House Democrats Dust Off Long-Stymied Agendas : Politics: Valley lawmakers will return to a different Washington, changed by the end of 12 years of Republican rule in the White House.

WASHINGTON —  Buoyed by the prospect of the incoming Clinton Administration, San Fernando Valley-area Democratic lawmakers say they hope that many of their long-stymied legislative priorities will be enacted in the 103rd Congress.

“It’s a great sense of relief for many of us to look forward to coming back to Washington and being part of a government that, on the whole, we believe will at least try to do the necessary and right things,” said Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles), who won a 10th term this month after a tough reelection fight.

“The country is in some trouble and we need to pull ourselves out of it.”

Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale), however, fears that Democratic congressional leadership, freed from the constraints of President Bush’s veto power, will make a run on the federal Treasury.

“It isn’t just the administration,” said Moorhead, a staunch advocate of lower taxes and less government spending. “It’s always going to be a battle to reduce the amount of money put into legislation.”

Members of the Valley congressional delegation will return to a different Washington, changed by the end of 12 years of Republican rule in the White House. Some of those changes will be reflected in their personal stature, agendas and goals.

The changes will by no means be limited to the White House. A total of 110 new lawmakers--more than a quarter of the House and the largest freshman class since 1948--will come to Washington. Many ran on platforms of reforming Congress and breaking governmental gridlock.

“I got the message during the election that people are tired of partisan bickering,” said Howard P. (Buck) McKeon, the Santa Clarita Republican elected to represent a new district that includes the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys and parts of the northern San Fernando Valley.

Even as a Republican dealing with a Democratic administration, he said, “we need to do all we can to help.”

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) will gain seniority on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and so will Beilenson on the Budget Committee. Moorhead is in line to become ranking minority member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which could give him considerable clout on a wide range of issues.

Democrat Henry A. Waxman, meanwhile, is expected to be a key figure in Clinton’s effort to reform health care to provide universal coverage and control skyrocketing costs. The Los Angeles liberal wields great influence as chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and environment.

Each of the lawmakers will also be representing new districts because of reapportionment.

Berman’s 26th District covers much of the east and central Valley. Beilenson’s 24th District extends from Sherman Oaks to Malibu and up to Thousand Oaks. Moorhead’s 27th District encompasses Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena. And Waxman’s Westside-based 29th District runs along the Santa Monica Mountains in the Valley.

The veteran representatives, as well as newcomer McKeon, will have the clock ticking on them, after California voters imposed six-year term limits in November. McKeon says that he doesn’t plan to remain in Congress long in any case; others expressed confidence that the courts will eventually rule the measure unconstitutional.

“I can’t see how it’s going to affect me in any way,” Waxman said, noting the legal uncertainty. “I can’t see worrying about it now or changing any of my drive to do what we can legislatively on those other important issues.”

Howard L. Berman

(D-Panorama City)

Berman gained leverage on several fronts.

He will move up to become at least the fifth-ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee while continuing as chairman of the panel’s subcommittee on international operations.

With the departure of several influential colleagues, he is also poised to be the House’s preeminent advocate for Israel.

He called the advent of the Clinton Administration “an opening to get a lot of things done.”

Berman said that he hopes that his new seniority will enhance his ability to help mold the Administration’s arms control policies to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction. He said he will also explore the creation of a Radio Free Asia broadcast network modeled after Radio Free Europe to beam news and information into China, Vietnam and other totalitarian nations.

And he said that he will again fight to preserve the embattled foreign aid budget, and seek to shift funds from military aid to development assistance and export promotions to help U.S. firms sell their products in the Third World. Aid to Israel will remain another priority.

One of Berman’s foremost regional concerns is CALSTART, a Burbank-based consortium of government, universities and private companies that has generated $20 million in federal, state, and private funds to establish an electric car and mass transit center in Southern California.

The effort seeks to nurture industries that will develop environmentally sound technologies and produce jobs for aerospace workers displaced by defense cuts.

Unlike Bush, Clinton has advocated the need to create new civilian careers for the engineers, scientists and factory workers who contributed to the 1980s defense buildup.

Berman said that could translate into tax credits and other incentives to spur such efforts.

He said he hopes to get Vice President-elect Al Gore directly involved in the endeavor.

“It means a chance for CALSTART to pursue its agenda faster,” Berman said. “There’s tremendous potential.”

In addition, he said that he will introduce legislation to permit the implementation of Proposition K, which voters passed this month.

The measure would redirect up to $70 million in surplus funds from Los Angeles International Airport to the city of Los Angeles, ostensibly for police and fire purposes.

Federal laws and regulations prohibit the use of airport money for non-aviation purposes; the powerful airline industry plans to oppose Berman’s efforts.

He said he also plans to craft federal legislation to earmark aid to public schools to assist with absorption of large numbers of immigrant students.

He acknowledged that it will be an uphill fight but said his goal is to “lessen the disruptive impact on local school districts, particularly Los Angeles.”

Anthony C. Beilenson

(D-Los Angeles)

Beilenson said that his priorities will not change with the new Administration. But he said he’s far more optimistic about seeing them succeed.

First and foremost, he said he will pursue cutting the federal budget deficit through his position on the Budget and Rules committees. He will move up to third ranking member on that panel and is considered an ally of Chairman Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey).

Beilenson has long been outspoken about the dangers of mountains of red ink. But he said that the hardship wreaked by the recession has persuaded him in recent months that “some increase in government through temporary, targeted tax cuts and investment in infrastructure are necessary, even if it balloons the deficit for a year or two.”

At the same time, he said, he would like to see Clinton and Congress “put in place a long-term deficit reduction plan” that would be signed into law in 1993 to provide assurance “that we have done something real about bringing the deficit under control.”

Beilenson said he’s also optimistic that the new President and a reform-minded Congress will overhaul campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of special-interest money and decrease campaign spending overall. Clinton has said that will be one of his priorities.

The veteran lawmaker also said he plans to push for expanded family-planning services overseas. He called that longstanding concern “the No. 1 issue facing the planet.”

At the district level, Beilenson said, the change in administrations is unlikely to affect the amount of money for land acquisition in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area or upgrading the Sepulveda Basin and restoring the Los Angeles River. The Santa Monicas, which also benefit from Berman’s backing, received $13.2 million in the current fiscal year.

Beilenson expressed optimism that Clinton’s commitment to mass transit will keep Metro Rail on track as it heads into the San Fernando Valley. And he said he also hopes to get more heavily involved in finding ways to create new jobs for laid off aerospace workers through conversion to civilian opportunities.

Finally, he aspires to play a more active role in stemming illegal immigration by seeking adoption of a forgery-proof identification card for immigrants and by beefing up the Border Patrol.

“It is a major national problem,” said Beilenson, who also backs a constitutional amendment to deny citizenship to the offspring of illegal immigrants born in the United States. “We have to take some strong steps to stem it.”

Henry A. Waxman

(D-Los Angeles)

An upbeat Waxman predicted: “Many of the fights that I’ve led during the past couple of years will be resolved in our favor.

“We couldn’t get a two-thirds vote to overturn Bush’s antiabortion positions. Now we’ll have a President who will either sign our bills or, by executive order, overturn such barriers as the ban on fetal tissue research at the National Institutes of Health or the ‘gag rule’ at family planning clinics,” restricting abortion counseling.

Waxman said that Clinton’s support for a health care program that puts the onus on employers is “an acceptable way to accomplish the result” of universal care and cost controls. He added, “I’ve been waiting a long time to work on this issue with a President who wanted to get on with the job,” and said there is an opportunity to get the program approved in 1993.

But Waxman warned: “If we don’t have strong leadership from the President and his team, the various interest groups will chew this issue up and either keep major reform from passing or scuttle anything major and leave only some tinkering.”

In addition, the liberal lawmaker said he will again attempt to tighten pesticide laws to reduce the risk of such chemicals--which can cause cancer or birth defects--contaminating food, and push for renewal of the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Superfund law for cleaning up toxic dumps. He also seeks to reauthorize funds for the National Institutes of Health with increased funding for diseases that particularly afflict women.

Carlos J. Moorhead

(R-Glendale)

In his bid to become the ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, Moorhead faces a possible challenge from Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R-Va.). Should Bliley decline to run or should Moorhead defeat him, the Glendale lawmaker stands to become a key figure on a vast array of issues, including health care reform.

“You have the responsibility of determining many times what areas will have the greatest emphasis,” Moorhead said of the ranking position. “On major bills you play an important role in negotiations with the other side. You make sure the Republican team is working smoothly and you make the best possible use of staff.”

Moorhead said he opposes Clinton’s health care reform proposal as “socialized medicine.” In general, he said that he wants to see universal coverage without decreasing consumer choice or raising taxes dramatically, but was vague about how to accomplish those goals simultaneously.

Moorhead is also the ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on intellectual property and the administration of justice. In that arena he expects to remain active in judicial and prison reform issues, and bankruptcy, commercial law and telecommunications legislation.

Within his new 27th District, Moorhead said he may reintroduce a bill that would greatly restrict liability for cities that have toxic and other waste problems. Moorhead said that the measure, which he drafted last session at the behest of San Marino, Glendale and other municipalities, “pretty much grants them immunity if they haven’t had a major role in causing the problem.”

The lawmaker also said he plans to support CALSTART, which is based in his new district, as the program moves forward in its bid to create new jobs for aerospace and other workers. And he said that he intends to try to find additional sources of water for drought-afflicted Southern California.

As dean of the California Republican delegation, Moorhead has also been a key supporter of the California Institute, a nonprofit, bipartisan program. The institute encourages cooperation between Democratic and Republican lawmakers as well as between business and labor interests in the state.

He hopes for newfound amity in a diverse 52-member delegation that has rarely worked together in the past.

The goal, Moorhead said, should be to push for federal funding formulas that “at least give California its fair share of money for transportation, agriculture, welfare, education and highways,” as well as to protect industries central to the state’s economy and to seek new federal projects.

“It’s important that we work together,” Moorhead said.

Howard P. McKeon

(R-Santa Clarita)

McKeon, the former Santa Clarita mayor and co-owner of a chain of Western wear stores, said that he shares Democrat Clinton’s top priority: to stimulate the economy and create new jobs. He also favors a capital gains tax cut, allowing up to $5,000 in IRA funds to be used to buy a first home and exempting $5,000 in annual interest payments from taxes.

A conservative, he said that he also plans to support adoption of a line-item veto for the President and a constitutional amendment imposing term limits for House members.

McKeon said that within the new 25th District, he hopes to see local governments “focus their efforts through me at the national level” and to work with them “to see what I can do to help them attract jobs.” He will be the first lawmaker whose district is based in the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

One priority, he said, will be to assist community groups opposing a long-proposed Los Angeles County landfill that the city and county want to operate jointly in Elsmere Canyon, adjacent to his district. He cited major impacts on traffic, pollution, the water supply and animal migration through the canyon in the Angeles National Forest near Santa Clarita.

In addition, he said that he will seek to get the area around the Palmdale Regional Airport designated as an enterprise zone, which would bring tax and other benefits, and to win federal funds for widening the accident-prone Antelope Valley Freeway, improve state Highway 138 and bring rail transportation to the Antelope Valley from Los Angeles.

He said that in an effort to pursue such goals, he will seek assignments on the Public Works and Transportation, Armed Services or Science, Space and Technology committees.

Given recent public anger at the federal government in general and Congress in particular, the lawmakers agreed that the pressure is intense to show rapid progress.

That will be especially so for Democrats, who will control both the White House and Congress.

“It will be particularly hard for any of us Democrats to go back to the voters in two years unless we know that we really have achieved something in this Congress,” Berman said.