Jerry Lewis Stars in GOP Revolution : Congress: Bridge-building representative (sometimes confused with the actor) has emerged as one of the most influential Californians on the Hill.

By FAYE FIORE

June 4, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — A miffed and misinformed constituent once sent a letter to Jerry Lewis, the Republican congressman from Redlands, informing him as follows: “I hate your movies. I hate you on TV. I wouldn’t vote for you if you were running for dogcatcher.” Another time his office received a check made out to the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.

Through his 17 years in Congress, Jerry Lewis has been confused with the Nutty Professor, repressed as a member of the minority party and rebuffed by his California GOP brethren.

But the revolution that swept Republicans to power this year also marked a resurrection of sorts for this moderate congressman, who has emerged as one of the most influential Californians in Congress. Capitol Hill insiders have taken to calling him the “go-to guy,” the lawmaker to see when something needs doing for California.

“He clearly is the guy to go to. He clearly knows how to work the process, when to weigh in and how to weigh in,” said David Wetmore, director of Gov. Pete Wilson’s Washington office. “California Republicans have worked well as a team, but Jerry Lewis is one of those people who has delivered big things in the 104th Congress.”

As chairman of one of 13 powerful appropriations subcommittees, Lewis oversees $90 billion in federal money; 22 federal agencies--including NASA, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency--go to him for funds. His position vests him with enormous national influence and he wields it assertively, sometimes to the dismay of environmentalists, sometimes to the delight of big business and very often in the direction of California.

It was Lewis who shepherded the Northridge earthquake relief funds through a cost-cutting Congress sick of doling out money to this disaster-ravaged state; it was he who rescued money for the endangered Alameda Corridor. Unable to stop the California Desert Protection Act that passed Congress last year, he is using his expanded clout now to block its funds. And it was Lewis who released the state from the grip of a federal smog plan that local leaders contended was driving the business community out of California.

“Against all odds, all of a sudden, it’s fixed,” Wetmore said of the federal clean air mandate Lewis had erased for California with his sway on the subcommittee that funds EPA.

A 60-year-old former life insurance salesman, he is as well liked by Democrats as by Republicans. His temperament is as even as his teeth, which are sometimes mistaken for dentures; his disposition is as unflappable as the helmet of silver hair never out of place (not even, his press secretary says, on a camping trip with three men crammed in a two-man tent.)

Even now, when the political parties are hatefully polarized and members occasionally threaten to punch each other in the face, Lewis dines with Democrats simply because he enjoys the company. Although he seldom deviates from the Republican agenda, some of his best friends are the liberals across the aisle. A couple of his gestures toward the enemy camp have bordered on saintly.

When former House Speaker Jim Wright--the GOP’s archenemy when the Democrats ruled the chamber--was nearly drowning in the rocks off Hawaii in the late 1980s, Lewis saved his life. When Lewis won a rare opportunity to visit the Pope in Rome in late 1980s, he used it to ask His Holiness to pray for the cancer-stricken daughter of West Sacramento Democrat Vic Fazio. She went into remission and is today a healthy 21.

“The new Republican approach is they legislate together, they eat together, they pray together, “ said Rep. Julian Dixon, a Los Angeles Democrat. “One of the successes of Jerry Lewis is he can reach across party lines. He has this ability to disagree with you and still like you.”

“Jerry Lewis is probably more knowledgeable about California than many people elected to Congress,” Fazio said. “He is not confrontational, not an ideologue, not a doctrinaire. He is always in there working on the state’s problems first, with both parties.”

The congeniality that enables Lewis to bridge the bitter gap between parties has also cost him politically. He was once considered the man who would edge out Newt Gingrich for the GOP leadership, but Lewis’ rise to power was derailed by conservatives from his own state who considered him too moderate to suit the party’s hard-charging right.

In an embarrassing setback, Lewis was narrowly deposed four years ago from the party’s No. 3 leadership post--leader of the Republican Conference (the organization of GOP House members)--when Orange County freshmen supported Dick Armey, a tough-talking Texan. Staggered, Lewis withdrew from GOP functions. There was talk he might resign.

“There is little question that if the California delegation had been together, there never would have been a contest,” Lewis recounted. “It began there in no small part, this requirement for pureness on the part of some people, this feeling that you must be a 100-percenter.”

Armey soared to his current position as House majority leader--at the elbow of the guru-like Gingrich, a fixture on the Sunday talk shows--while Lewis occupies the less glamorous committee rooms of Capitol Hill. But it is there that he is making his mark, amassing scant public attention but considerable congressional influence.

His critics say he is wielding that clout to block the California desert protection bill, which created a new preserve in the east Mojave Desert. Environmentalists accuse him of holding up more than $300,000 in needed funds for park services, circumventing the intent of an act he fiercely opposed.

“Tourists now come to see this new preserve and there is garbage not being collected because Jerry Lewis is sitting on the money. That’s taking it past pride to spite,” said Elden Hughes, chairman of the Sierra Club’s California Desert Committee in Whittier. “This is a man who can care, but he’s acting like a little boy taking home his marbles.”

Lewis, who protested last year that there was not enough money to fund such a sweeping act, said he was assured by the Department of the Interior and environmentalists that the funds existed to properly manage the East Mojave. He questions the need for more.

“Ironically, the National Park Service found enough money to put up signs restricting access in the preserve the day after the bill passed,” Lewis said in a recent interview. “I have yet to see any evidence of a lack of funding.”

When it comes to frugal spending, Lewis appears anything but moderate. His subcommittee has forged some of the deepest cuts in the $16.4-billion recision bill that President Clinton has threatened to veto. Lewis points to the cuts as evidence of his commitment to less--and more efficient--government, the conservatives’ creed.

“Many people have been surprised. That has had an impact on the new young chargers who probably would have said, ‘What’s that moderate doing in that position?’ ” the congressman said. “But it is this moderate who is doing some major cutting.”

But he believes in a government carefully carved. “The idea is not just to whack away, but to redirect,” he explained from his Capitol Hill office, pulling a two-pound box of See’s candy from his desk drawer. (He tried to reduce the high cost of peanuts under the peanut President, Jimmy Carter, and the confectioner has been sending a monthly supply of chocolates ever since.)

“I do not believe the institution of Congress will serve us long and well if there is a reflexive, knee-jerk philosophy. We need room in the tent for all kinds of Republicans.”

While mastering the art of trade-offs and partisan compromise, Lewis has been largely loyal to the Gingrich agenda, voting for every provision of the “contract with America” except term limits. He also sides with the National Rifle Assn.’s efforts to overturn the assault weapons ban.

Still, there is an unwillingness by Lewis to march blindly in step. Lewis expressed his doubts about the advisability of a contract early on. Although he now sees it as an effective tool for guiding the troops, he doubts that a single-minded party is good for the country in the long run.

“I questioned the political advisability of a contract, but it served a purpose I didn’t envision. It kept people focused and gave people like me a little time to learn to govern,” Lewis said. “But it has encouraged an environment of working in lock-step, and I’m not sure that is good for any governing body, let alone any family.”

In this day of with-me-or-agin-me partisanship, Lewis has found success on his terms.

“He does not make stem-winding speeches, he is not the rabble-rousing tub-thumping partisan that the new members seem to want,” one California Democrat said. “Sometimes that has hurt him politically, that he is not someone driven by the blood lust that Newt is. Jerry is part of the mainstream Republican tradition, which may be a thing of the past, at least for awhile.”