Brett Williamson

Two candidates are running in the Nov. 8 election to represent the 45th Congressional District. They are Democrat Brett Williamson of Costa Mesa and Republican Dana Rohrabacher, the incumbent, of Huntington Beach. Where they stand on four issues: Health Care Williamson: "Any health care legislation must provide for universal coverage. (I) support an employer-funded program to replace the huge insurance premiums currently being paid out by both employers and employees alike.

Two candidates are running in the Nov. 8 election to represent the 45th Congressional District. They are Democrat Brett Williamson of Costa Mesa and Republican Dana Rohrabacher, the incumbent, of Huntington Beach. Where they stand on four issues: Health Care Williamson: "Any health care legislation must provide for universal coverage. (I) support an employer-funded program to replace the huge insurance premiums currently being paid out by both employers and employees alike.

Law firm O'Melveny & Myers, positioning itself to take advantage of the high-tech boom, is setting up shop amid one of the largest concentrations of technology businesses in Southern California--the Irvine Spectrum. The new Spectrum office, with about 2,500 high-tech neighbors, is scheduled to open early in April. It initially will be staffed by 10 attorneys but is expected to grow to 30 attorneys within the next two years, said O'Melveny partner Brett Williamson.

Debate on the best way to stem illegal immigration into California split along party lines Saturday at a gathering of most of the county's congressional candidates at Rancho Santiago College. Republicans backed Proposition 187 to end social services, education and all but emergency health care to illegal immigrants. Democrats favored military patrols of the U.S.-Mexico border and vigorous enforcement of employer sanctions. But Victor A. Wagner Jr.

Hmmm: Politicians, who usually have low credibility ratings with the public, are showing their worst side as last-minute "hit pieces" land in mailboxes before Tuesday's election. Not all are negative. Some get attention for stretching the truth. Here's a sampling of some from the lighter side. * The pro-El Toro airport campaign, which is behind Measure A, is called Committee for 21,000 New Jobs, but a recent mailer claims the airport would create 53,000 jobs. Hmmm.

Consider the source: Hoping to show that his candidacy isn't as much of a long shot as mournful political pundits might think, Democratic congressional candidate Brett Williamson released a poll last week showing the Republican incumbent, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach, with a low approval rating and with one-third of the voters not knowing him well enough to rate him.

If their campaign bank accounts are any indication, Orange County's GOP incumbents are more than confident of victory as they head toward the June congressional primary. It's not that they are rolling in cash; it's that many of them have hardly bothered to raise much of it at all. And why should they? In only half of the six races has a fellow Republican dared to challenge them.

Two Democratic congressional candidates, a scant 142 votes apart, remained hopeful of victory Wednesday as the registrar of voters conducted a ballot-by-ballot count of absentee votes to decide who will challenge incumbent Rep. Robert K. Dornan. Mike Farber, a heavily endorsed Santa Ana businessman, is narrowly ahead of Robert John Banuelos, with 4,625 votes or about 29% of the vote. Banuelos, a Santa Ana senior citizens counselor, received 4,483 for 28.

As Republicans across the nation rolled up big gains in the House of Representatives, Orange County's congressional incumbents were coasting to easy victories Tuesday, with all six expected to retain their seats. The returns showed the county's Republican incumbents leading their Democratic and third-party challengers by wide margins. That held true even in the closest race, in the 46th Congressional District, with Rep. Robert K.

Jim Eichorn, a homeless man who is challenging Santa Ana's anti-camping ordinance, will have his day in court today after three years of waging a legal battle. Eichorn is a 49-year-old Vietnam veteran and one of 50 homeless people cited with misdemeanor charges for sleeping in the city's Civic Center during the winter of 1993. Eichorn is the first defendant cited under the law to take his case to trial, which begins this morning.

Broadcom Corp. won a key courtroom ruling Friday in defending itself against claims by giant computer chip maker Intel Corp. that the Irvine firm had stolen trade secrets by hiring three Intel employees. A judge in Santa Clara, Calif., rejected Intel's demand for an order barring the employees from working at Broadcom until a trial on the issues is over, a process that could take years.