IRVINE Calif.

A conservative Los Angeles County politician asked about two dozen people in an e-mail last month how to prevent the University of California, Irvine from hiring renowned liberal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky as its founding law school dean, a spokesman for the politician said Friday.

Making Chemerinsky the head of the law school "would be like appointing al-Qaida in charge of homeland security," Michael Antonovich, a longtime Republican member of the county Board of Supervisors, said in a voicemail left with The Associated Press.

He was not available for further comment on why he was getting involved in the situation at a campus located outside his jurisdiction in Orange County.

Chemerinsky is an internationally respected scholar and commentator on constitutional law who's now at Duke University in Durham, N.C.

Antonovich's e-mail "expressed his dismay with the choice for the dean of the law school and suggested that this was the wrong decision and it should be changed," said Tony Bell, a spokesman for the supervisor.

Antonovich, a local GOP stalwart, was first elected in 1980. He is a staunch conservative who has supported crackdowns on illegal immigrants, and voted against tax increases and HIV-prevention programs that distribute free syringes.

He clashed with Chemerinsky in the past when the professor supported the removal of a cross from the county seal.

The Antonovich e-mail was disclosed after UCI Chancellor Michael V. Drake withdrew an offer earlier this week to appoint Chemerinsky to the law school post.

Chemerinsky, a frequent legal commentator who represented exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame, has repeatedly said Drake told him he was out because he was "too politically controversial" due to his liberal activism.

The dismissal outraged UCI's faculty members, who launched an online petition urging Drake to reconsider his decision. By Friday, more than 350 faculty, students and alumni had signed the petition. Some were calling for Drake's resignation.