Rep. Levine Chafes at Pressure From Activists on Central America Issue

Rep. Mel Levine says he can’t understand why he has become the target of high-pressure protests about U.S. aid to El Salvador.

“When I tell my colleagues in Washington about the trouble I have at home over this, they look at me bewildered,” said the Santa Monica Democrat.

After all, Levine describes himself as an outspoken advocate for peace in Central America. And as chairman of the Democratic Caucus Task Force on Central and Latin America for the last three years, he says he has often taken a leading role in opposing Administration policies that would continue providing military aid to the Salvadoran government.

Opposition to the military aid for years has been a rallying point for about 30 Los Angeles-area activist organizations, most of them now united under an umbrella group called Days of Decision.

So why is it that this coalition is so angry with Levine and, to a lesser degree, with some of his liberal Westside colleagues in Congress?

Why, for instance, were musician Jackson Browne and 60 other protesters camped out in Levine’s office for more than five hours one day last month, demanding that the congressman publicly oppose continued military aid to El Salvador? Why were they demanding that he immediately hold a public town hall meeting on the subject in his district?

And why have they targeted Levine and other Democrats in mass mailings to voters, in full-page national newspaper ads and in massive protest and lobbying efforts?

It all depends on who you ask.

Levine and other members of the local congressional delegation do not have a definite answer. They say they are doing all they can to overhaul what they consider a misguided U.S. policy in Central America. They say the activists don’t understand a crucial part of their job as legislators--that they must operate within the constraints of the legislative process, where mediation and compromise often mean the difference between winning small victories and winning nothing at all.

Moreover, Levine says, the activists are deliberately distorting his record, and he has agreed to hold the town hall meeting Friday as a way to take the issue directly to his constituents.

To the dismay of the activists, Levine has refused to support legislation that would cut off the $85 million in U.S. military aid earmarked for El Salvador this year. He says he is withholding his support because an unconditional cutoff would lessen U.S. influence in bringing about reforms and could aggravate human rights violations in El Salvador--and because such a radical measure would never pass Congress.

Levine notes that he sponsored legislation enacted in 1983 that prohibits the President from sending U.S. troops into combat in Honduras, Nicaragua or El Salvador without the approval of Congress.

And Levine was the House Democrats’ whip on a series of votes that ultimately succeeded in cutting off military aid to the Nicaraguan Contras, according to his administrative assistant, Bill Andresen.

Levine, now in his fourth term, says he is confused and a bit angry about becoming a lightning rod for the wrath of the activists.

“It is baffling to me,” Levine said in a recent interview, “that a group whose objectives appear to be very similar to my own--bringing peace to Central America and El Salvador--would portray me and my colleagues as having a different position than they have.”

Levine says he is putting the final touches on compromise legislation that would considerably curtail aid to El Salvador, and place severe restrictions on it, but would also have a chance of getting signed into law.

Groups opposed to U.S. policy in Central America have been a fixture on the Westside political scene for years. But the slaying of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador last November, and the subsequent arrest of nine members of the Salvadoran army in connection with the killings, has galvanized grass-roots and religious organizations on the Westside and elsewhere, bringing a surge of protests and lobbying.

Leading the charge in Los Angeles has been the Days of Decision coalition, whose members have been particularly active in opposition to U.S. policy in El Salvador, where a decade-long civil war between the right-wing government and leftist rebels has left more than 60,000 people dead.

The local activists, who belong to such individual groups as the Interfaith Task Force on Central America, Pledge of Resistance, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador and Office of the Americas, say they find it hard to accept Levine’s contention that he is on their side.

In the words of one activist, Wayne Bauer, Levine is “wimping out” on an issue of local, national and international importance, and ignoring his constituents’ concerns.

“There has been a general frustration in the entire coalition because it has been very difficult to get a meeting with him on this issue,” said Bauer, an elected member of the Santa Monica Rent Control Board.

Levine’s prominence on the caucus and his seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee make him a primary target, but the activists say they also have had problems with other members of the Westside delegation.

“We have all these liberal Democrats on the Westside that vote like Republicans,” said activist Linda Lillow. “The only difference is the rhetoric.”

How can the sides be so far apart? Some observers say the dispute is a quintessential Westside political squabbling, the kind that could occur only in an area where the political spectrum starts with liberal Democrat and heads leftward.

One veteran of many of these fights, Rabbi Allen Freehling, says he is used to mediating disputes and mending fences between the liberal lawmakers and their antagonists at the grass-roots level.

“What you have to acknowledge,” Freehling said, “is that the extremists at either end of the spectrum are at the cutting edge, and make things happen.”

Area lawmakers, perhaps predictably, have a different view of the situation.

“Why pick on Westside liberal congressmen?” Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson asked. “All you do is offend your friends, and you don’t pick up any additional votes. The bottom line is, their tactics are counterproductive.”

Beilenson acknowledged that he recently threw his support behind legislation favored by the activists. But he insists that he has been consistent in his opposition to U.S. policy in Central America, and that, if anything, his decision was made in spite of the tactics of the activists.

In Levine’s case, the activists have sent letters to all of his constituents, urging them to pressure the congressman. They have protested over the phone and in person. They even took out full-page ads in the New York Times and Daily Variety, a Hollywood trade magazine, late last year asking him and some fellow Democrats to reconsider their positions.