issues to Ferguson’s. Hayden’s package also includes copies of cables, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, in which then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk and other State Department officials suggested that Hayden be commended for his role in obtaining the release of three war prisoners in 1967.

Times staff writer Stephanie O’Neill contributed to this story.