Angry Roberti Strips Seymour of Key Jobs

Anaheim Republican John Seymour was the major target Monday as Sen. David A. Roberti and the Democratic-dominated Rules Committee launched another round of retribution against those Roberti accused of plotting to oust him as Senate leader.

Seymour, the Senate’s second-ranking Republican as chairman of the GOP Caucus, was stripped of his chairmanship and membership on the Select Committee on Drug and Alcohol Abuse, was fired as vice chairman and member of the influential Budget Committee and lost his vice chairmanship of the Toxics Committee.

Sen. Daniel E. Boatwright (D-Concord), whom Roberti last week fired as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, was removed as a member of the Banking and Commerce Committee, widely known as a “juice committee” whose members receive campaign contributions from major financial institutions.

Roberti, a Los Angeles Democrat, indicated to reporters after a closed meeting of the Rules Committee that more punishments are likely to be in store for at least one other prominent Republican, Sen. H. L. Richardson of Glendora, a major fund-raiser for conservative causes.

Richardson also is widely regarded as the driving force behind the 1983 installation of Seymour as Republican caucus chairman and Sen. James W. Nielsen of Rohnert Park as GOP floor leader.

“I’m making a point that if you challenge the leadership, the challenge will not go unnoticed,” Roberti said.

A defiant Seymour said he believed that the “punishment being handed out here for the type of activity is inappropriate.”

“I’ll not be deterred from doing what my caucus members have asked me to do, and that is become a majority party in this house.”

“Life will go on,” Seymour said to reporters in his office. “My legs are short but not cut off.”

Seymour said he especially will miss his chairmanship of the Select Committee on Drug and Alcohol Abuse, a position he was given when the committee was created in 1984. He has used the job as a springboard for introducing more than 30 bills, including unsuccessful legislation to broaden drug testing and to ban happy hours in bars. Seymour said losing the chairmanship--and the three staff members that go with it--will probably make him a less effective advocate for anti-drug legislation, which he said has been his top priority as a senator.

“Staff is necessary to help you when you appear before committees, draft amendments, answer the various interests of those bills, help negotiate those bills as you move through there,” he said. “I just don’t know if I’m going to have the personnel to do that.”

Later, an unrepentant Boatwright met privately with a handful of Senate Republicans and emerged declaring, “If this is what he (Roberti) wants, I will start soliciting people and lining up support. If he doesn’t want this, he better come to me and make some peace. . . . I was a combat infantryman in Korea . . . and I know how to fight a war.”

Boatwright said he “felt sorry” for Seymour because Seymour “didn’t do a damn thing.” Boatwright and Seymour have maintained that their only contact on the issue of Roberti’s leadership was a casual conversation in passing in the Capitol garage.

“He’s totally innocent of any wrongdoing . . . ,” Boatwright said of Seymour. “No one should have to suffer for me for something he didn’t do.”

Nielsen said Roberti “overreacted” to the suspected coup attempt.

“How many members of the entire house have made idle comments in passing?” Nielsen said after meeting with Seymour and about a half dozen other Republican senators. “Was anything affected? Did anything change? Any votes counted? Any meetings? Any conspiracy? No.”

After a 1986 attempt to topple him, Roberti disciplined dissident Sen. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) by removing him from the Budget Committee but allowed him to keep his other committee assignments. Apparently completing probation, Garamendi, who now calls himself a strong Roberti supporter, was given the chairmanship of the Revenue and Taxation Committee by Roberti last month.

Roberti’s action this time around was far wider-ranging, apparently a firm signal to the Senate that he will take decisive disciplinary measures and tolerate no attempted coups. He maintained that his actions are aimed merely at “restoring stability.”

Last Wednesday, Roberti became convinced--despite the protestations of Boatwright and Seymour--that they were plotting to topple him as president pro tem of the Senate. He fired Boatwright as chairman of the money-handling committee and made it clear that he would punish Seymour as well.

Boatwright subsequently indicated that he now does intends to try to remove Roberti, perhaps after a special election March 17 for a Senate seat that includes parts of Los Angeles and Orange counties. Republicans believe that they will win the seat formerly held by Paul Carpenter (D-Norwalk).

In the Nov. 4 election, Senate Democrats lost two seats and now number 23. Republicans total 15. One seat is held by independent Sen. Quentin Kopp of San Francisco.

Roberti said he became convinced on evidence--which he refused to disclose--that Boatwright, with Seymour’s encouragement, was attempting to topple him with a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats.

Seymour has proclaimed that every election the Senate Republicans win makes it easier for them to fashion a coalition and ultimately take over the Senate, long controlled by Democrats. The last coalition president pro tem was in 1969-70, when rebellious Young Turks overthrew the Old Guard establishment.

As for Richardson, Roberti previously indicated that he wanted Richardson removed from the Judiciary Committee, an assignment Richardson relishes. However, action on Richardson was delayed until one of his defenders, Rules Committee member John Doolittle (R-Citrus Heights) can be present.

Richardson said that if he is removed, it would “be vendetta time. If they want to play games, I will show you how to play. They know I enjoy being on the committee, and it’s about the only one I attend. But (firing him) would give me more time to do what I do best--that is raising money and going out and making trouble for them.”

Times staff writer Leo C. Wolinsky contributed to this story.