Rollins' Stand-Up Routine Will Be Playing to Smaller Crowds

L.A. Times Archives

June 2, 1995 12 AM PT

HANGING UP HIS TONGUE: A flap involving Reps. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City) and Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles) recently sent a rumble through the Republican presidential free-for-all.

It began last month when GOP operative Ed Rollins, a volunteer adviser for the presidential campaign of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, used an anti-Jewish slur to refer to the two San Fernando-area lawmakers at a roast for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) in Sacramento.

Rollins referred to them as “those Hymie boys” before a crowd of more than 400 lawmakers, lobbyists and other politicos. But when those words came back to haunt him, Rollins apologized in letters to Waxman and Berman for “using an insulting and totally inappropriate remark.”

Said Rollins: “My feeble attempt at humor was totally and unequivocally wrong.”

And then, at the urging of the Dole campaign, Rollins unceremoniously resigned.

“I’m tired of it,” he said in his resignation letter, vowing to give up consulting for good. “I just don’t want to go through it anymore.”

As political analysts saw it, Dole, a Kansas Republican, was reaching out for support among Jewish leaders and having Rollins around would have caused nothing but trouble.

STERN WORDS: Add radio “shock jock” Howard Stern to the list of public enemies, according to the Los Angeles City Council.

On Wednesday, at the prodding of members Richard Alarcon and Richard Alatorre, the City Council voted to condemn “the disrespectful and derogatory remarks made by Howard Stern and his cohorts on national radio” against Latin pop star Selena, who was shot to death in April.

On the day of Selena’s funeral, Stern, whose syndicated show ranks among the most listened to radio programs in Los Angeles, played one of the slain woman’s songs to the sound of gunfire. Public outrage eventually pressured Stern to apologize.

But it apparently wasn’t enough for Alarcon, Alatorre and Mike Hernandez, the council’s three Latino representatives, who railed at length against Stern on Wednesday.

“Howard Stern is not working on behalf of what’s right in this country,” Alarcon told his colleagues, speaking during what became a half-hour debate over the motion to denounce Stern’s remarks.

Other council members weighed in with concern that no one construe the council’s action as an attack on free speech. Councilman Hal Bernson said the most effective way of protesting Stern’s comments would be to boycott advertisers who support the show and to reach for the dial when Stern goes on the air.

“If you’re unhappy, turn it off,” said Bernson, who in the end joined in the unanimous vote to censure Stern.

FAB FRESHMEN: Hundreds of proposed new laws are passing through the Assembly this week, but it’s really the coming changing of the guard that’s on everyone’s mind.

Conventional wisdom has it that Speaker Willie Brown, who’s ruled the Assembly roost for 14 years, will soon announce his intention to run for mayor of San Francisco.

That means that, shortly thereafter, Assembly Democrats will be in the market for a new leader.

In a very short period of time, two freshmen legislators who represent parts of the San Fernando Valley have made names for themselves and now rank among the informal list of leadership candidates being circulated via the political gossip mill.

Wally Knox of Los Angeles, who has already been anointed the Democrats’ political strategist for the 1996 Assembly races, is on the short list. So is Sheila Kuehl of Santa Monica, who has quickly acquired a reputation as one of the Assembly’s brainiest members.

Kuehl, for one, says she is flattered by the conjecture but feels it’s a little too early to plan on ascending to a leadership post.

“I would be ecstatic to be selected Speaker in my senior term, but this feels a little bit too soon,” she said. “But I am thrilled to be named in the group.”

TARGETING TONY: The news release from the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee did not mince words: “Tony Beilenson Sides With Clinton, Against American People.”

“Today, Tony Beilenson cast his vote for big government, wasteful bureaucracy and higher taxes,” Rep. Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.) was quoted as saying in the statement faxed to news organizations. “Last November, Americans voted for real change in Washington, but Tony Beilenson and Bill Clinton continue to defend the failed liberal status quo.”

The letter went on and on, mentioning Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) nine times in all.

But this was not exactly the personal attack on Beilenson that it might appear to be.

A similar release attacked Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton) for the same offenses. The Brown release was, in fact, identical--with Brown’s name neatly word processed into the spot where Beilenson’s had been.

In all, the NRCC sent out about 80 such releases after the budget vote last month, focusing on the Democrats the GOP deems vulnerable in 1996.

The names of Reps. Howard Berman and Henry Waxman, whose districts are solidly Democratic, have not appeared on the mass releases. But NRCC spokesman Craig Veith says that may change.

The GOP goal is to increase its majority by 20 to 30 seats in the next election, he said. Soon, every House Democrat may be added to the hit list.

“The only way not to be targeted,” Paxon said, “is to be a Republican.”

This column was reported by Marc Lacey from Washington, D.C., Henry Chu from Los Angeles and Cynthia Craft from Sacramento.