Griset Enters Contest for Robinson’s Assembly Seat

Calling himself an “enterprise Democrat,” Santa Ana Mayor Daniel E. Griset announced Thursday that he will run for the 72nd Assembly District seat now held by Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove).

Griset said he is not the traditional liberal, anti-poverty politician that Orange County residents may associate with Democrats, but rather someone concerned about transportation problems, school crowding and improving the economy--all significant issues for the working class residents of the district, composed of Westminster, Santa Ana and Garden Grove.

The Santa Ana mayor and the City Council have been threatened recently with recall in an angry battle with a citizens’ group that centered in part on where the Westdome sports arena should be built. The council last week rejected the downtown Westdome site. Griset said the city was now “on track again” and that he did not believe the Westdome issue would affect his campaign.

With Griset’s announcement, the race for the 72nd Assembly seat is shaping up as a major battle between Republicans and Democrats in the lower chamber.

On one side is Republican candidate Richard E. Longshore, a retired naval officer and abortion foe. Longshore has strong support from Orange County and Assembly Republicans who have already contributed $30,000 to his campaign and are committed to capturing the 72nd as a Republican seat.

Longshore--who has been campaigning for the seat since 1982 and in 1984 came just 256 votes short of defeating Robinson--has strong name recognition in the district. In addition, for the last few months Republicans have been building more strength with a major voter-registration drive in the 72nd. Presently, 38.27% of the voters are registered Republican, compared to 50.5% registered as Democrats, but Assembly Republicans say they are closing the gap each week.

On the other side now is Griset, an insurance broker, who said he had been promised “major support” from Assembly Democrats for this race--enough to counter the Republican drive.

Griset had to move recently to become a resident of the 72nd District. Through a fluke of the 1982 reapportionment efforts, his home on Towner Street was not included within the latest district boundaries, Griset said. Since early January, he has been living in an apartment on Bishop Street, just inside the 72nd District.

To Sell Home

Griset said he will be putting his Towner Street home up for sale sometime during the campaign and moving into a permanent residence in the district.

Griset said the Assembly race might cost him up to $600,000 by November. But on a trip to Sacramento on Wednesday, Griset said, he told officials from the newly created Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee that he would not run without their support.

“I was only willing to commit nine months of my life to win it (the seat) if I knew the Assembly leadership had put this in their top priority category. And that was agreed to,” Griset said.

Griset added that he consulted both Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and Assemblyman Robinson in Sacramento on Wednesday before he announced his candidacy. Brown could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Robinson is still considering whether to leave his Assembly seat to run against Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) for Congress. On Thursday, he hedged about whether he was supporting Griset or might end up running against the Santa Ana mayor.

But Robinson said it would not be correct to say that he had given Griset “his blessing.” He added: “I did not discourage him . . . . I told him that if he wants to mount a campaign, he ought to do so.”

Robinson promised a public announcement next week on his own plans for elective office.

Meanwhile, county Republican leaders had mixed reactions to Griset’s race. Coalson Morris, president of the Lincoln Club and a longtime family friend of Griset’s, suggested that it would be an interesting race, “but Longshore has the edge.”

Predicts Longshore Victory

Assemblyman John Lewis (R-Orange), who heads the Assembly Republican Political Action Committee, predicted that Longshore would win, with as much as 60% of the vote, on the coattails of Gov. George Deukmejian, who Lewis said would be reelected.

In addition to gaining support from Assembly Democrats, Griset said Thursday that he was also now gathering support from some county Republicans. Because of his background as an insurance broker, Griset said he believed that California’s insurance industry would back him for the Assembly seat. Also, he said, in his three races for the Santa Ana City Council, “80% of my support has been Republican support,” and he added that he will be tapping those backers in this race.

Griset was first elected to the Santa Ana council in 1979 and has served as mayor since November, 1984. He was a member of the Orange County Transportation Commission from July, 1981, to July, 1985, and served as its chairman, but he was ousted last year, some council members said, because county Republicans feared that Griset would use his commission role as a stepping stone to higher office.

Descended from farmers who settled in Santa Ana in 1889, Griset grew up in that city. He went away to college--to UC Berkeley for undergraduate studies and to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts for a master’s degree in international diplomacy.

Griset is married and has three children.