Some Want 1 Voice for Palmdale : Congress: Leaders argue that the city’s emerging identity merits a hometown representative. Others think sharing lawmakers with other cities means more clout.

When the state’s power brokers carved out California’s congressional districts a decade ago, the high-desert city of Palmdale in north Los Angeles County was an afterthought.

Not that Palmdale has been unrepresented in the U.S. Congress. On the contrary, the 65,000 residents of the fast-growing city are in the extraordinary position of having three congressmen watch out for their interests.

For these lawmakers, however, Palmdale represents only a tiny percentage of their constituencies. Each of their home offices--and the majority of their respective districts--range from 30 to 65 miles away. Even the congressmen themselves concede that figuring out who represents which neighborhoods can be difficult, and the City Hall staffer who refers residents to the respective lawmakers said last week that she had never heard of one of them.

“In the long run, as far as good government is concerned, it probably would be best if all of it were in one district,” said Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale), who represents Palmdale along with Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) and David Dreier (R-Covina). “They’d feel a little closer.”

As the decennial redrawing of election districts approaches, many officials and activists in Palmdale agree. They maintain that a single officeholder representing the area would have greater incentive to focus on the region’s defense, transportation and environmental concerns and pour more time and staff resources into the city.

That sentiment applies equally to the entire Antelope Valley, which is split among the three congressmen who represent Palmdale, plus Rep. William M. Thomas (R-Bakersfield), whose district includes neighboring Lancaster. Some officials see this political drawing and quartering as an extension of the lack of respect they perceive at the state and county levels.

Not everyone agrees, however, that the valley would be better off under one congressional roof. Some argue, in fact, that limited shares of four lawmakers are actually better than substantial stock in one.

“If I had something I was trying to get through Congress, I would rather have four votes than one,” said ex-Assemblyman Larry Chimbole. He added that calls for a home-grown congressman are often “the typical provincial thinking of these areas, the rah-rah viewpoint. I don’t think the valley has suffered or been victimized at all.”

Indeed, most of those interviewed spoke well of the four legislators. Nevertheless, many said that the region--which relies heavily on Edwards Air Force Base and defense contracts--has an emerging identity and a political significance that merit a hometown voice in Congress.

“If you are in the corner of the district, the attention is not the same as if you were in the center of the district,” said Palmdale Mayor William J. (Pete) Knight, who cited efforts to win a rail link from Palmdale to the San Fernando Valley as one issue on which a locally based congressman could exert influence. “You have a limited number of voters and a limited amount of time.”

Palmdale officials are not alone in such views. A study by the Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna College in 1980 found that a convincing majority of local government officials did not want their municipalities divided among state legislative or congressional districts, according to Alan Heslop, who teaches classes in government at the college and is an expert on reapportionment.

“They felt their power would be greatest if they had a one-to-one, unshared relationship,” Heslop said.

Statewide, at least 29 cities are divided among two or more legislators. The California Constitution calls for congressional districts to respect city and county boundaries “insofar as practical.” It does not prohibit splitting them when deemed necessary.

No one can yet predict how the state Legislature and governor will reapportion California following the 1990 census. But experts say that the Antelope Valley’s threefold population growth in the past decade makes its consolidation as a cornerstone of a new congressional district likely.

None expects a repeat of 1982, when the valley’s small population, political homogeneity and location on the border of three counties led the Democratic line-drawers to carve it up to fill the population requirements of surrounding districts.

Yet, despite the griping, Thomas maintains this has often turned out to be in the valley’s interest.

“I think the Antelope Valley gets the best representation of any area in California,” said Thomas, who represented the entire valley prior to 1982.

“There’s no place else in California that has direct representation on Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, Appropriations and Banking,” Thomas said, referring to powerful House committees. “We can utilize resources that no one member could ever utilize. But, on a day-to-day basis, it’s perceived as a negative because, ‘Nobody’s looking out for us.’ ”

All four lawmakers are senior conservatives and consistent proponents of the 1980s defense build-up and the development of high-tech weapons programs, such as the B-1 bomber and the B-2 Stealth bomber, work on both of which has been done in the valley.

Moreover, Lewis ranks third in the House GOP leadership, and Moorhead is California’s senior Republican. The districts the four represent are heavily Republican, as is the valley itself.

When NASA proposed moving construction of the next space shuttle orbiter from Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale to Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc in 1987, the valley lawmakers--led by Lewis and Thomas--pooled their clout to block it.

“It came down to four against one,” said John Doherty, a senior aide to Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura), who was pushing for relocating the shuttle to his district, which includes Vandenberg. “It probably was one of the factors in that instance.”

Palmdale City Manager Robert Toone agreed that the lawmakers have often teamed up for the city’s benefit. He cited the space shuttle effort as well as $5.7 million in Air Force funds obtained this year for widening congested Avenue M near Plant 42.

On the other hand, Knight said it took the city four years to get the road money. He maintains that more concentrated congressional pressure could have speeded the process.

And even Lewis challenges the notion that Palmdale has triple the clout. He blames city officials for failing to come up with a game plan to mobilize the three lawmakers who represent the city.

“There has been confusion about who you go to for x and y instead of going to everybody,” Lewis said. He added that this has combined with “a lack of coming together so that Palmdale hasn’t gotten the benefit of having all these members.”

Each lawmaker says he gets to the Antelope Valley as often as he can. But these visits are limited by distance and competing demands elsewhere in their districts and in Washington.

Thomas, who represents more valley residents than the other three lawmakers combined, is the only one with a full-time district operation in the region. (Dreier has a part-time field office.) Thomas’ office, which he calls “a vestigial remain” of the days when his district included the entire valley, is in Lancaster.

Moorhead, whose 22nd District includes the portion of Palmdale west of Sierra Highway, has offices in Glendale and Pasadena. He represents about 40,000 valley residents, 6% of his total district.

Lewis, who represents the other half of Palmdale, hails from San Bernardino County, which makes up most of his 35th District. His Redlands district office is about 55 miles from Palmdale.

Dreier was given the valley communities of Pearblossom and Littlerock when his 33rd District was created in 1982. He later gained a small part of southeastern Palmdale when the expanding city annexed unincorporated territory within his district. The sliver of the Antelope Valley he represents is a 1 1/2-hour drive from his district office in Covina.

Thomas’ sprawling 20th District extends into Kern and San Luis Obispo counties and throughout Inyo County. His 150,000 valley constituents represent only 20% of the population in his 21,000-square-mile district.

The rapid growth of the valley in the past decade--Palmdale, which had only 12,297 residents in 1980, has grown by 432%--combined with an apparent paucity of reliable, detailed maps, has created some confusion over exactly who represents which communities.

Both Lewis and Dreier said they believe that Thomas still represents part of Palmdale. Although a finger of his district extends south past Palmdale into Saugus, he no longer represents any of the city.

“None of us actually have in our minds where those lines are,” Lewis conceded. “I’ve yet to see a precise map of Palmdale” showing the congressional districts.

Dreier says there is so much uncertainty about the lines that he responds to mail and constituent cases from throughout Palmdale, dispensing with the tradition of “bumping” letters or calls from other districts to that member’s office. “They probably wrote all four of us and asked for our response,” Dreier said.

Nevertheless, when a reporter called Palmdale City Hall for information about congressional district boundaries, the administrative secretary who handles such inquiries said that Moorhead represented the city west of Sierra Highway and Lewis represented those to the east. Asked about Dreier, she replied, “Who’s that?”

Despite the confusion and inconvenience, there are political advantages to the incumbent in such geographical setups.

A district that spans more than one county or splits cities protects an incumbent congressman by diluting the political base of a mayor or county supervisor with higher aspirations, said Heslop of Claremont McKenna College. This also affords the incumbent access to local contributors in more than one city or county.

Whether or not the incumbents prefer the status quo, the population explosion in the Antelope Valley, as well as in neighboring Kern and San Bernardino counties, assures major changes when the new lines are drawn.

Some valley activists envision a high-desert district that would stretch from the Antelope Valley east to Victorville and north to Barstow. They maintain that a district encompassing vast desert areas that identify with each other would be a logical “community of interest.”

“We are a different breed,” said Lancaster Councilman Arnie Rodio, who was instrumental in forming the Desert and Mountains Division of the California League of Cities. “We have water problems, toxic waste dumps, sludge getting trucked up from other areas. . . . We would have someone pushing our issues.”

Even if a consensus forms that one member of Congress for the valley is ideal, there is little that proponents can do to make this happen. The state Legislature, with the governor’s approval, has the final word in a complex, high-stakes redistricting process that is largely brokered in political back rooms.

As Democrats and Republicans vie over coveted seats, their only legal constraints are ensuring that each district has the same number of voters (expected to be 572,000 in 1992) and that minorities are not discriminated against.

“It is the anvil of equal population on which this nut is cracked,” said Thomas, one of the GOP’s reapportionment leaders. “Not the rational idea of representation.”

Alan C. Miller reported from Washington, and Sebastian Rotella reported from the Antelope Valley.