Valley Commentary : Those Who Would Recall Roberti Must Have Short Memories : History shows that such ballots are rarely successful. The episode may have even added years to his career.

Charles Dudley Warner, a 19th-Century American writer, is little remembered but for a couple of quotations, including “Politics makes strange bedfellows.” It’s as true as it ever was, 125 years after it was written.

When the National Organization for Women and the National Rifle Assn. team up on the same side in an election--and lose--it’s news. So it’s little wonder that national news media carried stories about our local recall election against state Sen. David Roberti.

The turnout on Tuesday was low, 21%. That was expected. Both sides made extensive use of the absentee-ballot option. The prevailing wisdom used to be that a heavy absentee count favored the conservative side of an issue. That no longer holds true, and the recall proves it. When the ballots were counted, Roberti had defeated the recall by a 3-2 margin.

Outside the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles, the media portrayed the election as Roberti wanted--a battle of good against the evil of the “gun nuts.” Inside the Valley the issues broadened, but guns still led the discussion.

Those pushing the election should have looked first at the recall’s history.

In 1903, Los Angeles became the first city to allow a recall election. Eight years later California became the second state to allow one. Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party had a national recall in their platform in 1912. It has been almost entirely downhill for the recall ever since.

Of Hiram Johnson’s three noted California political reforms--initiative, referendum and recall--the last is the least used and the least successful. Although recalls are often threatened, they rarely make the ballot. When they do, voters rarely turn out rascals or anyone else.

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Occasionally, recalls work in small towns. However, they’ve only worked twice in the past 55 years in Los Angeles. Los Angeles voters recalled Howard Miller from the school board in 1979. The heart of that vote came from the Valley in reaction to Miller’s flip-flop on forced busing and his leadership in the fight against Proposition 13. Miller tried to claim that the recall was an abuse of the process and spent half the campaign in court trying legal ploys to save his seat. He was resoundingly thrown out by the voters.

Miller’s was the first successful recall in the city since scandal-plagued Mayor Frank Shaw was recalled in 1938. There have been no successful recalls since. East Side voters tried several times to recall former City Councilman Art Snyder. One effort made it on the ballot only to lose by a razor-thin margin.

The attempt to recall Roberti was the first time in 80 years that a state official has faced a recall. Given the outcome, it may be another 80 before it happens again.

History alone does not tell the story of this recall’s failure to take hold with politicians and public alike. The story is told, in part, by the stature of the person proponents sought to throw out. Arguably one of the most powerful politicians in the state, Roberti has picked up a lot of chits during his 28 years in public office.

Many people may disagree with his positions on given issues--NOW and the NRA prove the diversity of that group. But an even greater number among the political cognoscenti saw him as someone who still had to be dealt with. They wisely decided not to turn on him.

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Gun-control advocates Jim and Sarah Brady are otherwise Reagan Republicans. They came to town to help Roberti. The leadership of the state Republican Party took a walk on the election. Many local Republican leaders either supported Roberti or opposed the recall. Even the hard core that makes up the Republican Central Committee’s delegates could only pass a resolution favoring the recall. They couldn’t muster the money or manpower necessary to back up their bluster.

So Roberti gets to spend the final eight months of his Senate career as a hero who walked through fire and survived. That should help him in his June primary race for treasurer and, probably, in the November general election.

If elected treasurer, he should be safe from recall. So the recall supporters have probably guaranteed another eight years of David Roberti in Sacramento, perhaps with more power than before.

In 1920 Winston Churchill opined: “Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.” Roberti and others who have survived recalls and tough electoral challenges can turn that around to read: “In life you can be born only once, but in politics many times.”