Berman’s Campaign Casual as Foe Strives for Notice

Robert Kerns looked sheepish as he stood outside the Western Federal Savings building in Panorama City last week. He placed his right hand on a Bible, raised his left and swore that he will never vote to raise taxes if he becomes a congressman.

The way things look, he probably will not get that chance anytime soon. Kerns, a conservative Republican, has set his sights on what most political insiders consider the impregnable 26th Congressional District seat.

The incumbent is Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), a master political strategist who shares equal billing with Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) in operating the formidable Waxman-Berman political organization. Berman, who was in the Assembly 10 years and is seeking his third term in Congress, has never had to worry about reelection.

The 45-year-old Berman considers Kerns’ challenge so slight that he hasn’t bothered to open a campaign headquarters. Berman supporters who want to volunteer for the campaign are instead asked to work for Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), who is fighting off an aggressive GOP challenge from Robert F. Thoreson, a police detective.

Berman said he has spent less than $100,000 on his own campaign.

Kerns, who has portrayed Berman as a Westside liberal out of touch with the San Fernando Valley, insists that he has a chance to win. He expects to spend $15,000 in the campaign--some of the money coming from a fund-raiser attended by several contras from Nicaragua. Kerns estimates that he has 200 volunteers walking precincts for him. The core of his support is among conservative Baptists.

Realizing that he is a poorly financed underdog, Kerns, 31, a Dean Witter stockbroker, has been staging events he hopes will garner free publicity. So, after he took his tax oath last week, he and four supporters took the elevator to Berman’s district office to ask the congressman to make the same pledge.

But Berman was 3,000 miles away with something else on his mind: immigration legislation. Berman estimates that he invested 1,000 hours this year in his role as one of the congressional architects of the landmark immigration bill that calls for monumental changes in the way the nation handles those who illegally cross its borders.

Reform legislation, which had been stymied since the early 1970s, was passed by the House on Oct. 15 and the Senate on Oct. 17, shortly before Congress adjourned for the year. President Reagan is expected to sign the bill, which calls for amnesty for illegal aliens who moved to the United States before 1982 and provides for sanctions against employers who hire those who have entered since then.

Opposed to granting amnesty to illegal aliens, Kerns has made Berman’s role in shaping the immigration bill an issue in the campaign.

Kerns Visits Border

Kerns, who visited the border earlier this year with Harold Ezell, the regional commissioner of the U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, said an INS official on the trip told him that the department considers Berman “one of the No. 1 enemies of immigration reform.”

Berman considers that a compliment. “I may be the No. 1 enemy of Harold Ezell, and I’m proud of that,” Berman said. “I think he’s an opportunist and a demagogue.”

Berman’s role in the immigration bill is remarkable considering that, less than a year ago, the congressman was one of its most active foes.

A strong advocate of farm workers throughout his political career, Berman had previously opposed the immigration bill because it allowed Western growers to use aliens, called “guest workers,” in the fields without any protection for worker rights. The question of how to balance the rights of field workers with the needs of growers is what previously had sabotaged the bill.

Berman, in an effort to protect farm-labor interests, joined what he called a “very strange coalition of interests” by teaming up with Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey), who represented the growers, and Democratic Rep. Charles E. Schumer, whose Brooklyn district has no farm workers or crops. The three hammered out an amendment that provides for accelerated legalization for farm workers and at the same time allows the importation of more alien laborers if a shortage of pickers becomes apparent by 1989.

Abandoned Spoiler Role

Berman said he decided to abandon his spoiler role this year and work toward a compromise for a couple of reasons.

“No. 1,” Berman said, “the status quo is deplorable and, secondly, if I didn’t get involved there was a good chance these issues would be worked out in a way I didn’t like. I felt an obligation to come up with an alternative.”

The Western growers, who eventually abandoned their suspicion that Berman was trying to sabotage the latest immigration bill, credited the congressman with being a tough bargainer. Michael Durando, the growers’ negotiator and president of the Farm Labor Alliance, a coalition of two-dozen agricultural groups, recalls one night this summer when Berman and other key players fashioned the heart of the compromise in a dusk-to-dawn meeting.

“It was a tough night. It was a tough negotiation. I have to respect the man, he stuck to his word,” Durando said of Berman. Without labor’s participation, Durando added, “there would not have been an immigration bill.”

Although happy with the bill’s passage, Berman says he remains leery about the ramifications of the employer-sanction provisions and promises that he “will be watching very carefully to see if it causes discrimination in the workplace.”

Not in National Limelight

Except when fighting or defending immigration bills, Berman has not been in the national limelight since he left the state Legislature for Congress four years ago.

On Capitol Hill, Berman does not have enough seniority and, therefore, clout, to head a subcommittee or even to be the principal author of bills. Instead, political observers note, he is normally a behind-the-scenes player, attempting to build coalitions with Democrats and Republicans alike on such issues as trade and defense.

He also has been a point man for the Democratic leadership in gathering the needed votes for controversial measures such as a comprehensive test ban treaty and a foreign aid package including money for Israel. To do this, he and his staff used a computer to divide up the House by geography and political philosophy, then selected willing congressmen to approach the holdouts.

And, as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Berman has developed a reputation as a leader on pro-Israeli causes, according to Jewish activists.

Political anonymity was not something Berman had to contend with in the state Legislature, where he was majority leader for several years. He ran for Congress only after losing a costly and acrimonious fight for the Assembly speakership with Leo McCarthy in 1980. Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) emerged as a compromise candidate and won the post.

Wields Political Power

But Berman has retained his reputation for political power in his home area because of his involvement with the Westside political organization that bears the Waxman and Berman names and includes Berman’s brother, Michael, a Democratic political strategist.

Some liberals have savored the success of the Waxman-Berman organization in getting like-minded politicians elected in local, state and congressional races. But some liberals and conservatives alike claim the organization runs dirty campaigns and dictatorially endorses candidates.

The political organization played a key role in redistricting the state several years ago, which has provided Berman with what political analysts feel is a “safe” Democratic district. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the district 56.3% to 34.8%.

These days Berman seems to be backing away ever so slightly from the liberal label he has always carried. In July, he joined the Democratic Leadership Council, an organization comprising primarily moderate and conservative Southern Democrats. The former labor attorney also took a lot of heat from unions this year for voting against a protectionist trade bill.

‘Mainstream Democrat’

“I think I’m a mainstream Democrat . . . ,” Berman said. “I’m not that interested in giving great speeches that no one is listening to and then going down to defeat in flames. I’d rather build coalitions, temper some of my own viewpoints in order to move ahead on a broader agenda.”

Reflecting upon his evolution as a politician, Berman blames his liberal tendencies in the 1970s for helping to spawn the tax-cutting Proposition 13 in 1978.

“Before Proposition 13, we were running around saying, hey, here’s a problem, let’s put together a program, and we weren’t in touch with what was happening to the average Californian who owned a home. . . .

“It was our fault; we could have trimmed our sails a little bit and avoided a taxpayer revolt.”

Now, he said, he is more willing to listen to those with whom he disagrees. “Ten years ago, I think I was probably less sensitive to arguments against my position. Now I’m more aware of them and more willing to listen and at least rethink things based on criticism of the positions I’m taking.”

Nonetheless, Berman is not accepting the criticism by his GOP opponent, who chides Berman for not signing the tax-oath pledge.

“I have just supported President Reagan in enacting the most massive reduction in tax rates for individuals that the country has ever seen and this guy is talking about some idiotic tax pledge,” he said.

26th Congressional

District at a Glance

Party Registration:

Total: 268,451,

Democrats: 151,341 (56.3%)

Republicans: 93,574 (34.8%)

Other: 5,018 (1%)

Decline to state: 18,518 (6%)

Communities: Includes Studio City, Encino, Van Nuys, Sun Valley, Sepulveda, Panorama City, Arleta, Pacoima, Lake View Terrace, San Fernando, Mission Hills and Sylmar, and parts of Sherman Oaks, North Hollywood, Burbank, Granada Hills and Northridge. Also, in the Westside, includes areas south of Mulholland Drive to Beverly Glen boulevard.

Incumbent: Howard L. Berman, Democrat, 45, four years in Congress

Challenger: Republican Robert Kerns, 31, stockbroker, Northridge

Outlook: Berman is expected to win handily against his underfinanced GOP opponent.