Special Interests’ Questionnaires Grill Candidates

City Council candidate Harold Lindamood was surprised when he received the detailed questionnaires asking his opinions on abortion.

It was not likely that topic would be tucked into the Cypress City Council agenda, among trash fee hikes and weed abatement. Why would someone even ask, he wondered.

“They don’t have anything to do with city elections,” said Lindamood, a test pilot making his first try at elected office. “Basically I put them in a pile. . . . I didn’t fill them out.”

Normally during election season, the candidates pepper residents with paperwork outlining their opinions. But in this unusual year of third-party candidates and voter discontent, the tables have turned. Dozens of special-interest groups in Orange County are bombarding candidates for city councils, school boards and community college boards with letters asking for their opinions on everything from gun control to bicyclists’ rights.

Candidates who give the right answers might win an endorsement, a contribution, and even precinct-walkers.

For those who have been around the political arena for some time, the trend signals a turnaround in voter apathy. In fact, as the candidates’ mailboxes attest, it seems just about everyone has an agenda this year.

“I just think from Washington, D.C., to Main Street, U.S.A., groups are figuring out that in order to affect change in public policy they have to organize,” said political consultant David Ellis. “The silent majority . . . is no longer silent.”

Michael Mott is in that group, although he doesn’t seem like a political mover and shaker. The McDonnell Douglas software engineer doesn’t even own a car, let alone have the background to lead a political movement.

Yet Mott is the chairman of the Orange County Bicycle Coalition, an organization boasting 2,500 able and ready voters with a mission: keeping roadways and pathways clear for bicyclists and pedestrians. The group is one of the recent entries into the ever-crowded field of special-interest groups in Orange County this year.

“People are getting involved,” Mott said. “I really think it is good.”

The coalition was formed about a year ago after Mott read an article in a cycling magazine explaining how to organize politically. Since then the group, which includes the Orange County Wheelmen and the Irvine Bicycle Club as members, has already had a few political victories. Earlier this year, it persuaded the Huntington Beach City Council to put bike lanes along a portion of Pacific Coast Highway, Mott said.

Today, the group is looking beyond Huntington Beach and has sent questionnaires to all 250 or so people running for city councils around the county. It queries candidates about their views on issues such as requiring major employers to install showers and lockers for cyclists and pedestrians, designating a city employee to become a bicycle expert and forming a citizens’ non-motorized transportation board. So far, the coalition has received about 60 responses and given a few endorsements.

The bicyclists say they feel confident about their first shot at influence peddling.

“It is a good way to let every one of these candidates know that you are out there,” Mott said, adding that they were happy with the response. “We just didn’t know what to expect. We will be better organized next year.”

It wasn’t by accident that the nine car dealers on Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa decided to form a coalition. It was a necessity, said Thomas Thurston, a member of Harbor Boulevard of Cars.

Facing a grueling recession and a not-so-business-friendly council, the dealers say, they decided to fight back.

Although the group has been around for many years and has dabbled in politics in the past, this year it got serious and sent out a questionnaire.

“When business is tight you tend to look at the political atmosphere a little closer,” said Thurston of Orange Coast Jeep and Eagle. “We are not tickled to death with a few incumbents.”

To further its cause, the group’s Political Action Committee has donated a total of more than $1,000 to three challengers in the Costa Mesa race.

Not all of the newcomers are so willing to talk about their efforts.

Officials at the Orange County Pro Family Candidate Campaign, a family-values group headquartered in Orange, refused to comment about their strategy.

Member Rachel Davies refused comment about who the group’s members are, what council candidates the group surveyed, or what it would do with the assembled information.

“We are concerned with issues that affect the family,” Davies said. “Most of us have children.”

Their questionnaire focuses on pornography, taxes, abortion and gay rights, and asks questions such as “would you support laws supporting the unborn from time of conception unless the mother’s death is likely.” Included with the flyers is a claim that the results would be distributed widely throughout Orange County.

Some candidates estimated they have received 10 to 12 requests this year for information about their views, up significantly from elections past. From grass-roots groups, who put together flyers on their home computers to sophisticated PACs, the field is getting more and more cluttered.

For the uninitiated like Lindamood, the deluge can be quite bewildering. Should the questionnaire be filled out? What happens if it is? What happens if it isn’t?

Richard Banks, candidate for Newport Beach City Council, who got eight to 10 letters, said, “It seemed like very soon after filing it started . . . the special-interest groups seemed to be waiting in the woods. It was rampant for awhile.”

To complicate matters, some groups don’t clearly identify themselves or their bent, and leaving only a post office box for identification.

And some of the more established groups that form political action committees won’t reveal who their members are. The Southern California Caucus, for example, a pro-business PAC based in Torrance, asks candidates if they would consider allowing card clubs in their cities. But the caucus won’t say whether its members own gambling clubs.

Candidates take the chance of being endorsed by a group they may not support, and some have admitted getting endorsements from groups they don’t know.

Even for the more seasoned politicians who are accustomed to the flyer wars, the task is no less daunting.

Costa Mesa Councilwoman Sandra Genis said she puts the questionnaires into two piles, those that say who they are and those who don’t. The latter end up in the trash.

Adding to the onslaught this year are the dozens of political stalwarts that have been in the flyer business for years, in some cases decades. Such old-timers include the Manufactured Housing Educational Trust and Orange County Building Industry Assn., which joined forces with the Western Mobilhome Assn. and the Apartment Assn. of Orange County to mail a combined questionnaire.

Linda Melton, political director of the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California, said the flyers are one of several methods used to choose candidates to be supported with financial contributions.

“We basically want to get a sense of where the candidates stand on housing, endangered species, fees and other issues,” Melton said.

Some special interest groups say their questionnaires are a way to get to know a potential friend or foe early in the game, before they make the jump from City Hall to Sacramento.

“We believe that a lot of Legislature and congressional candidates work their way from the ground up,” said Dennis Cabaret, co-chair of the Elections Committee of the County of Orange, an organization that champions lesbian, gay and women’s rights. “We are also interested in the general electoral climate in Orange County.”