Anti-Abortion Vigil Deepens GOP Division

A majority of Ventura County Republican Central Committee members voiced public support for a constitutional ban on abortion Wednesday night and then held a candlelight vigil to protest the 18th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark abortion-rights ruling.

The anti-abortion vote and demonstration of committee members wearing black armbands deepened the division on the 28-member committee, which has battled over the emotional issue for more than a year.

“This is a decisive meeting,” said Bob Larkin, one of the old-guard Republican members who say they are embarrassed by the conservative Christians and anti-abortion protesters who have taken control of the county’s GOP.

Larkin vowed to help round up prominent old-guard Republicans to run for central committee positions in June and try to oust the newcomers. “We are going to try to fill up the ballot and get a majority back on the committee,” he said.

During the lengthy meeting, the new majority of conservative Christians lost their attempt to officially ask the California Republican Party to include a constitutional ban on abortion in the state party platform.

The 14-to-10 vote failed to meet procedural requirements for a two-thirds majority on public resolutions, but the anti-abortion faction went ahead with the public roll call on the abortion issue to show that a majority of the committee supports such a constitutional amendment. Individual committee members said they plan to forward the results to state party leaders drafting the 1992 platform.

“This is what we wanted all along,” said Steve Frank, committee alternate member. “The purpose of the vote was just to show where we stand on the issue.”

In another swipe at the old guard, the new majority also voted to establish the Republican Lincoln Club of Ventura County as an official fund-raising organization for the financially strapped central committee.

This new Lincoln Club was set up to compete for political donations with another Lincoln Club of Ventura County established a year ago by Larkin and other disgruntled old-guard Republicans.

Frank, who organized the effort, said Larkin’s Lincoln Club has siphoned political contributions from the central committee, which is expected to run out of money next month.

“It is not an official Republican organization, but they pretend it to be,” Frank said.

Larkin said that establishing another Lincoln Club will not help the central committee raise money until it gets down to regular committee business of registering more voters and planning efforts to get more Republicans to the polls on election day.

“Anybody would be dumb to donate money to a committee that does nothing but try to send out letters on abortion,” Larkin said. “The spigot won’t be turned on until the committee does what it is supposed to do.”

He said he plans to continue operating his club, which has raised $12,000 in the past year and has sponsored public forums for a variety of statewide GOP candidates.

“It will be the preeminent Republican organization in the county, as it is in Orange County and San Diego County and others,” Larkin said.

Wednesday night’s meeting was the first directed by the committee’s new chairman, Richard Ferrier. Although Ferrier’s election was engineered by Larkin, Ferrier is an adamant abortion foe and sides with the new, conservative Christian majority on the issue.

Ferrier was elected as chairman earlier this month after the committee ousted former Chairman Bill Jones for making sympathetic comments about former Klansman David Duke.

After the committee adjourned, 20 people, most of them committee members, formed a circle holding candles in a prayer vigil to protest Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision guaranteeing women the right to have abortions.

“This candle represents life,” said Clara Jean Davis, a committee member. “We will continue to speak up for the unborn children being slaughtered every day.”

“This is weird,” said Gwen Tillemans, former chairwoman of the central committee. “The central committee is not the place for this sort of thing.”