Marine challenges 2 to an Assembly race

Dave Brooks

A Northern Orange County politician is joining the upcoming 67th

District Assembly race, hoping his fiscally conservative philosophy

can push him past two well-known candidates.

Cypress Mayor Mike McGill, an insurance agent and former Marine,

has announced his plans to run for the seat being vacated by

Assemblyman Tom Harman, who will be termed out at the end of 2006.

Beyond the usual challenges of campaigning and raising money, McGill

immediately faces two obvious disadvantages in his bid for a seat in

Sacramento: He’s from a small town comprising a fraction of the

district and he’s challenging two political heavy-weights from

Huntington Beach, the constituency’s largest city.

The Cypress Republican has little in the way of name recognition,

unlike candidate Dianne Harman, wife to current Assemblyman Tom

Harman. While Dianne Harman has never served in elected office, the

businesswoman has been active in her husband’s long political career,

first as a Huntington Beach city councilman and mayor and later as an

assemblyman.

McGill will also be challenging Jim Silva, a former Huntington

Beach city councilman, mayor and soon to be termed-out county

supervisor well-known throughout the district. McGill said he plans

to take advantage of Silva’s prominence in Orange County, challenging

the supervisor’s very publicized support of a costly pension deal

with county employees.

“I just see the same-old, same-old,” the 45-year-old said,

pointing out in the same breathe that he thanks both Harman and Silva

for their years of public service. “I looked at the potential field

of candidates and realized I wasn’t entirely confident they would be

able to do the job voters would expect of them.”

On McGill’s agenda is continued fiscal reform and spending caps,

along with tighter regulation of California’s municipal redevelopment

programs. He said he would like to place a cap on the amount of

redevelopment debt cities can rack up and would like tighter controls

on how cities identify redevelopment areas.

Second on his list is decentralizing school funding, ending the

current practice of channeling local property taxes through the

California Department of Education back to local schools.

“We need to send our property taxes directly to our local schools

for more local control,” he said, later adding that he would like to

“allow school districts to have more discretionary say on how they’re

going to spend you’re money.”

McGill said his political ideology is most closely aligned with

county treasurer John Moorlach, who could be challenging Tom Harman

for a seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors -- Tom Harman is

also weighing a race for State Senator John Campbell’s seat.

All three Assembly candidates are marketing their broad appeal,

but it will ultimately be the district’s Republicans who decide the

seat. Historically, the seat for the 67th seat is decided during the

Republican primary, and the winner of that contest has always gone

onto defeat the Democratic challenger. The political boundaries of

the district were created in a 2000 compromise that gave Republicans

a nearly 2-1 majority, effectively making it a “safe district.”

The race then shifts to a battle between the far-right and

centrist elements of the party, with Silva campaigning as a

“conservative Republican” versus Dianne Harman, a self-proclaimed

“moderate Republican.” McGill is selling his dark horse candidacy as

a challenge to the status-quo, but a decision to align with either

wing of the party could put him in a spoiler position and split the

vote.

Either way, Dianne Harman said she thinks the area is moving

toward the middle.

“The district is not afraid to vote for a woman, and it is not

afraid to vote for a moderate.” she said.

Silva said he plans to lock in the right-wing element of the

Republican party and challenge Dianne Harman for moderate votes.

“I will probably be able to secure more conservative votes more

than Dianne would,” he said.

Either way, all three candidates predict the 2006 campaign will be

a friendly affair and have publicly commented that they know and

respect one another.

“I’ve been friends with both Dianne and Mike long before this

race, and I plan to remain friends with them afterward,” Silva said.

* DAVE BROOKS covers City Hall. He can be reached at (714)

966-4609 or by e-mail at dave.brooks@latimes.com.