<i> A behind-the-scenes look at Orange County’s political life</i> : Republicans Rise Early to Gavel Willie Brown’s Assembly Into Session

Watch Out, Willie! With the Assembly deadlocked on who should be Speaker, Democrat powerhouse Willie Brown has been clinging to the lower house’s front pulpit based on his status as the legislative body’s most senior member. But one Orange County lawmaker has been doing his best to shake Brown’s grasp of the gavel--literally.

It began when Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange) arrived on the floor for the Assembly’s Jan. 12 session promptly at 8 a.m. With his colleagues as usual running late, Conroy decided to have some fun.

He loped to the Speaker’s rostrum, grabbed the gavel and announced to the startled Assembly clerk that, as the senior member of the house present at that moment, he was calling the day’s session to order.

However, within minutes a chuckling Brown appeared to take command from Conroy.

Last Thursday morning, Conroy struck again. This time he egged on fellow Assemblyman Richard L. Mountjoy (R-Arcadia) to do the deed. Mountjoy strode to the front of the still empty chamber, pounded the gavel and the clerk began calling roll. Once again, Brown had to scurry out of his offices to resume control.

“They’re at least having fun,” said Pete Conaty, Conroy’s chief of staff. “The Republicans have certainly found a way to make sure Willie Brown doesn’t stray too far from the gavel.”

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Mr. Chairman: Although it was no surprise, it did set a new county record: For the sixth time in a row, Thomas A. Fuentes was unanimously elected chairman of the Orange County Republican Party. Fuentes, 46, a Lake Forest resident who works in personnel management for a county engineering firm, will serve another two-year term, making it a total of 12 years as chairman.

Actually, the last time Fuentes was elected chairman he broke the previous record for length of service--eight years--held by Lois Lundberg, now a local political consultant.

“I’m a vocal advocate of term limits, so there is some irony in this,” Fuentes said with a laugh.

The county Republicans also selected the aforementioned Assemblyman Conroy (R-Orange) as legislator of the year and Tustin Councilman Jeffery M. Thomas as local elected official of the year for “candidly and aggressively warning people alongside John Moorlach of the (county’s) impending doom” in the bankruptcy crisis, Fuentes said.

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Jumping parties: Maybe Fuentes was a shoo-in, but there was a pair of surprises at last week’s Republican Party gathering--the announcement that two lifelong Democrats had “a conversion of heart,” according to Fuentes, and registered as Republicans. Garden Grove council members Mark Leyes and Tony Ingegneri both showed up at the meeting and became Republicans.

The pair were introduced by Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), a chum of Leyes’ at Rancho Alamitos High School in Garden Grove.

Their switch is intriguing because Leyes and Ingegneri were not just registered Democrats but hard-working activists for the party.

Leyes had worked for former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and former U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston. Ingegneri, a new appointee to the council and a close Leyes ally, was a member of the party central committee several times.

Leyes, 36, who is a supporter of term limits and who has been an outspoken advocate for a commercial airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, said he is “tired of swimming upstream and tired of being ostracized by my friends in the Democratic Party. . . . I believe what’s happened is that the Democrats have become defenders of the status quo for its own sake.”

Ingegneri, also 36, said he had been a Democrat primarily out of respect for his grandfather, a member of the Arizona Legislature in the 1960s. But after supporting the anti-illegal immigrant and pro “three strikes” Propositions 187 and 184 in the past election, he said, “I could see my political views and what the Democratic Party is doing are two different things.”

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And the Democrats: The Democratic Party was also busy electing a new county chair last week: Irvine attorney Jim Toledano won a two-year term, replacing Dorianne Garcia.

Toledano, who in November ran unsuccessfully for the Assembly seat vacated by Gil Ferguson and won by Marilyn C. Brewer (R-Irvine), said the Democrats are going to get more involved in local and county issues. Because of all the accent on the Republicans in Orange County, people might not realize that there are 400,000 registered Democrats here, the second-largest Democratic county in California, and 200 Democrats in local, nonpartisan races, he said.

“We intend to start talking about change and doing things right for a change,” Toledano said. “I think it’s an important fact that (while) the rest of the country voted for change, Orange County voted for the status quo. It only took a month for the consequences of that decision--the county’s financial disaster--to show up.”

UPCOMING EVENTS

* Tuesday: The Libertarian Party of Orange County will feature guest speaker John M. W. Moorlach, the man who predicted the county’s financial fiasco, at a public forum at 6:30 p.m. at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, 18800 MacArthur Blvd, Irvine.

Compiled by Times staff writer Len Hall, with contributions from staff writer Eric Bailey.

Politics ’95 appears every Sunday.