Lopsided Contests Don’t Daunt Challengers

This being fall, politics and football are the craze. So it’s time for one of the nation’s true political dynasties--the big, bruising Orange County Republican Machine--to swing into action.

As in most any political season, the buffed-up candidates of the Orange County GOP are heavily favored in eight contests for the state Legislature on Nov. 5. They’ve got the money, and nearly all enjoy a huge voter registration advantage.

While the lopsided nature of the contests hasn’t scared off opponents, some of the challengers are brutally realistic about their chances.

“I’ve got a little bit better odds than someone trying to walk on water,” said Jack Roberts, a Democrat seeking the 71st Assembly seat. “If I should win, it would definitely be miraculous. But I believe in miracles, and that’s why I’m pushing ahead.”

The Republican candidates also enjoy the advantages of incumbency. The only GOP newcomer is Roberts’ foe in the 71st, Bill Campbell, who is seeking to succeed termed-out Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange). First-term Assemblyman Dick Ackerman (R-Fullerton) has the easiest run of all in his 72nd district: He’s unopposed.

But not all is gloom and doom for the underdogs. Most see the races as an opportunity to get their slant on the issues aired before the voters. Several of the Democrats in particular are running spirited campaigns, and 1996 sees the emergence of a slate of candidates from the newly budded Natural Law Party. One race even has a candidate from Ross Perot’s Reform Party.

In the county’s two state Senate contests, veteran GOP lawmakers Ross Johnson and John R. Lewis face starkly contrasting foes.

33rd Senate

Lewis (R-Orange) is defending his 33rd Senate seat against 26-year-old Democrat David Robert Heywood, a political science student at Cal State Fullerton who works part time as a customer representative for the cellular phone industry. Heywood, running for the first time, says the race for the inland district--which includes Orange, Anaheim, Fullerton, Mission Viejo, Placentia, Santa Ana and San Juan Capistrano--is something of a learning experience for him. “I’m a sacrificial lamb,” he said, “running against a well-oiled machine.”

Heywood’s campaign has focused on education, fighting crime by improving the economy, finding a happy medium between helping business while not harming the environment, and increasing mandatory sentences for everything from murder to drunk driving.

Lewis, a state lawmaker for the past 16 years and one of the GOP’s more astute political strategists, is running on his record. Long known for writing few bills and voting no on virtually everything, Lewis of late has shifted his strategy, pushing legislation designed to limit the scope of government.

In recent years, he has worked hard to rein in Southern California’s air quality regulators. This year he also pushed through a new law doing away with the good-time credits that could reduce the prison terms of convicted murderers. But his proudest achievement came in 1995, when he was one of the first lawmakers to push the notion that Orange County could emerge from bankruptcy without the sales tax increase sought by the Board of Supervisors--a bit of prognostication that proved accurate.

35th Senate

Johnson, who won a special election for the 35th Senate seat last year, has been around Sacramento even longer than Lewis--18 years.

His chief rival is Democrat Madelene Arakelian, the straight-talking owner of South Coast Refuse Corp. Arakelian, who lost to Johnson in last year’s special election, wants to see restrictive mandates on businesses removed, and schools return to teaching the arts and trade skills as well as the basics.

As she did the last go-round, she is hitting Johnson as a carpetbagger--he represented an inland district in the Assembly for years before moving to the coast--and a product of the county GOP machine. She also contends Johnson is too intent on playing politics to do much good for his district, which includes Irvine, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach.

Johnson, who beat Arakelian by more than 2-to-1, isn’t breaking a sweat to answer such charges. An attorney, he now is the second highest-ranking Republican in the Senate, and Johnson says that is a plus for his district.

His main issues are jobs and the economy. He wants to ratchet down the state’s tax structure, eliminate regulations that have proven burdensome to business, and reform the litigious civil court system. As his top career accomplishments, Johnson points to his work organizing statewide campaigns to dump former state Supreme Court Justice Rose Bird and favoring political campaign finance reform.

Natural Law candidate Nat Adam, meanwhile, is pushing for a “conflict-free” political process, stressing more problem-solving and less partisanship. A civil engineer, he wants the state’s education system to help students appreciate other cultures. He is also opposed to plans for a commercial airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station when it is abandoned by the military sometime before 1999.

68th Assembly

In the 68th Assembly District, Democrat Audrey L. Gibson faces one of the most powerful lawmakers in the state, Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove). Republicans hold a reasonably close registration edge--44.9% to 39.5%--over Democrats in the district, which includes Anaheim, Buena Park, Westminster and Garden Grove. Pringle, however, has virtually owned the district since he first was elected there in 1992.

Gibson sees a lot of room for improvement. She wants to help small businesses in the district, get more corporations to help schools and develop more of a nexus of state, local and federal government to help the pockets of poverty that remain in the 68th.

She also hits Pringle for his close ties to California Independent Business PAC, the group of wealthy Southern California conservatives who have bankrolled much of the GOP effort of late. “I think he is manipulated by the people who give him money, instead of serving the people who elect him,” she said. “He doesn’t care about this district. He just does what his masters tell him to do.”

Pringle, meanwhile, is running on his record. He played a big role in helping the county steer out of bankruptcy in 1995 and has helped funnel funds to programs in Orange County during the budget process. As speaker, he gives the district one of the best seats in state government.

70th Assembly

In the coastal 70th Assembly District, incumbent Marilyn C. Brewer faces three challengers. The most vocal has been Democrat Shirley W. Palley, a retired teacher, political activist and longtime Irvine resident. Palley is many things Brewer is not--she supports absolute gun control and opposes anti-affirmative action Proposition 209. She wants to improve education by fixing the school infrastructure and increase early childhood instruction.

She argues that Brewer has avoided key votes and has become “one of the boys” in the conservative GOP hierarchy.

Brewer counters by boasting about her place on the Republican leadership team, a status she says has helped her serve the district. “I certainly have Speaker Pringle’s ear, and that helps me help the county,” Brewer said. For instance, she pushed through a bill--vetoed by the governor--that would have given Santa Ana schools an extra $4 million in funding.

As for her voting record, Brewer defends it by noting that 28 other lawmakers have voted less often than she. “The reality is that I’m a pretty straightforward person,” Brewer said. “My constituents know where I stand on the issues.”

Meanwhile, the Natural Law Party’s Paul R. Fisher is pushing a platform of better preventive health care, better nutritional programs for schoolchildren, and a bigger effort to prevent teenage drug abuse. Fisher, a former Air Force captain and erstwhile conservative Republican, also favors school vouchers, smaller class sizes and the use of school uniforms to cut gang violence.

Libertarian Gene Beed, a pediatrician, wants to cut California’s taxes, dramatically scale back the size of government and see the private sector take over many government services. He also wants to see drug laws revoked, suggesting that the national war on drugs has only worked to subsidize organized crime.

71st Assembly

The 71st pits Democrat Jack Roberts against Bill Campbell, owner of more than a dozen Taco Bell restaurants. It’s a daunting task. The 71st, which includes Orange, Mission Viejo and Irvine, is one of the most Republican districts in the country--they outnumber Democrats by better than 2 to 1.

Roberts, a union official, is unabashed making the cause of workers his priority. He wants to fight efforts to strip prevailing wage rules and shift overtime laws. He also wants to help senior citizens and improve the state’s education system.

“I’m running because I wanted to get this message out,” Roberts said. “I want working families to know that the people who are supposedly representing them are more interested in the well-being of business owners, and working people are not part of the equation.”

Campbell is Roberts’ polar opposite on most issues.

He wants to help business investment by eliminating the state capital gains tax for Californians investing in state businesses and properties. He wants to reform the regulatory process that business claims hamstrings growth. And he wants to do away with overtime after eight hours, requiring an employee to work a 40-hour workweek before earning overtime--an effort Republicans say is needed to allow employees more flexibility to work four 10-hour days if they choose.

For schools, Campbell wants to shift control of finances and curriculum away from the state Education Department and back to local parents and school boards. He also wants schools to go back to the fundamentals, such as phonics and rote memorization of math.

73rd Assembly

The contest to represent the sprawling 73rd Assembly District, which takes in most of southern Orange and northern San Diego counties, also is a virtual lock for Assemblyman Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside). Republicans outnumber Democrats 53% to 29%.

Morrow’s top accomplishments are a bill this year that will effectively knock more than four years off the typical death penalty appeal. “That’s one I can point to and say, ‘You can make a difference,’ ” he said.

He has helped increase funding to several school districts in South County by tinkering with state educational finance formulas.

Morrow also got lots of attention for a measure that made the colorful Garibaldi the state fish, helping protect it from marine poachers. “It’s not like I was saving a deer fly that has no value,” Morrow said, noting how the fish is a star attraction for the multimillion-dollar diving industry.

Democrat Robert D. Wilberg, a county parks employee and blue-collar union leader, blasts Morrow as anti-worker and anti-senior citizen. Wilberg wants to help local governments by reversing the massive 1993 funding shift that each year has stripped $3 billion from cities, counties and special districts to fund state services. He also is a big backer of campaign finance reform and staunchly opposes privatization of existing government jobs.

“With privatization, there goes family values out the window,” Wilberg said. “A livable wage, health care--it’s all gone for those workers.”

The Natural Law Party’s Catherine Carter wants to pay schoolteachers more and educate them better, as well as push for model schools that could serve as proving grounds for how to best educate children.

She also believes the state needs to push more preventive health care, and take a more cautious approach to farming, phasing out the use of herbicides and pesticides, and requiring testing of genetically engineered vegetables before allowing public consumption. In the meantime, she believes such vegetables need to carry labeling to give the public a choice.

(Editor’s Note: The 69th Assembly District race between Republican incumbent Jim Morrissey, Democrat Lou Correa and Natural Law Party candidate Larry G. Engwall was the subject of a separate article that ran Saturday. An earlier report dealt with the 67th District, where freshman Republican Scott Baugh, under indictment for election law violations, is being challenged by Democrat Cliff Brightman and Reform Party candidate Donald W. Rowe.)