Mayor Daly’s Partisan Tie to Political Boss

ANAHEIM — He has made a career in this city as a discreet Orange County Democrat, building bridges with powerful Republicans in the name of nonpartisanship. But now Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly is taking sides, just as he considers his first run at countywide political office.

Since January, Daly has been quietly running the California office of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), drawing a $30,000-a-year salary to build the new congresswoman’s political operation from the ground up.

The move by Daly--which Sanchez advisors say has been critical to her political survival--is drawing the deliberative mayor into a glare of intense criticism and charges of conflict of interest.

Republicans, once his allies, are now jumping to brand him as a liberal, seeking to weaken what could be a strong potential candidacy in 1998 for the Board of Supervisors seat now held by William G. Steiner.

For the hometown Anaheim politician who has led the county’s second largest city through a boom as the region’s top sports and entertainment moneymaker, the job with Sanchez is bringing challenges. The pragmatic Harvard graduate with a reputation as more problem solver than ideologue has long been one of the few prominent Orange County Democrats to resist Republican pressure to change his party. And he has long supported Sanchez behind the scenes. Indeed, Sanchez credits Daly with convincing her to run for Congress.

But in his public role, first as councilman, then mayor, Daly has scrupulously maintained ties with local Republicans, garnering major contributions to his campaigns from conservative business owners, including waste company giant William Taormina and Anaheim Realtor Paul Kott. He led majority council votes that kept the California Angels in the city, brought the Mighty Ducks hockey franchise to Anaheim and made possible a billion-dollar expansion of Disneyland and the Anaheim Convention Center.

“Tom historically has not had a partisan nature,” said former state Assemblyman Tom Umberg, an Orange County Democrat who ran President Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign in California. “He has the integrity to know who he is, but he’s more of a problem solver than a politician, that’s why he has been able to attract support on both sides of the aisle. I remember years ago when I told Gary Hunt of the Irvine Co. that Tom was a Democrat. Gary almost fell off his chair.”

But if Daly downplayed his Democratic roots in the past, those days are gone. As special projects advisor to Sanchez, a vaguely defined title that gives him broad authority, Daly is in the thick of “basically anything that we’re doing,” Sanchez chief of staff Steve Jost said. The job technically is part time, but the Anaheim mayor has been working for Sanchez from early in the morning until late at night. He has done everything from finding office space and equipment for Sanchez’s local operation to hiring a district representative and support staff.

With former Rep. Robert K. Dornan contesting the election, Sanchez has not been able to rely on the customary cooperation afforded a new officeholder by a predecessor, making it particularly critical that she have an experienced hand at the helm of her local operation, Daly said.

Most important, the politician with deep roots in Orange County business and political circles is helping Sanchez network among her newly won constituents. Since taking the job, Daly has created advisory committees for Sanchez made up of county leaders in business, education and public safety. He also acts as political advisor for her young and relatively inexperienced staff on a host of issues.

“He’s like our window into local politics. We rely on him to give us information about what’s happening locally,” said Nancy Ramirez, whom Daly hired as district director. “He knows all the players and he’s been great in giving us background.”

Anaheim City Atty. Jack L. White said Daly’s job with Sanchez is not improper, as some Republicans contend. While city offices in California are technically nonpartisan, local politicians are not prohibited from working with political parties. It is not uncommon for local officeholders to work for county or federal officials while they are in office.

But other Anaheim city officials say privately that they worry Daly’s job with Sanchez could preclude him from voting on some city issues. And some local Republicans, among them Anaheim Councilmen Bob Zemel and Lou Lopez and Republican consultant Frank Caternicchio, have been quick to criticize Daly’s move.

“His role with Mrs. Sanchez Brixey has been so very close, so very close, and [her operation] is the definitive liberal Democrat arena of today’s Orange County politics,” County Republican Party Chairman Tom Fuentes said. “You have to wonder where his allegiance lies.”

Last week, Daly’s job put him in a particularly uncomfortable spot when city leaders launched an attack on Sanchez after she reserved her support for a federal program in the city.

At issue was the fate of a 6-month-old U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service program to identify illegal immigrants arrested and booked in the Anaheim City Jail that ends in June. While two Orange County Republican congressmen recently joined other lawmakers to introduce legislation that would extend the program, Sanchez refused to support the bill. Instead, she asked for an independent audit of the program’s effectiveness.

At a news conference last Wednesday attended by the other four members of the city’s five-member council, Councilman Zemel charged that Sanchez had left Anaheim hanging.

While his colleagues took their turns at a podium set up in a City Hall briefing room to push for the program, Daly was nowhere to be seen. He was at the Sanchez office--meeting on a separate issue with the congresswoman’s advisors.

“I think it’s bad for his boss if he goes against her while he’s wearing his hat as mayor,” said Zemel, who is contemplating a run for Sanchez’s seat next year. “But how can he wear that hat? Whose agenda is he going to put first? The city’s? Or Loretta’s?”

Daly says Zemel’s contentions are baseless.

The news conference “was scheduled without my knowledge. I was not told about it,” Daly said. “Are they trying to make something of this? Listen, some of my friends and supporters told me that I would invite some criticism by taking on this job. It was not an easy decision to put myself . . . in what would be perceived as a partisan position. But she represents the area where I live. I respect her. And she asked for my help.”

Still, even Daly supporters say they are mystified by the mayor’s decision to help his old friend Sanchez at just the moment he appears to be launching the countywide political career they have long encouraged. They worry he may be eroding the Republican support he has built up over the years.

Sanchez “really needed help locally and she reached out and he agreed to do it,” said Republican political consultant Eileen Padberg, who said she has crossed political lines to support Daly. “I was surprised. It was not a great move for him, but it sure was for her. Tom saw an opportunity to help a worthy colleague. But he can’t stay in that position long. He needs to move on.”

A decision by Daly on whether to seek the 4th District supervisorial seat held by Steiner is many months away--the election is not until November 1998. But Daly said he is “leaning” toward running for the seat.

“I think the county needs stronger leadership,” Daly said. “There’s a vacant seat and I’ve been encouraged to look at the supervisor’s job by a number of people. I’ve got my eye on it.”

The district encompasses all of Anaheim, and a handful of smaller Central and North County cities, and has most often been led by politicians with deep ties to Anaheim. Steiner, from Orange, is an exception. Appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson in March 1993, Steiner has said he will step down at the end of his current term. Other potential candidates for the spot include Zemel and another Anaheim councilman, Lou Lopez.

If Daly does enter the race, it will be his first move for elective office outside of Anaheim. He started in politics as an aide to then-Supervisor Ralph B. Clark, a Democrat who former aides recall drilled the gospel of nonpartisanship in local government into his staff. Later, Daly worked as an aide to Supervisor Don R. Roth, who resigned from office amid scandal in 1993.

In 1989, a year after he was elected to Anaheim City Council, Daly became government affairs director of the Orange County region of the Building Industry Assn., an industry trade group.

“Ralph always put forward a high-quality, nonpartisan view of what we should be doing. Tom learned from that,” said Stan Oftelie, who worked alongside Daly for Clark in the supervisor’s office. Oftelie announced last week he was leaving the Orange County Transportation Authority executive director’s post to run the Orange County Business Council.

“From the very first time Tom entered the political seas in Orange County, he was meeting with very high-level people from both political parties and carried himself with great aplomb,” Oftelie said.

Local Democrats have floated Daly’s name for higher office in the past--most recently for the congressional race Sanchez later entered and won. But the former school board member first elected to the City Council in 1988 has always declined.

Daly said that he is prepared to run for the supervisor’s seat. But, seated in Sanchez’s district office, where new computers are still stacked in boxes in the corner, he said he puts his commitment to the congresswoman first.

“She is an Anaheim native, as I am. She’s a product of the local public school system in Anaheim, as I am. She’s a friend and she asked me for help, it’s as simple as that,” Daly said. “I’ve hardly been paid the time of day by some other members of Congress in Orange County. Here one approached me and asked me to help her succeed. I want her to succeed.”