Politics: Bucks, Bankruptcy, Turf Battles
By RICK REIFF
Orange County has countered California’s leftward tilt over much of the past 25 years, putting a steady stream of Republicans of all stripes into local, state and federal office. The county has been a national magnet for GOP candidates seeking campaign cash, as well as for commentators seeking a punch line about quirky politics.
The county, if sometimes out of step with the rest of the state or nation, has often been ahead of the curve. It has inspired causes and launched or ended political careers, playing a key role in everything from Prop 13 to the Reagan Revolution to Prop 187 to the Gray Davis recall drive.
The editorial pages of the Orange County Register have defined both the county and libertarianism to the rest of the country,though the future of that journalistic voice is in question, with Irvine-based parent Freedom Communications now on the sales block.
The predominantly Republican county has elected some notable Democrats over the years, too. Briefly, in the post-Watergate era of the late ’70s, OC Democrats held a majority of the seats on the Board of Supervisors, as well as a Congressional seat and four state legislative seats.
With the county growing more diverse by the day, Democrats again are scoring some victories. Loretta Sanchez’s upset of incumbent Congressman Bob Dornan in 1996, followed by her re-election three times, signals Democratic supremacy in the county’s older, ethnic central county.
On the local level, OC’s political pendulum has swung between developers and growth advocates on one end and homeowners and environmentalists on the other. The county’s olio of cities, at 33 and counting, reflects a desire of unincorporated areas to gain local control over land-use decisions. The power of homeowner associations and the prevalence of gated communities reflect a related desire by residents to control their neighborhoods.
A sort of well-heeled populism has been on the rise in the past few years. It culminated in 2000 with voter rejection of the proposed El Toro commercial airport, a project once backed by most of the business establishment, championed by billionaire developer George Argyros and supported by a majority of the county supervisors.
No group of OC politicians has wielded so much power but looked so hapless doing it as the county supervisors. From 1976 to 1986, four supervisors (as well as a key financial backer and three other local officials) were convicted on charges ranging from illegal gift-taking to bribery and theft.
The ’70s scandals prompted “good government” reforms, but critics continue to accuse county government of a “pay to play” mentality.
But it was a lack of accountability, rather than outright corruption, that produced the county’s most ignominious moment: the 1994 government bankruptcy.
Treasurer Bob Citron (photo), a Democrat with bipartisan backing, lost a staggering $1.6 billion in a wayward investment scheme that rattled financial markets and made headlines ’round the world. He and Assistant Treasurer Matt Raabe served jail time for their roles in the debacle, but other prosecutions fizzled.
Orange County suffered a black eye but no permanent injury. The county and other local government entities that invested with Citron wound up recouping $900 million from Merrill Lynch and other Citron dealers. The county is paying $50 million a year in interest on the remaining debt (a sum roughly equivalent to the above-market gains Citron achieved for his government investors before his fund blew up). Forced budget cuts disrupted some county programs but no safety officers or school teachers lost their jobs, and the county economy barely skipped a beat.
The Board of Supervisors, quickly overhauled in the wake of the bankruptcy, is still trying to find its footing. It has spent more than a year searching for a permanent chief executive, its fourth since the bankruptcy.
“While during the last quarter century OC has grown to become the fifth-largest county in the nation with a highly developed, post-industrial economy, our political regime most often resembles a medieval fiefdom,” says Mark Petracca, a Democrat and political science professor at the University of California, Irvine.
But Stan Oftelie, another Democrat, who heads the Orange County Business Council and previously headed the Orange County Transportation Authority, calls the bankruptcy and occasional scandals “anomalies” for a county whose politicians deserve more credit.
“Rebuilding freeways, opening the first toll roads in California, preserving beaches for public use, developing an extraordinary system of regional parks, building a respected public educational system in tough financial times and creating new jobs at a breathtaking rate are all signal achievements of Orange County government,” Oftelie said. “Particularly when you look at other areas in California and the Sunbelt, Orange County governments have done very, very well over the past 25 years.”
On the state and national stage, Orange County is renowned as a treasure trove of campaign funds, primarily for Republicans but also for Democrats. In recent months, the county has been frequently visited by California gubernatorial candidates and Democrat presidential hopefuls (Hillary Clinton, too).
Two of the county’s most prominent developers and philanthropists, Donald Bren and Argyros, are also two of the most prominent Republican fundraisers. Bren has supported both President Bushes, his Marine buddy former Gov. Pete Wilson and his skiing buddy and possible next governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Argyros has hobnobbed and written checks for Republicans from Richard Nixon to George W.; the latter appointed him ambassador to Spain.
Prominent Democratic supporters reside here, too, including octogenarian landowner Richard O’Neill, former Democratic state party chairman, and influential trial lawyers Wylie Aitken and Mark Robinson.
Meanwhile, with the Democrats’ statewide dominance in recent years, fault lines have deepened in the celebrated Orange County Republican Party. The official apparatus, firmly in the control of conservative Chairman Tom Fuentes, remains a center of organizational efforts, but fundraising prowess rests elsewhere.
One new power center, which opposes the party’s conservative social agenda, is the New Majority, headed by executives Larry Higby and Tom Tucker. Another power center is the local GOP’s traditional business group, the Lincoln Club, somewhere between Fuentes and the New Majority on the ideological spectrum.
Meanwhile, atypical Orange County may finally be experiencing something commonplace elsewhere,a big-city mayor. Three of them, in fact: Curt Pringle of Anaheim (a former Republican Assembly Speaker), Larry Agran of Irvine (now a business-friendlier version of his erstwhile “Agraninsta”) and Miguel Pulido of Santa Ana (a quietly rising player in Democratic circles).
These seasoned politicians have set aside partisan differences and begun to form a joint urban agenda for their maturing cities. They recently withdrew their cities’ financial support from OC’s chapter of the League of California Cities, accusing the group of catering to small-town interests.
Transportation and housing issues loom. Congestion on the 91 Freeway, a proposed tunnel through the Santa Ana Mountains and commercial airport expansion in the desert will be debated both in Orange County and in the Inland Empire. Intercounty cooperation, or intercounty conflict, will be a likely political topic in coming years.
