Dornan, Party Leaders Still Butting Heads

WASHINGTON —  Rep. Robert K. Dornan, the tough-talking conservative from Garden Grove, was still a pariah in his own party Tuesday after a meeting with GOP leaders failed to end their nasty public spat.

“Nothing has changed,” said Tony Blankley, press secretary to House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Blankley discounted reports--and Dornan’s claims--that Dornan and Gingrich had patched up their differences.

Until that happens, Dornan will be left without some of the most important aspects of his power: a key committee assignment and the accompanying ability to horse-trade for proposed amendments to a military policy bill.

According to Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, Gingrich also banned Dornan from congressional travel, and from offering amendments to pending legislation.

Gingrich penalized Dornan after the Orange County legislator endorsed a challenger to a pro-choice Republican congresswoman in New York. That infuriated GOP leaders, who don’t want Republican incumbents challenged in GOP primaries.

Dornan told a different story Tuesday. Emerging from a closed-door meeting on military spending, Dornan waved off his differences with the GOP higher-ups. He denied that the leadership had imposed any sanctions on him, and said that he planned to continue pushing issues that he cared about.

Although official documents showed that Dornan was excluded from a conference committee on defense spending, he insisted Tuesday that he was, in fact, on the committee.

“I was a conferee at every meeting . . . even when my conferee status was in doubt,” Dornan said in a speech on the House floor Tuesday night.

“I am not Chief Joseph, who laid down his weapons and said, ‘I will fight no more,’ ” Dornan said. “Bob Dornan never stops fighting. I will not go quietly.”

Dornan did say in an interview, however, that he would ease up on his support for Joseph DioGuardi, who is challenging Rep. Sue Kelly (R-NY) for the Republican nomination for her congressional seat. Dornan said he was not aware that the GOP leadership was opposed to such challenges.

Other legislators said Dornan’s problems with the GOP leadership go much deeper than this week’s squabble. They say Dornan, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, has become a liability to the GOP as it tries to attract moderate voters.

In recent months, Dornan has publicly attacked gay members of Congress--including some who are Republican, like Rep. Steve Gunderson of Minnesota.

And Dornan continues to push such controversial issues as a prohibition on gays in the military, a ban on performing abortions in U.S. military hospitals overseas, and the expulsion from the military of people who test positive for the AIDS virus.

“The Republican leadership doesn’t want Dornan babbling on C-SPAN, claiming to represent the Republican Party,” said Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. “Dornan is an embarrassment to the GOP.”

Several of Dornan’s pet proposals have been stricken from the defense policy bill. Among the items removed from legislation are the ban on gays in the military and the involuntary discharge of those with the AIDS virus.

Dornan said Tuesday he would not support the bill, which sets policy for all U.S. military spending. Even so, he pointed to the measures included in the bill that won support, including a ban on the performance of abortions in U.S. military hospitals.

“I’ve won much more than I’ve lost,” he said.

Indeed, some legislators have rushed to Dornan’s side in his dispute with the GOP bosses. A group of conservative Republican representatives sent a letter to Gingrich asking that he be placed on the House-Senate conference committee that worked out the final version of the defense bill.

Others said that no matter how Dornan fared in his battles with the GOP leaders, he would look fine to the voters in California.

Among Dornan’s biggest supports Tuesday was Rep. Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican who is also strongly anti-abortion.

“I love the guy,” Hyde said. “When he bleeds, I bleed.”