The Colorful 67th

A walk along the waterfront in Huntington Beach is far more evocative of the moniker “Surf City” than it is of a place associated with political passion. Local political issues do stir the blood, especially when they involve land use, but residents also regularly have registered their overall satisfaction with the quality of their lives.

But this sunny stretch of Southern California geography has become a boiling pot for Republican politics statewide. The recent ascent of Assemblyman Scott Baugh to minority leader was the latest in a string of developments originating in the 67th state Assembly District that have brought ideological focus to state politics.

Here is what this Assembly district has given the state since the middle of the decade. First, it produced a short-time Republican Speaker of the House, Doris Allen, viewed by many as a moderate. Her pact with Assembly Democrats to ascend to the leadership produced an outright revolt from the conservative wing of her own party. She was recalled in a bitter campaign and put into political exile. It was a defining moment for the Republicans statewide on the ideological direction of their party.

Second, her successor, Baugh, went to Sacramento with the blessing of died-in-the wool conservatives in Orange County. He quickly provided the deciding vote that installed yet another Orange County representative as speaker. This time it was the Garden Grove representative Curt Pringle, and again the 67th was having impact on the state political scene.

Baugh ran into trouble over his 1995 campaign, and it is only now that his travails have begun to clear. His ascent to minority leader was preceded by dismissal last month of criminal campaign misconduct charges arising from his special election victory in 1995.

The case has been referred to the state Fair Political Practices Commission, but before this development, it had caused a stir both in state and in Orange County politics. In the aftermath, credit this district’s politics also with finishing former Orange County Dist. Atty. Mike Capizzi’s political aspirations for higher office. Capizzi lodged the criminal charges against Baugh, earning him enmity from the county’s Republican establishment.

Baugh, the affable conservative, has had his climb paved with political ideology as well. His predecessor as minority leader, Rod Pacheco of Riverside, failed to hold the allegiance of party members. Baugh made it clear that he represented an effort to clarify the policy lines between the Republican Sacramento delegation and the Democrats.

While Pacheco had other problems, his demise represented his party’s effort to draw sharper political and policy distinctions. Pacheco, for example, backed abortion rights. Baugh is a staunch backer of conservative positions, though he has developed a reputation for working with members across the aisle.

From time to time in politics we see evidence that particular regions have a way of producing political leadership for the larger world. The state of Massachusetts has a tradition of formulating Democratic perspectives. On a smaller scale and within this state, Huntington Beach is one of those places that defines ideology by its practice of politics. Even now in the early going, Baugh’s potential successors are drawing lines on what their party should be all about. Huntington Beach has been and is likely to remain a focal point of California Republicanism.