After a Bruising Freshman Term, Pringle Faces Fight for Reelection

SACRAMENTO — When Curt Pringle entered the state Assembly two years ago, he knew he was in for a tough time.

He was 29 years old, a member of the minority party, and he had barely eked out a victory in a controversial election that left Democrats fuming over Republican tactics. He knew that the Democrats who control a majority of the Legislature would rough him up every chance they got, hoping to make him more vulnerable when he faces reelection this November.

Even so, Pringle (R-Garden Grove) says he was surprised at the unmitigated partisanship he encountered on both sides of the Assembly. Many of his meaningful bills were stalled, “hijacked” (in which one party takes over a bill that was originally sponsored by a legislator from the opposing party) or killed outright.

“The overwhelming majority of people around here, Republican and Democrat, are so partisan that you never have an opportunity to get some (bills) out,” Pringle said last week as the legislative session drew to a close. “I thought it would be a little more collegial, that you’d have a much better opportunity to work together with members of both parties.”

Democrats have made reclaiming Pringle’s seat--once their territory and the only competitive Assembly race in Orange County--one of their top goals this year. In 1988, Pringle won the seat by only 867 votes in an election that was marred by the Republican Party’s use of uniformed guards at several heavily Latino precincts in Santa Ana.

The enmity created by the poll guards incident dogged Pringle throughout his first term, and Assembly Democrats did their best to straitjacket Pringle’s lawmaking efforts.

“You often see that in the Legislature--an attempt by whoever controls power to consolidate power and eliminate opponents, starting with those who appear vulnerable,” said state Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim). “I’ve seen them do it to other freshman legislators over the years.”

Despite near-automatic Democratic opposition to most of his proposals, Pringle did manage to get a smattering of bills passed into law, including several on behalf of mobile home park residents.

There are 55 mobile home parks in Pringle’s district, which includes Stanton and parts of Westminster, Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Anaheim.

And on the final day of the session, Pringle scored a modest legislative coup when his bill to increase the state’s bank of sterile Medflies--thereby decreasing the need for malathion spraying--finally escaped the Assembly. Democrats in both houses, fearing that it might provide him with decent ammunition in his reelection campaign against Democratic candidate Tom Umberg, had blocked its passage or tried to keep Pringle’s name off the bill for months.

“That was done for purely political reasons,” Pringle said of the Democrats’ maneuvers. “Being in a targeted race, there are many reasons why the Democrats would want to kill bills of Curt Pringle.”

Umberg, however, says Pringle’s explanation “doesn’t completely wash. He has not demonstrated leadership in his own (party) caucus. He is not one of those people offering innovative ideas, who are dynamic.”

Umberg conceded that a Democrat in the 72nd District would have an easier time getting legislation through, however. “That’s one of the things I can offer to the community,” he said. “It’s no secret we’ve been getting shortchanged.”

One bill that Pringle was able to get passed reclassified people in motorized wheelchairs as pedestrians rather than vehicle drivers. And he pushed through a number of resolutions honoring former President Ronald Reagan and senior citizens, proclaiming “Southeast Asia Genocide Remembrance Week,” and calling for an end to University of California admissions quotas, among others.

For the most part, though, Pringle was unable to advance the legislation he felt most strongly about. Law enforcement bills that would have expanded the death penalty and lengthened prison terms for violent criminals were killed by Democrats as soon as they were referred to the Assembly Public Safety Committee.

“I would much rather have (those bills) as a cornerstone of my legislative ability,” Pringle said. “But they are never going to let those types of bills pass until you change the overall structure, until you are able to get somebody in here that doesn’t control the committee process like (Assembly Speaker) Willie Brown” (D-San Francisco).

Unlike in the state Senate, where the bipartisan Senate Rules Committee hands out committee appointments, Assembly committee assignments are controlled by Brown alone.

“Good Republican bills, good law-and-order bills, are killed early,” Pringle said. “They’re killed by the first committee they ever see. And who appoints people to those committees? It’s the Speaker.”

Although Pringle believes that his legislative success rate is good enough to earn him a second term, he sees other parts of his job as equally important.

“My major emphasis has been, and always will be, constituent service,” Pringle said. “I don’t look at passing laws as the glamorous part of the job. I oftentimes look at opposing legislation as the glamorous part.

“I opposed the budget, I opposed the tax increases that have happened this year, I opposed a lot of things that I think would be tremendously detrimental to the people of my district.”

Now, Pringle must return to Orange County and prepare to do battle with Umberg, a former federal prosecutor. If Pringle can win, he says, his days as a vulnerable, bullied legislator will be over; the Democrats will begin to leave him alone--or at least treat him no worse than any other Republican.

“I think this is the pivotal election,” he said. “Historically . . . when you’re in a marginal seat, it’s that first reelection that is the toughest.”