ARTICLES

The Duke's Throne

We Can Still Put a Pro-Lifer into the 50th Congressional Seat

BY ERNIE GRIMM

There's still hope. Lot's of it. That's the message political insiders want to send to conservative voters in the 50th district who, after the April 11 primary, now face a Hobson's choice between pro-abortion feminist Democrat Francine Busby and moderate Republican Brian Bilbray in the special election to fill Duke Cunningham's former seat in Congress. The hope stems from the fact that, on June 6th, voters in the northern San Diego County district will not only vote in the special but in the regularly scheduled primary to the general election in November.

The April 11 primary followed a pattern for special election primaries in California. "Special elections are peculiar in California because of the rules governing them," says pro-life Sacramento operative, Albin Rhomberg. "They start off with an election which is kind of an open primary, and the rules are if anybody gets 50% plus one vote, immediately they take the office. The motivation for having it that way is they want to fill the office as soon as possible. However, because anybody can vote for anybody, it sets up a very peculiar circumstance particularly in California because all the districts are gerrymandered. For example, in the last general election in 2004, the gerrymandering was so absolutely perfect that out of 153 seats that were up for election in the assembly, half the state senate, and all 53 congressional seats, 153 out of 153 stayed in the same party. Even the Soviet Union I don't think could achieve that. Even Nazi Germany I don't think had that kind of perfection. All the 20 senate seats, the 80 assembly seats, and the 53 congressional seats, without a single exception, stayed in the same party in 2004. There isn't any reason to vote in California. The only reason you might want to vote is in the primary. But most of the primaries are fixed by the party, unless you have a wealthy person or some celebrity, and usually the party picks the wealthy person or the celebrity anyway. So the primaries really don't count either. In this state, we really don't have elections for legislative office, we have selections. Almost all the people have simply been selected. They are not elected by the people, they are selected by the party and that is it."

But special elections are different. "So now, you get to something like Duke, the Lord of the 50th District. He could have stayed there until he died. But when you finally get sent to federal prison, they don't allow you to hold the seat from federal prison, at least under current rules. They may change that. Anyway, he's out, and now his seat is up for election. But the problem is, in the special election primary, anybody can vote for anybody. That provides the opportunity for some real mischief. What it allows to happen is exemplified in the famous case of Tricia Hunter. In 1989, a man named Bill Bradley was assemblyman in the 76th Assembly District in Northern San Diego County. He was a Republican, a retired engineer, quite a nice guy, a good solid pro-life vote. But he got cancer and died in office. So they had a special election to fill his seat. Well, a lot of Republicans figured, 'Here is my chance to get into one of those secure seats.' So a whole bunch of them signed up for it, including several conservatives, several that claimed to be pro-life. So the Planned Parenthood people said, 'Aha! Here is our chance. This is an opportunity to show the nation an example of what we can do. We'll put up a Republican who is pro-abortion and get that person through the so-called primary. Then after that, since it is a Republican seat, the Republicans can't do anything about it. That person will be elected to the assembly and then they will become an incumbent and they will stay in there.' So, they had the infamous Tricia Hunter. She was militantly pro-abortion. She was the president of the registered nurse board of California, and she was quite a figure with the California Nurses Association which is a radical lefty nurses pseudo-union. Planned Parenthood had phone banks operating all over the state in their clinics. They went to the old folks homes and got the old ladies out of the old folks homes, took them down, and voted them, or got absentee ballots for them. They actually made a video of how they did it. And in the meantime, here we have all these Republican candidates who split the vote up among them, and come election day, Tricia Hunter won by a margin, just like what happened [in the 50th Congressional District] to a lesser degree with Brian Bilbray."

Bilbray, who garnered 15.26% of the vote in the special primary, beat out conservatives Eric Roach (14.5%), Howard Kaloogian (7.44%), and Bill Morrow (5.39%). Busby received nearly 40%. On June 6, 50th district voters will decide whether she or Bilbray will serve the rest of Cunningham's term, which lasts until February. Bilbray should have no trouble beating Busby in the heavily Republican district. But that doesn't mean he need serve more than a few months in office. "There's an added peculiarity in this race," Rhomberg explains, "because the run-off happens to be on the same day and on the same ballot as the ordinary primary election for this seat, which is on June the 6th. And, of course, everyone who filed to be on the ballot for the special election also filed to be on the ballot for the primary. Because the special election is only to fill the seat until this session of congress is over. Nobody would spend the time and money to run in the special election only to forfeit the seat in a few months. So they all filed for both the special and the primary elections. The primary is to determine who will be on the ballot come November. The winner of the election in November will take over the seat in February 2007. This is very hard for people to grasp. The Sacramento Bee got it wrong. Roger Hedgecock got it wrong on his show."

The fact that voters can still vote for a strong pro-life candidate in the republican primary -- in which only Republicans may vote -- is a great source of hope to pro-lifers. Rhomberg believes that, in a head-to-head election against Busby in November, any Republican would be heavily favored to win. It goes back to the gerrymandering. "That's a Republican district," he says.

But if the three major pro-life candidates from the special election -- Roach, Kaloogian, and Morrow -- all actively campaign in the primary, it could be a repeat of the April 11 vote in which the pro-life vote got spread around between the three, though the closed format of the June 6 primary could give Roach a boost to make up the three-quarters-of-a-point difference between him and Bilbray. "What's needed," Rhomberg says, "is for Kaloogian and Morrow not to actively campaign, and for them to instruct their voters to vote for Eric Roach."

Howard Kaloogian has decided to do exactly that. Reached by phone, the former state assemblyman, said, "I took a little bit of time after last week's election and reflected upon it, prayed about it, enjoyed the Easter celebration, and decided that I wasn't going to run."

Kaloogian continued, "If Eric Roach were to run, I would endorse him. If he announces his candidacy, I will make a public statement of my support for him."

As of press time, Eric Roach, the wealthy Rancho Santa Fe businessman who spent over three million of his own dollars on the April 11 election, had not announced whether he would actively campaign in the June 6 primary. But Kaloogian, who has spoken to members of Roach's campaign, said, "Roach is going to run. I'm convinced Roach will be running."

Bill Morrow and his staff did not return phone calls seeking comment on his plans. But his 5.39% of the April 11 vote, plus Kaloogian's 7.44, added to Roach's 14.50% -- a total of 27.33% of the vote -- easily beats Bilbray's 15.26%, especially without the possibility of pro-abortion Democrats voting for Bilbray. "Of course, votes aren't 100% transferable from one candidate," Rhomberg warns. "But those three men were clearly the conservative, pro-life candidates."

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