ELECTIONS '88 ORANGE COUNTY : Democratic Don Quixotes Tilt in 'Impossible Dream' Districts

By JEFFREY A. PERLMAN

Nov. 2, 1988 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

What happens when you’re addicted to hope but cash poor?

The county Democratic Party chairman comes along and drafts you to run against a well-entrenched, incumbent Republican assemblyman.

That’s how several of this year’s underfunded Democratic candidates found themselves on the Nov. 8 ballot in seven heavily Republican Assembly districts in Orange County. With GOP voter-registration advantages in those districts ranging from 8 to 35 percentage points, the incumbents are considered shoo-ins for reelection.

The challengers’ common purpose: to let people know there is an alternative, to help educate voters on issues and to be there in case the incumbent stumbles. Each of the challengers had raised less than $12,000 in campaign contributions as of Sept. 30.

Take Democrat James S. Melville of San Clemente.

The 41-year-old substitute teacher for the Capistrano Unified School District says county Democratic Chairman John Hanna asked him to run against Assemblyman Robert C. Frazee (R-Carlsbad) in the 74th Assembly District “to have a name on the ballot in November.”

“Also, there was the idea that I want to run an educational campaign,” he adds.

The 74th District includes San Clemente and north coastal San Diego County. Registration is 55.1% Republican and 31.2% Democrat, with the remainder split among those who decline to state a party preference and third parties.

While Frazee finds it difficult to object to the registration split in his district, he says there are obvious drawbacks when one party dominates any area.

“I don’t know that it’s good for California,” he says. “It’s unfortunate that there are so many noncompetitive districts.”

Melville is no stranger to hostile political environments. He says he and his brother, Jack, “constituted 20%” of the support for John F. Kennedy at San Marino High School in 1960. San Marino, Melville says, is where he grew up--a wealthy Republican stronghold near Pasadena where “there are beautiful homes occupied by nice people who are out of touch with the real world.”

As a resident of San Marino, Melville ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in what was then the 54th Assembly District in 1970--and in the area’s state Senate district in 1972 for the seat then held by John Harmer (R-Glendale). Melville also ran a write-in campaign against Frazee 2 years ago.

So far, Melville’s campaign consists of accepting invitations to speak, when they don’t interfere with his teaching assignments, and a 2-minute public affairs ad on KDOC-TV, Channel 56.

The election is “not a very pleasant prospect politically,” Melville concedes.

But Melville says he carries an important message: “Mr. Frazee voted with the governor in vetoing $800 million in funds for education last year. It’s an interesting thing. I drive around and see a lot of Mercedes and BMWs here, and these are quality cars. And I ask myself, ‘Don’t the people who drive these cars want that kind of quality for their kids’ education?’ ”

If elected, Melville says, he would work for smaller classes in public schools.

Frazee says he has not campaigned for reelection and has transferred some money to other Republican candidates and Project 90, the effort to secure a GOP majority in the Legislature before reapportionment begins after the 1990 census.

Frazee, who ranks 120th in the 120-member Legislature when it comes to fund-raising, says he is proud of introducing this year legislation that became a new law requiring parental consent for teen-age abortions. The law is being tested in the courts.

Frazee is best known among county political activists for his Assembly sponsorship of Senate bills authorizing toll-road projects here.

Libertarian John Patrick Flanagan is also opposing Frazee.

Turning northward, the 70th Assembly District is the bastion of Republican conservatism in the state, with a 61.9% to 27.2% GOP registration advantage over Democrats. The district encompasses Leisure World in Laguna Hills and extends from San Juan Capistrano to Newport Beach.

It’s from this thicket that Democrat Michael K. Gallups of San Juan Capistrano, a 34-year-old English teacher at El Toro High School, is lobbing a few salvos at Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach).

“I don’t think we can afford to give someone like Gil Ferguson a free ride,” says Gallups, who is past president of the Saddleback Valley Educators Assn. “He is not being responsive to the education needs of his district.”

Ferguson, first elected in 1984, is known for his colorful attacks on targets as diverse as Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) and the Irvine Co.

Hayden is a former anti-Vietnam War activist whom Ferguson has unsuccessfully tried to remove from the Legislature for allegedly supporting the Hanoi regime. Last year, Ferguson attacked the Irvine Co. for its campaign contributions to Democrats, including Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), and for supporting highway design work legislation that contained quotas for the hiring of women and minorities.

Ferguson spent more than $200,000 in his primary race against Newport Beach City Council member Evelyn Hart last spring, when official investigations of his campaign and personal finances were a major issue.

Ferguson says he is promoting the GOP get-out-the-vote effort and perceives no threat from Gallups. He defends his record on education issues, saying that schools in his district have won many awards for excellence.

“No school district in America has enough money,” Ferguson says, “but that isn’t a bar to attaining excellence.”

The 69th Assembly District, which includes all or parts of Irvine, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach and Westminster, is the stage for a classic but low-key confrontation between two people who personify the philosophical gulf between Democrats and Republicans. The registration: 56.4% Republican, 32.1% Democratic.

Democrat Marie H. Fennell, 67, of Huntington Beach is a social worker who strongly advocates increased spending for child and health programs, as well as developing a light-rail transit system in the county.

She opposes Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach), the man who some GOP and Democratic lawmakers jokingly say is the Legislature’s Louis XIV, a reference to the French monarch and Frizzelle’s own belief in protecting private wealth.

“The child care industry is over-regulated,” Frizzelle argues. “People like my opponent want to squeeze out the private sector in the field and increase the licensing requirements so that nobody except government-supported entities could provide child care service.”

Fennell has spent less than $5,000, most of it on signs posted in the district and a small information card. Frizzelle says he has been campaigning for the Bush-Quayle presidential ticket and Project 90.

In the 58th Assembly District--which straddles the Long Beach-Seal Beach border and includes Rossmoor, Sunset Beach and part of Huntington Beach--Assemblyman Dennis Brown (R-Rossmoor) faces challenges from Democrat Andrew Kincaid, Libertarian Scott Stier and Peace and Freedom candidate Richard Green.

Brown is the Assembly GOP caucus chairman and has been helping other candidates in the Nov. 8 election. The most consistent “no” vote in the Legislature, Brown believes that there are too many laws, and he introduces fewer bills than most Assembly members.

His reputation earned him the nickname of “Dr. No” a few years ago when he voted against a program to stamp out bubonic plague in rats; in 1986 his bills became the target of a 2-day boycott by legislators angry about his seemingly endless “no” votes.

When Brown does introduce bills, they frequently provide relief for individuals or special interests, such as the bill last year that allowed a restaurateur in Seal Beach to sell his own wine under his own label. Earlier this year, he sought relief for a developer embroiled in a financial dispute with the Placentia Unified School District.

Kincaid, 42, is a Long Beach real estate broker who finished second in a field of three Democratic primary candidates 2 years ago. He accuses Brown of failing to support environmental protection of the Bolsa Chica Wetlands in his district and for not taking a leading role in education and transportation issues.

Kincaid acknowledges that Brown, who has raised more than $300,000, is in no serious political trouble. But he says Brown is more conservative than even the 50% to 39.1% Republican-versus-Democrat registration advantage in the district would indicate. And he hopes that his under-$5,000 campaign will give people at least a chance to express disappointment with the incumbent.

Moving inland, Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) is a long-range target of the Democratic Party, partly for reasons of revenge. After three tries, she wrested the 71st Assembly District seat away from former Assemblyman Chet Wray (D-Westminster) in 1982.

Reapportionment and Republican registration have given Allen a safe seat. But Democrats believe she can be beaten eventually because she does not receive a lot of publicity as a legislator and sits on the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, which usually handles fish and game matters that are not directly connected with her district.

With a 49.3%-to-41.2% Republican-Democrat registration edge, the district includes all or parts of Anaheim, Buena Park, Cypress, Garden Grove, La Palma, Los Alamitos and Westminster.

Allen says she has helped school districts in her area gain more state money and has helped secure $350,000 for studies of several hundred homes in her district with crumbling foundations.

Allen also touts her support for a failed statewide ballot measure that would have relaxed some of the restrictions in the state’s Gann spending limit and would have earmarked gasoline sales tax revenue for transportation.

But Democrat Art Brown, 51, of Buena Park says he can do a better job. A 17-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Brown is a bailiff in Compton Superior Court. As board president of the Savannah Elementary School District in the Buena Park area, Brown says that he has been involved in crime prevention, gang deterrence and creation of child care centers.

Brown, a former legislative lobbyist in Sacramento for the Los Angeles County Assn. of Deputy Sheriffs, hopes to spend about $20,000. But he acknowledges that it may take several years to unseat Allen: “It took her three times before she finally won, and it may take me that long. . . . If I don’t do it this time, I’ll start campaigning again on Nov. 9.”

In the 64th Assembly District, Democrat Donald Heuer, 60, has distributed an essay called “We the People” in his low-budget bid to unseat Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-La Habra).

Heuer--a carpenter and construction consultant who worked on the Glenn Canyon Dam, the aqueduct from Oroville Dam and the Garden Grove Freeway--says the essay carries a message that “together we can do the impossible. . . . We can move mountains that block our way.”

A strong advocate of vocational training and day-care facilities, Heuer has not attacked Johnson, who sponsored the statewide ballot measure that restricts the transfer of campaign funds from one recipient to another.

County officials have praised Johnson for carrying the legislation that provided money to establish and staff Caltrans’ new district office here. He also wrote Proposition 73, the statewide measure passed in June that bars transfers of campaign funds from one politician to another after January.

And Johnson introduced legislation that last year removed the county’s obligation to house the state’s 4th District Court of Appeal in the Old County Courthouse, thus freeing the landmark from a long dispute over space in the refurbished building.

The 64th District includes Fullerton, La Habra, Brea, Placentia and parts of Anaheim and Orange. Registration is 55.3% Republican, 34.9% Democrat.

In the 67th District, Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) is once again serving as a campaign manager for candidates elsewhere, as the designated elections chief for the Assembly GOP caucus. Lewis is well respected for his expertise in direct-mail campaigns but does not take a leadership role on legislation.

Typical of Lewis’ legislation are bills to help resolve a boundary dispute among school districts in the Placentia-Yorba Linda area; to allow pawnbrokers to charge a full month’s interest on items left with them for part of a month, and to restrict state-sponsored loans to low-income people buying mobile homes to 90% of a home’s market value.

Lewis is opposed by lawyer Bruce R. Fink.

Fink said in response to a written questionnaire from The Times that he supports a half-cent sales tax in the county for transportation and opposes mandatory testing for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Lewis said he does not support the half-cent sales tax “at this time” and favors mandatory AIDS testing.

Fink also supports publicly financed day care, while Lewis does not. Lewis says he supports tax credits for day care.

The district includes all or parts of Anaheim, Orange, Santa Ana, Tustin, Yorba Linda, Villa Park, Silverado Canyon and the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Republicans account for 59% of the registered voters, Democrats 30.8%.

Times Staff Writer Daniel M. Weintraub contributed to this story from Sacramento.

STATE ASSEMBLY CANDIDATES

The Democratic candidates in seven Assembly races in Orange County are fighting uphill battles against entrenched Republican incumbents in the Nov. 8 election. But all of them say they feel the need to provide an alternative

Photographs of Libertarian Scott Stier and Peace and Freedom candidate Richard Green in the 58th District; Democrat Bruce R. Fink the 67th District, and Libertarian John Patrick Flanagan in the 74th District were not available.

DEMOCRATIC

58th District

Andrew Kincaid

64th District

Donald Heuer

69th District

Marie H. Fennell

70th District

Michael K. Gallups

71st District

Art Brown

74th District