O.C. Judge to Run for Sanchez’s Seat in House

SANTA ANA —  Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Gray began a leave of absence Wednesday to campaign for the congressional seat now held by Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove).

Gray, a Republican best known for supporting the decriminalization of drugs, has hinted for several weeks that he was weighing such a campaign. Republicans Lisa Hughes, a family law attorney and certified public accountant, and Anaheim City Councilman Bob Zemel also have announced their candidacies.

“Probably all of the ills and problems in our society have come through my court,” Gray, 52, said, formally announcing his campaign. “I’ve seen what happens when we have bad public policy, when we have badly drafted laws. As a judge, you’re trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. As a member of Congress, I’d be able to be proactive.”

Sanchez is Orange County’s only elected Democratic representative since 1984 and is approaching her first reelection race. The 1996 congressional election, in which she defeated Republican Rep. Robert K. Dornan by 984 votes, remains the focus of separate congressional, state and local investigations of whether noncitizens knowingly were registered to vote.

Dornan has said in recent weeks that there were enough votes by noncitizens to vacate the seat and grant him a new election. He has declined to identify the source of his information. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) has demurred when asked if he will schedule a vote to remove Sanchez before the House adjourns.

Gray said he doubts that the House would vote to vacate the seat and trigger a special election with only eight months before the June 2 primary. He said it is clear that some voted in the 1996 race that were ineligible to do so, but declined to characterize the activity as fraud.

“There seems to be some indication, but I don’t know,” Gray said. “I hope the approach is done from a judicial standpoint and not a political one.”

The Santa Ana judge lunged into controversy of his own several years ago when he declared that the nation’s “zero tolerance” in the war on drugs was a failure. He suggested that decriminalizing drugs and refocusing funding from enforcement to prevention would be better uses of the countless millions of dollars spent.

He also supported last year’s statewide Proposition 115, which allows medical marijuana use, although he faulted some of the measure’s provisions.

Among those on hand Wednesday to endorse Gray was former California Supreme Court Justice Marcus Kaufman, who lives in Orange County. Kaufman said he met Gray through his volunteer work and said he was impressed by Gray’s commitment to ideas, “even if they’re not so very popular at the time.”

“On the way over here, I was thinking I didn’t know if he was a Democrat or a Republican, and it didn’t make a single bit of difference to me,” Kaufman said.

Gray said he intends to campaign among voters of all parties in the state’s first open primary, which will list all candidates on a single ballot. The top vote-getters from each party will move to the general election.

He said he expects he will have to raise at least $600,000 for the primary race, “and that’s obscene.”

Hughes has pledged to spend $500,000 of her own money for her race; Zemel is counting on support from businesses and from appeals to members of the Christian Coalition. Zemel has hired former Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed, now a consultant in Atlanta, to manage his campaign.