Berman Feels the Heat Over Defense Cuts : Congress: In a time of mounting aerospace layoffs, local Democrats are finding it difficult at home to justify their ambivalence toward the Pentagon.

As a liberal who opposed the military buildup of the 1980s, Rep. Howard L. Berman has often voted against weapons systems that would provide employment for his east San Fernando Valley constituents.

But he’s feeling more heat these days as a continuing loss of aerospace jobs contributes to Southern California’s economic woes.

The Panorama City Democrat recently voted for steep reductions in spending on the controversial B-2 Stealth bomber. Northrop Corp., the plane’s prime contractor, is doing the final assembly at its Palmdale plant on the periphery of Berman’s 26th District. The firm says that more than 300 of its employees reside within his district.

As Southern California suffers the double whammy of declining defense spending and major defense firms deserting the state, Berman and other Democratic representatives have been getting an earful from business lobbyists who contend that the lawmakers should take a more parochial view of weapons programs as economic bread-and-butter issues.

“It’s like some old-fashioned appeal to a combination of boosterism and machismo,” said Berman, clearly irked by the orchestrated campaign. “ ‘Let’s show our muscle to whip up some kind of hysteria that ignores the underlying policy arguments. . . . Show your manhood: Vote for the B-2.’ ”

Ray Remy, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, one of the groups that has lobbied Berman and other lawmakers on defense issues, defines the appeal in different terms.

The congressional delegation, Remy said, “always has to deal with the policy considerations. But they’re elected to represent the people here and one part of their thinking is: How does it affect the people here and their constituency and the state?”

Remy, a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles, continued: “We’ve got serious economic problems and we need the support of the delegation. And there’s no question that you find other delegations--Texas and the Northeast--that unite on issues of concern to their areas.”

A recently commissioned survey for the chamber found that aerospace is far more important to California’s economy than previously thought and that the state has lost more jobs in the current downturn than previously estimated.

The consulting firm McKinsey & Co. concluded in the study that aerospace accounts for up to 1.4 million jobs; California, however, has lost 60,000 of those positions in recent years.

McKinsey also found California’s congressional delegation less supportive of aerospace than representatives from other major industry states. The American Security Council, a pro-defense association that rates legislators on their degree of support, gave California’s delegation a 38 out of 100. Georgia, meanwhile, received 75, Texas 72 and Florida 71.

Some industry leaders have begun to link this level of congressional support in Washington and the defense decline in the Golden State. Ron Cedillos, owner of a Long Beach aerospace firm with close ties to Gov. Pete Wilson, recently said that members of the delegation should be held “publicly accountable” for their positions affecting the state’s economy.

Berman and other California liberals have been insulated from political consequences because their comfortably Democratic districts made a serious election challenge unlikely. However, this could be a potentially potent issue if any of these lawmakers find themselves with more conservative constituents in 1992 following the upcoming reapportionment.

Even politically secure members of Congress dread high-profile votes on programs they philosophically oppose--but which would bring direct benefits to areas they represent. Numerous Democrats nationwide who have fought increased defense spending find themselves in a political squeeze as the economic pain of base closings and weapons cutbacks have reached their back yard.

Berman and fellow Valley-area Reps. Henry A. Waxman and Anthony C. Beilenson, both Los Angeles Democrats, are among those California lawmakers who have tended to vote against major high-tech weapons systems prized by Presidents Bush and Ronald Reagan.

Large defense contractors, in turn, have not been generous in contributing to the liberals’ campaigns. While they gave heavily to pro-defense Republicans such as Reps. Elton Gallegly of Simi Valley and Carlos J. Moorhead of Glendale, Northrop Corp., Rockwell International Corp. and others contributed little to Waxman and Berman, according to a study of political action committee contributions to California lawmakers between 1983 and 1988.

Lockheed Corp., which is located in Berman’s district, was an exception. It has contributed $10,250 to Berman since 1983. Beilenson does not take any PAC money.

Stephen E. Chaudet, Lockheed’s vice president for public affairs, said that Berman has been “a very strong advocate” for the Burbank-based defense firm despite his credentials. Specifically, he cited Berman’s efforts, albeit unsuccessful, to persuade the Navy not to terminate Lockheed’s P-3 anti-submarine warplane.

“When we’ve gone to Howard with specific requests for help, he has always given us a full audience and, in the majority of cases, he has found a way to be helpful himself” or suggested others who could be, Chaudet said. “We’ve always found him to be totally cooperative and helpful.”

This was the case, Chaudet said, even though Berman has voted against the Strategic Defense Initiative, known popularly as Star Wars. Lockheed has $200 million in SDI contracts at its Sunnyvale plant in Northern California. Nevertheless, Berman said he hopes that many Lockheed workers support him.

“I believe the majority of defense workers in my district know how hard I worked for them in trying to keep Lockheed jobs from moving away from California and, more importantly, in conversion efforts designed to help them through this difficult transition,” he said.

Berman, who has close ties to organized labor, has accused the company of bad faith in dealing with the 6,000 employees who are expected to lose their jobs when Lockheed moves much of its operation from Burbank to Marietta, Ga., and Palmdale in the mid-1990s.

Votes pitting philosophy against district interests extend to civilian aerospace programs as well. Beilenson recently voted against construction of the proposed Space Station Freedom for the fourth consecutive year while the House approved it, 240-173. Rocketdyne, a division of Rockwell, is developing the power system for the manned space program at its two Canoga Park plants. One is in Beilenson’s district, the other is in Gallegly’s.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration regards the station, which the Bush Administration strongly supports, as the centerpiece of its space exploration plans through the early 21st Century. It is intended to serve as an orbiting laboratory for experiments in life sciences and micro-gravity, as well as a jumping-off point for a return to the moon and a possible manned mission to Mars.

Rocketdyne, which has a total of 1,150 employees at its two Valley facilities, expects to receive $1.6 billion in contracts if the costly program is completed on schedule by the year 2000. Rocketdyne officials say that about 390 of those employees live in Beilenson’s district, which extends from the West Valley to the Westside. They declined, however, to discuss Beilenson’s opposition to the project.

Beilenson said last week that while he was concerned that his vote against the space station “may well be detrimental to the livelihood of some number of constituents . . . it certainly was within the interests of the vast majority of people I represent.”

First, he said, the federal budget deficit makes the program’s cost prohibitive. He cited federal General Accounting Office estimates that the original $8-billion price tag had ballooned to $40 billion, even though the project’s initial aims have been scaled back. Moreover, Beilenson added, the National Academy of Sciences has said the space station would have “no scientific use.”

In the past, Beilenson said, he has heard from constituents working on various defense systems--including the MX missile and the B-2 bomber--urging him to back the weapons. He called this an effective lobbying tactic, since contracts for some major weapons programs are spread among 200 or more congressional districts nationwide. But he remains unswayed.

“We should be spending less on defense than we are and there are certain weapons systems we don’t need,” Beilenson said. “So I vote against them regretting that they’ll have an adverse effect on people I represent.”

Waxman has no major defense contractors in his Hollywood-based district. Berman’s philosophical position is similar to Beilenson’s. Given a federal deficit that could exceed $300 billion in 1992, he said he would not support a multibillion-dollar weapons system that “does not fundamentally enhance any legitimate strategic purpose . . . simply because there will be some temporary employment benefits in the United States.”

He cites the B-2 as an example. The bat-winged bomber has become a perennial in the capital’s budget wars. The plane was originally designed to evade Soviet radar and penetrate deep into enemy territory to destroy critical targets in a nuclear war.

Opponents contend that the price tag of $780 million per plane makes it far too costly, and that eased superpower tensions make it largely unnecessary. Supporters, including the Bush Administration, counter that revolutionary Stealth technology--as demonstrated in the Persian Gulf War by the radar-evading F-117 Stealth fighter--can knock out remote offensive targets with little risk to American lives.

Berman’s opposition to defense industry growth doesn’t stop at America’s borders. He is calling for reduced U.S. arms sales abroad. As the deficit-ridden U.S. government cuts defense spending domestically, the aerospace industry is lobbying hard for expanded foreign sales to keep production lines humming.

“We have just been through a war which cost $50 billion to $60 billion, resulted in thousands of lives lost, hundreds of American lives lost, in part because of reckless arms transfers,” Berman said. “I don’t think that people want to see that situation recur.”

The answer, Berman maintains, is economic conversion to civilian industries that can utilize Southern California’s highly trained aerospace workers. For instance, he has sought to jump-start an electric car industry in the Los Angeles area.

“We can get far more employment benefits by supporting public-private partnerships on civilian industries--such as developing an electric vehicle and technology applied to mass transit--things that would benefit Californians from an environmental and energy-independent point of view,” Berman said.

Defense contractors, however, do not see such a process as the answer to their immediate needs. Some executives have expressed skepticism about even the long-term prospect of large-scale conversion. Northrop officials, who declined to discuss Berman’s opposition to the B-2, instead referred a reporter to a speech by company Chairman Kent Kresa.

“With a few exceptions, the California congressional delegation has never been particularly vocal or unified in regard to the state’s largest single manufacturing sector,” Kresa said last November at a Los Angeles town hall meeting.

“Does California really want it? Will we encourage our aerospace industry to thrive as it has in the past, or are we going to allow it to atrophy here in California?”