Sanchez gives up Playboy Mansion, gets back speaking slot

GARDEN GROVE, California-- California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez has bowed to pressure and decided to move to another venue a fundraiser she had planned to hold at the Playboy Mansion during the Democratic National Convention, sources told CNN Friday.

The new venue is expected to be at Universal Studios, a popular tourist attraction.

"To continue to dwell on where our event is held, and whether my role as a DNC officer conflicts with my role at a party for a good cause, frankly makes no sense," Sanchez said in a statement. "The only real party I am interested in is a party that represents real people, with real needs. That party is the Democratic Party."

In exchange for the change of venue, party officials restored the California lawmaker' speaking slot at the convention, which opens Monday.

California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez has decided to move to another venue a fund-raiser she planned to hold at the Playboy Mansion during the Democratic National Convention

"I'm glad that by working together we were able to come up with a suitable location for her fund-raiser," party chairman Joe Andrew said in a statement that belied weeks of bitter negotiations.

The DNC, with the backing of Gore's presidential campaign, decided to bump Sanchez as a convention speaker Thursday after she publicly refused to move the event from the Playboy Mansion.

The location had drawn a barrage of criticism from Democrats, most notably Vice President Al Gore, concerned that the event projected the wrong image as he tried to stress the issue of moral values.

Andrew said the Playboy mansion "doesn't represent the values of working Americans that Al Gore and Joe Lieberman are fighting for."

Sanchez, 40, is a two-term member of Congress who ousted conservative Republican Bob Dornan in 1996. The fund-raiser was sponsored by her political action committee, Hispanic Unity USA.

A spokesman for Sanchez had argued that the fund-raiser -- also intended to register more Hispanic voters -- would be held in a tent outdoors and not inside the mansion, which is often used for Playboy photo shoots and Hollywood-style galas featuring the magazine's famed "bunnies."

Andrew told CNN earlier he had offered Sanchez the Grand Wilshire Hotel -- DNC headquarters during the convention -- as an alternate site for her fund-raiser. Gore communications director Mark Fabiani said the campaign also had tried to help Sanchez find an alternative site.

But Sanchez, on NBC's "Today" program, said any new venue for the event would have to have the "cachet" to draw donors who can be counted on to help her group continue to promote a greater political role for Hispanics.

Andrew called the alternative site offered by the Democrats "a wonderful location, but thank goodness, there is no comparable site to the Playboy Mansion. That is the point."

Had she gone forward with the Playboy event, party officials had planned to meet August 18 to determine what, if any, additional action to take. They could have removed Sanchez from her position as the party's general co-chair, a job for which Gore selected her, as well as withdrawn support from her re-election campaign.

Other top Hispanic leaders in the party had expressed support of the DNC posture, but Liza Navarrete, deputy vice president of the National Council of the Latino civil rights group La Raza, characterized the sanctions taken against Sanchez as "excessive."

California Congresswoman Maxine Waters could see both sides of the dispute.

"The Democratic party does not have the right to say to Sanchez, 'You may not speak and you will lose your co-chairmanship,'" said Waters. "It's not fair, it's heavy handed and I don't like it."

But she said because "the Republicans have bent over backwards to try and say we don't have values ... we do have to take action and make it clear that we are Democrats with morals, we are family people with values."

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and his daughter Christie, who now runs his business operations, are longtime Democratic Party contributors and have given money to Gore's 2000 presidential campaign.

Gore said Friday he supported the party's decision to distance itself from the event -- and from Sanchez, a staunch supporter -- despite his own acceptance of campaign money from Playboy magazine executives.

"It's apples and oranges," Gore said. He said the symbolism of Democrats' holding an event at the mansion, famed for its scantily clad women, doesn't compare with his acceptance of the checks.

Andrew issued a more lengthy statement Friday that attempted to further explain his party's position on the Sanchez fund-raiser.

"The Playboy Mansion has been used by the Playboy company for brand development, to create an image that helps sell magazines and make money," he said. "For them it is about commerce; for us it is about the values that America's working families share."

Other prominent Democrats who have held fund-raisers at the mansion include former Democratic presidential candidates Gary Hart, a former senator from Colorado, former California Gov. Jerry Brown, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Playboy spokesman said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.