A behind-the-scenes look at Orange County’s political life : Wilson Appointee Gets a Pretty Penny for His Thoughts on Spending

Mark G. Hoglund, a 35-year-old Newport Beach Republican, just earned a plum political appointment from Gov. Pete Wilson. Hoglund, who served as a top official in the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission before the agency went out of business, was named deputy secretary for competitive services at the State and Consumer Services Agency.

Hoglund will help the state bureaucracy develop effective cost analysis techniques to figure out the true price of providing services. But he won’t come terribly cheap himself.

Hoglund gets a salary of $95,784 a year, almost triple the median household income in California and proof positive that robust salaries are still a staple in the state Capitol.

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Scott Baugh

Working on his debt: Newly minted Assembly member Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach), who faces two opponents in the upcoming primary, accumulated a substantial campaign debt last fall in the winner-take-all election to replace Assemblywoman Doris Allen.

The 33-year-old former railroad lawyer lists $139,948 in outstanding debt on his year-end campaign disclosure statement, having spent $316,213 in the three-month contest that ended Nov. 28. That’s about $15 a vote to best three GOP rivals and the lone Democrat in the race.

Baugh rose from political obscurity on the strength of a heavy absentee ballot campaign and the endorsement of mentor Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach). Baugh went on to win the backing of virtually all of the county’s Sacramento delegation.

Baugh’s campaign debt includes about $38,000 in loans from himself and a $15,000 loan from Rohrabacher’s political action committee. Most of the rest is money he owes vendors.

Baugh campaign manager Dave Gilliard said the deficit will not be a problem in the current campaign against Cypress City Councilwoman Cecilia L. Age and Barbara Coe, one of the organizers of Proposition 187, the anti-illegal immigrant ballot initiative.

“I don’t think [the outstanding debt] impacts our budget,” Gilliard said, adding that Baugh expects to spend much less in this campaign.

Baugh will also receive a boost from committee assignments he received as a member of the majority party in the Assembly. Baugh was placed on several “juice” committees that control legislation important to special interest groups and attract campaign contributions, including the Judiciary and Insurance committees.

In their year-end statements, Age reported raising $3,555, all of it transferred from her City Council campaign committee, and Coe had raised $1,923.

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Office opening: Baugh, in office for two months, has been busy learning the legislative ropes in Sacramento, but he also has a full staff working in his office in Huntington Beach.

Four people are doing constituent service from the spacious district office there. Only two work in the modest Capitol office space that Baugh was allotted.

For his chief of staff, Baugh has hired Maureen Werft, formerly with the Senate Republican Caucus. Working alongside Werft in Baugh’s offices, just off the San Diego Freeway on Beach Boulevard, are field representatives Todd Nugent and Jeff Nielson, both former campaign staffers. The district office manager is Deon Lewis.

You can find the district office at 16052 Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach, 92647; or call (714) 843-4966. The Sacramento office number is (916) 445-6233.

In the Capitol office, Jeff Sauls, who has previous experience on the staffs of GOP legislators, has been named legislative aide. He is working alongside legislative secretary Sharon Lyons, who has interned for Rep. Ed Royce of Fullerton.

The Capitol office is room 4009 and the phone number is (916) 445-6233.

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Close, but no czar: President Clinton named Gen. Barry McCaffrey as America’s new drug czar during his State of the Union address this week, but local attorney Tom Umberg was in the running. Umberg, a former Democratic assemblyman from Garden Grove, passed the stringent background check and was notified last month that he was a finalist.

White House official Wade Plunkett confirmed that Umberg was a finalist for the job.

With his background as an assistant U.S. attorney who holds the rank of major in the U.S. Army Reserve, Umberg had the resume for the job. He also focused on drug policy while doing his four-year stint in the state Legislature.

“I was flattered to be asked if I had an interest,” said Umberg.

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You scratch my back . . . In what is surely a grand understatement, Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) has received the so-called “Achiever of 1995” award from a host of Wall Street interests.

Judges of the so-called “Equities Award” included the presidents of the 1,000-member Assn. of Publicly Traded Companies, the National Assn. of Securities Dealers, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange and others who had a deep interest in Cox’s bill to curb the number of civil fraud lawsuits filed against securities firms.

The legislation became law after the House and Senate overrode President Clinton’s veto.

UPCOMING EVENTS

* Thursday: Democrats of North Orange County hosts professor George Beloz of Cypress College at the organization’s monthly dinner meeting at 6 p.m. at the Sizzler restaurant at 1401 N. Harbor Blvd. in Fullerton. He will speak on affirmative action and the upcoming ballot initiative. (714) 525-1410.

* Thursday: Orange County Federation of Republican Women hosts its annual Lincoln Luncheon at the Costa Mesa Country Club. (714) 968-6416.

* Thursday: Fund-raiser for GOP Assembly candidate Jim Beam at the Foxfire restaurant in Anaheim Hills at 5:30 p.m. (714) 540-0461.

Compiled by Times political writer Peter M. Warren, with contributions from staff writers Len Hall and Gebe Martinez and correspondent Frank Messina.

Politics ’96 appears every Sunday. Items can be mailed to Politics ‘96, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or faxed to (714) 966-7711.