By:JEAN OPASCO
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

POLITICS: Republican is best known for advocating decriminalization of
drugs. He takes a leave from bench.

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 (DGarden 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 (RGa.)
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 votegetters 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.