ELECTIONS ’88 : ORANGE COUNTY : ‘Rambo’ Ferguson Ambushed by Own Forces in Primary

The man the Legislature knows as “Rambo” has been ambushed by his own forces in southern Orange County.

Assemblyman Gil Ferguson, a Newport Beach Republican who is one of the leaders in the GOP battle to capture control of the Legislature, is facing a feisty challenge from two fellow Republicans in his effort to hang onto the 70th Assembly District seat.

One of his opponents, Newport Beach Councilwoman Evelyn Hart, entered the race despite being told that leaders in the county’s Republican hierarchy might launch a recall effort against her if she did. Ferguson’s other opponent, Laguna Beach resident Michael Mang, is a self-styled radical environmentalist with no ties to the party and thus little to lose.

Ferguson is well known and well financed, and he is expected to beat back the challenge on June 7. The district is the most Republican in the state--about 62% of its voters are registered Republicans--so the primary winner is all but guaranteed a victory over Democrat Michael Gallups in the fall.

But in the meantime, Hart and Mang are putting the two-term assemblyman on the spot, with Hart publicizing an embarrassing investigation of Ferguson’s political finances and Mang blaming him for the traffic congestion that is clogging the county’s freeways and frustrating its voters.

Ferguson, 65, is a former Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who proudly announces to most audiences that he has fought in this country’s last three wars. He is best known outside of Orange County for his efforts to oust Santa Monica Democrat Tom Hayden from the Assembly for his involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement in the 1960s and ‘70s. And Ferguson once opposed funding for a Japanese-American memorial by reminding colleagues that the Marines who fought against the Japanese in World War II had to raise their own memorial fund by collecting “nickels and dimes.”

“If the Japanese can’t afford one, they don’t deserve one,” he said.

It was comments such as those on military issues that earned Ferguson the Rambo nickname. But his true passion is the fight for the rights of property owners. He calls himself a “kamikaze pilot” on behalf of those who own land and want to use it as they wish.

Ferguson told a recent gathering of apartment owners in Anaheim that they had only themselves to blame for restrictions placed on private enterprise by the “do-gooders and the crazies” in the name of environmentalism and the anti-poverty movement.

Paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence, Ferguson said the Founding Fathers declared that all men were “endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights and among those rights are your life, your liberty and your property.”

“The government does not give you those rights,” he bellowed.

Ferguson’s support for the free-enterprise system has been his strong suit in conservative Orange County, where business-backed Republicans have long dominated the political landscape.

Angry Voters

But rapid development, particularly in and around Ferguson’s district, which stretches from Newport Beach to Capistrano Beach and inland past Mission Viejo, has angered voters and prompted a growth-control initiative on the June 7 ballot.

Ferguson, who in the past has carried legislation that would crimp the use of voter-inspired growth-control initiatives, is opposing the Orange County ballot measure but not actively. He says he drives the freeways, too, and so he understands why county residents are fed up with growth. He puts the blame not on builders but on local politicians, whom he accuses of faulty planning.

But with polls showing an overwhelming majority in favor of the slow-growth measure, Ferguson has tried to steer the campaign to other issues. He has concentrated his fire on Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, the San Francisco Democrat, and told voters that he is working with a group of five rebel Democrats to enact legislation that Brown opposes.

Ferguson points out that two of his bills that had been bottled up in committee by liberal lawmakers have recently been amended into other measures on the Assembly floor and passed with the help of the five dissident Democrats. One of the bills would forbid the sale of pornography from vending machines accessible to children, and the other is an attempt to use public records to keep better track of sex offenders.

On Monday, again taking advantage of support from the rebel Democrats, Ferguson took the first step toward winning approval for a bill to crack down on drive-by gang shootings. The Assembly approved amendments to a Ferguson measure that would increase the extra prison term automatically given to anyone convicted of shooting someone from a car. The term, which is added to any sentence meted out for the shooting itself, would increase from five to eight years.

An Awkward Corner

But this alliance with the rebel Democrats has forced Ferguson into an awkward corner. Hart has repeatedly pressured him to explain why the 36 Assembly Republicans have not joined forces with the so-called “Gang of Five” Democrats to topple Brown. It takes 41 votes to choose a new Assembly speaker.

“Those five Democrats have given him an opportunity to get rid of Willie Brown since January,” Hart said. “I’m curious about all the lip service and no action.”

Ferguson responds that his fellow Republican caucus members are reluctant to dump Brown without knowing who would replace him as speaker.

“I’ve done everything I could,” Ferguson said. “I’ve been called the hothead of the caucus.”

Hart has also suggested that Ferguson’s preoccupation with ousting Democrats, particularly Hayden, has kept him from effectively representing his district.

“We have someone elected as a legislator who is not a legislator and is not going to be a legislator,” she said, pounding Ferguson for what she considers a skimpy record of achievement. “Maybe Mr. Ferguson should move to Santa Monica and run against Mr. Hayden. We need a legislator here in Orange County that we’re not getting.”

Hart, 57, is a 35-year resident of Orange County. A Newport Beach councilwoman for 10 years, she has tried to position herself as a Republican who has conservative roots yet is open to compromise. She often compares herself to Sen. Marian Bergeson, the Newport Beach Republican who got her start on the local school board.

Comfort From the Past

Hart finds comfort in the fact that Bergeson also confounded Republican leaders with her first move into state politics when, in 1976, she ran as a write-in candidate for Assembly. Bergeson split the Republican vote with the GOP nominee and was blamed when a Democrat won the seat. Republican leaders said she had ruined her chances of moving up the political ladder, but she won an Assembly seat two years later and now is considered the county’s most popular office holder.

“I remember people saying how she (Bergeson) was washed up forever in politics,” said Hart, who worked for Bergeson in that campaign. “The same things are being said about me. But I can’t let that deter me from doing something I think is important to the people of this area.”

Bergeson has endorsed Ferguson but does not volunteer kind words about a colleague with whom she has never been close.

“I’ve endorsed him because I endorse all Republican incumbents,” she said.

Hart has been criticized by county Republican leaders for diverting Ferguson’s attention and campaign money at a time when he should be helping other California Republicans win seats in the Legislature. Before she entered the race in March, Hart was warned that GOP activists might pursue a recall effort against her as a member of the Newport Beach City Council if she ran against Ferguson.

Hart also got a call from Pat Nolan of Glendale, the Republicans leader in the Assembly.

“I told her I was very disappointed that she was running,” Nolan said in an interview. “We should be running against Democrats, not each other.”

Since entering the race, Hart has been criticized by the county Republican Party Central Committee for the way she discussed a state Fair Political Practices Commission investigation of Ferguson’s personal finances. The commission is investigating Ferguson’s failure to properly report at least $30,000 in consulting fees he received from two Orange County developers. The FBI also is looking into the matter.

Despite being found by the Orange County Republican Party’s ethics committee to have used “unethical and unfair” tactics, Hart hasn’t let up.

“The Fair Political Practices Commission would not have turned him over to the FBI if there wasn’t something wrong there,” she said in a recent interview. “When you’re a public servant, you can’t just brush things off and say that it was an oversight or that some secretary made a mistake.”

Hart appears less comfortable when the topic shifts to policy issues. She speaks in generalities--she is neutral on the slow-growth issue but promises to support the measure if it wins voter approval--and sometimes chuckles nervously when asked about an issue with which she is not entirely familiar.

In one recent interview, Hart first said she favored Proposition 68 on the June 7 ballot, which would limit political campaign contributions and spending and provide partial taxpayer financing of the races. Public financing is opposed by virtually every major Republican leader in California.

Hart was not aware that another measure on the ballot, co-authored by Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-La Habra), would also limit contributions but would prohibit public financing of campaigns. Told of Johnson’s measure, Hart said she would study them both and reconsider her position.

On insurance rate regulation, a problem the Legislature has hardly been able to address, much less resolve, Hart optimistically predicted that her touch would be just what is needed on the issue.

“We need some real reform on insurance,” Hart said. “I’m as good as anyone else to work on those (issues).”

Hart said she would “work with the state Senate” to improve Orange County’s streets and highways. But she has offered no specific plans for transportation improvements.

Hart hopes to raise and spend $125,000 in the race, while Ferguson, who has a loyal following of volunteers, plans to spend at least $200,000 before June 7.

The third candidate, Mang, is a political newcomer who so far has not been taken seriously by party insiders.

A former high school civics teacher, Mang has run his campaign on a shoestring. If nothing else, his provocative comments on the growth issue have attracted attention at campaign forums.

Mang, 48, who said he lives off money he made by investing in real estate, is an outspoken advocate of growth controls. He contends that Ferguson and Hart, both of whom get much of their campaign money from developers, are out of step with the voters.

“There’s a big battle going on between Hart and Ferguson, but I’ve got the issue,” Mang said. “The issue is development, and they’re both pro-development, and I’m anti-development.”

Mang, a strong supporter of the slow-growth measure on the June 7 ballot, said the county is “at the limit” of the population it can handle. He describes himself as a “radical for clean air and clean water.”

“I’m for no-growth,” he said. “It’s time to pull in the gang-plank. The ship is sinking.”

Mang said he would work as an assemblyman to prohibit so-called “development agreements,” under which public agencies grant development rights to builders that cannot be altered by future office holders. He also has proposed a $1,000 state tax credit for anyone who goes without a driver’s license to reduce traffic congestion on the freeways.

He said his first step as a legislator would be to hold a hearing to determine if the San Onofre nuclear power plant should be shut down to prevent a catastrophe in the event of a major earthquake.