Hawkins Retiring--but Not Quitting : Politics: The veteran congressman, 83, intends to establish a foundation to carry on his work to improve education.

He is a small, quiet man who rarely raised his voice in anger for more than a quarter-century in Congress, yet a legacy of landmark legislation demonstrates that his liberal message was heard loud and clear.

Now, a sprightly 83, Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles) is closing a chapter in a public life that started in the depths of the Great Depression when he was first elected to the California Assembly.

For the first time since 1963, Hawkins won’t be answering the roll call in the House when the 102nd Congress convenes Jan. 3. Yet, even though he’s an octogenarian, he refuses to call it quits.

“Just shifting gears to another career,” Hawkins says matter-of-factly by way of explaining his decision to leave the House. “I believe I can get more done from the outside.”

One of his lasting accomplishments is Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, barring job discrimination on the basis of race and sex.

His name is on the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act with its yet-unfulfilled government promise of a job for everyone who is willing and able to work.

He championed the Head Start program for pre-kindergartners and federal aid to education when they were far from being universally accepted.

“When you think of giants, this diminutive gentleman of 5-feet, 4-inches from Southern California comes to my mind,” says House Majority Whip William H. Gray III (D-Pa.). “He was 40 feet tall in legislative accomplishments and public service.”

Throughout his career, the neatly dressed Hawkins has been a model of demeanor in a House that is often out of order and intensely personal.

“I’ve always felt, why yell if you can get the same result by being mild?” Hawkins says. “Gentleness is not a sign of weakness, but I think it’s just a sign of intelligence. The loudmouths are well known, but they’re not very effective.”

An old-fashioned New Deal liberal, Hawkins, the departing chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, has suffered his share of setbacks--losing a bitter dispute with fellow Democrats over child-care legislation this year, and watching President Bush veto a cherished civil rights bill that the congressman had co-sponsored.

Even so, he made clear in an interview that the final days of his 28 years in Congress will not be the end, but a new beginning.

There are enough education laws on the books already, he contends. From now on, he says, those interested in education must make sure that they are enforced and that enough money is available so federal programs can deliver the benefits that Congress intended.

So, Hawkins intends to establish a foundation to carry on his work to improve education--particularly early childhood schooling that follows the Head Start model--and to rally business, teachers and parents behind his goal.

“I’m not going to give up all the causes I have been working on over the years,” he says. By spending more money on a few successful and cost-effective programs, Hawkins contends, schools would be able to reverse sliding scores on standardized tests and build greater public support.

He believes that the Head Start program should be expanded to a year-round schedule and enlarged to include 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds as well as older children below kindergarten age. “It’s a good opportunity to educate,” Hawkins says.

Hawkins plans to open an office in his congressional district--the Watts area of Los Angeles--and to commute between his home in Washington and the West Coast to carry on the work of the tax-exempt foundation.

Hawkins, the first black to be elected to Congress from any state west of the Mississippi River, is particularly concerned about minority education. He recalls recently visiting a Pittsburgh school, 90% black, with test scores above average for all schools in the community.

That school, he says, has firm rules of conduct, a strong principal and high expectations for students in the fields of mathematics and science. “The school expects them to learn and insists that they learn,” Hawkins says. “If they can do it, everyone can do it.”

Finding such good examples and attempting to replicate their accomplishments will be a major objective of his new foundation, Hawkins says.

Despite his easy reelection victories--he has won more than 80% of the vote ever since his first victory in 1962--Hawkins’ departure from Congress reflects a certain disillusionment with politics.

Dismayed by the savings and loan scandal, Hawkins says high school children have begun to ask him: “Is it necessary to buy service from public officials?” Ever since the Watergate crisis forced Richard M. Nixon to resign the presidency in 1974, he says, respect for public officials has declined.

“There’s just too much money in politics today,” Hawkins laments. “A congressman is becoming nothing but a fund-raiser. He’s spending more time in raising money than he is in serving his constituents. This is a very bad trend. Yet if an individual doesn’t do it, he’s likely to be defeated. We need campaign reform badly.”

Looking back on his time in Congress, Hawkins rates Lyndon B. Johnson as the best President for education, prodding the lawmakers to turn out more than a dozen bills to pump federal funds into schools from pre-kindergarten through universities.

Nixon, he recalls, pushed through the first public service employment legislation and took a personal interest in fighting job discrimination. But Hawkins gives him a mixed verdict: “He didn’t do any damage, but he didn’t do any good, either,” he says.

As for Jimmy Carter’s presidency, Hawkins said it was a “disaster” for the Democratic Party. “He was a liberal trying to be a conservative. . . . I don’t think he accomplished a great deal.”

Ronald Reagan was Hawkins’ least-favorite occupant of the White House because of his anti-government policies and attempts to stifle spending on social welfare programs. “We began to turn back the clock . . . and that’s when we began building up deficits,” he says.

Hawkins views President Bush as “misguided”--with high-sounding goals but no funds to carry them out. “I think he’s a well-meaning individual, but his policies are no different from Reagan,” he says.

Despite the wide respect he commanded in Congress, Hawkins ran into opposition from Democrats as well as Republicans recently as he prodded them into reconsidering priorities for increased federal spending on education in the face of a soaring budget deficit.

On the child-care issue, Hawkins was outflanked by Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee who rammed through a system of tax credits and government payments to low-income families instead of the new federal child-care system that Hawkins and his allies had spent five years to develop.

At times he was criticized by fellow members of the Congressional Black Caucus for not being more militant on racial issues, but it just did not suit Hawkins’ style. He says that economics--not race--guided his political career since he left a job selling real estate to serve in the California Assembly in 1936.

“Racializing an issue defeats my purpose, which is to get people on my side,” says Hawkins, who is light-skinned and is often assumed to be white.

Laying aside his congressional duties will give him more time for fishing and boating on Chesapeake Bay, a favorite pastime, and more time for do-it-yourself projects around his Victorian row house within sight of the Capitol dome.

With his papers already boxed and sent to UCLA, Hawkins also finds himself with some spare time these days to begin building a deck at the rear of his home.

“I got two, three estimates but they were way off,” he says. “So I said, what the hell, I can do this myself.”

Hawkins believes that his habits of walking two or more miles a day and moderating his eating and drinking have kept him in such good health that he hasn’t missed a day of work due to illness since he came to Congress.

“I find it better to keep busy,” he says. “Less time to dissipate. As long as I feel good I think I should keep going.”

So Hawkins is preparing to begin the search for his new office in Los Angeles, where he intends to keep his voting residence, although he will spend much of his time in the Washington area. “Los Angeles has been good to me, and I want to return the favor,” he says.