County Board Ideology Yields to Politics : Supervisors: More cracks in conservative bloc predicted as Pete Schabarum’s tenure ends and 2 other Republicans go their own way.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum, the senior member of the Board of Supervisors’ fragile three-man conservative majority, dismissed the notion that his decision not to seek reelection could shift the balance of power on the board.

“You’re still persisting in perpetrating a hoax on the public that there is a conservative majority,” Schabarum lectured on Monday.

The next day, he proved his point. Breaking with his Republican colleagues, Schabarum joined Democratic board members in casting the swing vote to call for a halt to aerial spraying of malathion to eradicate the Mediterranean fruit fly.

A day later, Schabarum split with his two conservative colleagues in announcing his choice for a successor.

As Schabarum’s actions illustrate, ideology is not the only factor that shapes board decisions. It is just one thread--along with the supervisors’ contrasting personalities and political self-interests--in a complex, ever-shifting pattern of alliances on the five-member board.

But Schabarum’s board colleagues--two Republicans and two Democrats--disagree with his assertion that there is no longer a conservative majority. The now familiar 3-2 voting pattern has been a fact of life since Schabarum helped fellow Republicans Mike Antonovich and Deane Dana win seats on the nonpartisan board in 1980.

Now that Schabarum is nine months away from retirement, the varied constituency of the county board is wondering how his exit will affect the conservative course of the board.

“I think the board has been dominated more by ideology than facts,” said liberal Supervisor Ed Edelman. “There are obviously deep wedges between these guys,” he said, referring to the conservatives who openly bicker and rarely get together outside of board meetings.

However, Edelman added: “They sometimes still get together on ideological stuff.”

“The conservative majority exists,” said Dana, a member of the bloc. “But it’s a matter of degree. Pete wants an ultraconservative majority . . . he just goes overboard.”

Schabarum’s fellow supervisors say the fate of the conservative majority’s favorite programs--like private contracting of county services--may hinge on the June 5 supervisorial election and, to a greater degree, on a landmark voting rights lawsuit.

In the election, voters will choose a successor to Schabarum, and decide whether to reelect Edelman. In the lawsuit, the U.S. Justice Department and two civil rights groups are seeking a redrawing of supervisorial district boundaries to help a Latino win a board seat.

Dana said the conservative majority is at stake in the election, but is confident that two conservatives--Schabarum aide Sarah Flores and Superior Court Judge Gregory O’Brien--are the front-runners in a 10-person race to succeed Schabarum.

“Assuming that one of them wins, there will be no change in the philosophy of the board,” Dana said. “The (conservative) philosophy will prevail . . . across the whole spectrum” of issues.

Others, including county labor leader William Robertson, added former Congressman Jim Lloyd to the list of leading candidates. Lloyd, a Democrat-turned-Republican, promised to be “far more compassionate” than Schabarum on social programs.

Of the candidates running for Schabarum’s seat, seven are Republicans and three are Democrats, but they will be on the ballot without party label. The 1st District, encompassing much of the San Gabriel Valley, is 50% Democrat and 41% Republican but often elects Republicans.

Officially, the county board is nonpartisan. But after Antonovich and Dana joined Schabarum on the board in 1980, the three Republicans voted together so consistently that the public employee unions--upset by their actions--wrote a jingle for them: “Three-to-two, three-to-two, we always know just what they’ll do.”

Taking over the board during the post-Proposition 13-era of fiscal restraint, the newly elected Antonovich and Dana, following the senior Schabarum’s lead, feverishly hired private firms to provide county services in order to reduce the county work force of 80,000. In order to provide additional money for law enforcement, they cut deeply into health and welfare programs for the poor. They also phased out rent controls.

Today, the board still often splits 3 to 2 along ideological lines--mostly on fiscal matters. The conservative majority, for example, last fall voted to deny cost-of-living increases to general relief recipients. The conservatives, joined by liberal Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, also have refused to let the county hand out bleach kits to drug users to clean dirty needles as a way of preventing the spread of AIDS.

The liberal minority maintains that ideology must give way to practicality.

“We should be judging issues on merits,” Edelman said.

Some believe that changes in the direction of board policy will come with Schabarum’s retirement.

David Langness, a spokesman for the Hospital Council of Southern California, said Antonovich and Dana are “conservatives, but not ideologues.” He believes the board will drift toward the political center as Schabarum’s influence wanes in his lame duck tenure, which ends Dec. 3.

“Without Pete’s influence, Dana and Antonovich will be more amenable to negotiation,” Langness said. “We won’t have the belligerence against almost every social program” that Schabarum brought to the table.

Schabarum was not available to be interviewed for this story. His spokeswomen said that he was “media-ed out” after a week of press conferences and interviews.

As the board’s other conservatives have become more accustomed to their jobs and politically secure, they have occasionally broken ranks with their Republican colleagues.

“We learned from (Schabarum) for two years, and then we went on with our own programs,” Dana said.

Following the tradition of horse-trading, Dana and Antonovich will occasionally support a liberal supervisor’s pet project in return for his vote.

A few years ago, for example, Antonovich needed to get the votes of Hahn and Edelman to rebuild earthquake-damaged Olive View Medical Center in his district, which includes the San Fernando Valley. The liberal supervisors were seeking board support for a resolution urging the Legislature to give counties the power to raise “sin taxes” on alcohol and tobacco. Antonovich had always opposed tax increases. But he agreed to support the measure. In return, Edelman and Hahn supported the project.

No matter who is elected, supervisors, staff members and other close observers of the board generally agree that the elimination of Schabarum’s combative personality alone will herald one of the biggest changes in the board’s operation in a decade.

Labor chief Robertson said: “We like to have a public official where we can go in and sit down and talk and have a decent relationship. That was impossible with Pete.”

Dana said that Schabarum’s retirement will bring a “dramatic change in style” in the way the board conducts its business. “It will be a more relaxed board, no matter who wins.”

Dana has slowly moved from a strong conservative to a more moderate and become the most likely swing vote.

He has strayed from the conservative fold to vote for a law banning discrimination against people with AIDS. He has also lined up with the board’s two liberals to lend a crucial third vote to declare the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a county holiday. He has even publicly criticized Republican Gov. George Deukmejian, a longtime friend, for not being sensitive about mental health funding.

In December, Dana joined Edelman and Hahn in supporting a new redistricting plan, designed to settle a federal lawsuit accusing the county of violating the voting rights of Latinos. The plan would have forced Schabarum to run in a new, predominantly Latino district.

In a letter to Republicans, Schabarum accused Dana of putting “his own self-interest above the party’s by voting to practically ensure that the Board of Supervisors will be controlled by (liberals).”

Dana withdrew his support for the settlement plan--and is now aligned with the conservatives in opposing settlement of the lawsuit.

A recent vote underscored Schabarum’s unhappiness with his Republican colleagues. Schabarum was on the short end of a 3-1 vote to require service stations to obtain county permits to sell alcoholic beverages. Noting that Antonovich and Dana joined Edelman in supporting the measure, Schabarum grumbled: “Two alleged conservatives and a liberal just invoked another piece of government nonsense.”