Roberti Puts Pragmatism Above Personal Agenda : Senate: Low-key president pro tem has been untouched by scandal encircling key allies.

Nearly 11 years ago, a little-known Los Angeles senator named David Roberti staged a surprising coup and took over leadership of the state Senate.

Pledging loyalty to those who backed him, Roberti persuaded a slim majority of his fellow senators to elect him President Pro Tem of the Senate, making him one of the most powerful politicians in California.

In recent years, however, the coalition that Roberti built has been tainted as three Los Angeles County Democrats who cast crucial votes for him--and then prospered under his reign--have been caught in a federal corruption investigation.

Former Sens. Alan Robbins, Joseph Montoya and Paul Carpenter, each of whom held key Senate posts under Roberti, have been found guilty of or have confessed to using their Senate positions to extract money from citizens seeking legislative action.

Despite the fall of his three allies, Roberti has remained distant from the scandal. Rather than admitting any share of responsibility, Roberti cites the limits on his power--and the fragile nature of his leadership position.

“There are only so many people you can treat as pariahs,” he said. “If you don’t get their votes and can’t put majorities together, that gets heavy criticism too--or the loss of my job.”

At the age of 52, the rumpled, thoughtful Roberti has spent nearly half his life in the California Legislature, representing the Hollywood district where he grew up.

Often underestimated by his foes, he has battled governors, helped shape the state budget and pushed through major legislation to aid the homeless, care for children and ban assault weapons.

He has survived as Senate President Pro Tem for so long, however, by taking few risks. He is the ultimate pragmatist who makes reaching consensus a higher priority than pushing his liberal agenda.

“The whole business of government,” Roberti said, “is building majorities.”

In many respects, Roberti is a paradox in power.

The son of an Italian immigrant tailor, he is a very private person, yet he has chosen a career where he is constantly in the public eye. He is mild-mannered and low-key but can be a powerful orator.

A lawyer, he has succeeded in a cutthroat occupation, but he is a softhearted man who stops his car to help injured animals on the road.

He is one of the most liberal members of the Legislature, but he has subordinated his personal views to maintain his position as leader of the fundamentally conservative Senate.

Short and heavyset with a prominent nose and small, dark eyes, Roberti looks more like a lumbering teddy bear than a power broker. He has none of the polish or boyish good looks of politicians in the television age. Roberti describes himself as “the world’s most unphotogenic person.”

Despite his prominence in California politics, Roberti is hardly a household name.

In Los Angeles, he wields little political influence outside his district. In the Legislature, his power rivals that of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, but Roberti has long been overshadowed by the flamboyant San Francisco Democrat.

“Willie’s style is so flashy. David is not that kind of leader,” said Republican U.S. Sen. John Seymour, who occasionally tangled with Roberti as a member of the state Senate. “He is soft-spoken, quiet and considerate. He works to build consensus.”

In the Senate, Roberti is aided by a low-key, even humble, style that other senators seldom find threatening. He has a sense of humor about himself.

A loner by nature, he often seems awkward and detached. But when he cares about an issue, he can be a surprisingly powerful orator.

“People underestimate him,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo, a former aide to Roberti. “There’s almost a change of personality he goes through when you see him sitting in his chair on the Senate floor, then he stands up and gives an exciting, charismatic speech.”

Roberti has survived in power by seeking compromise among the 40 members of his house. He sees it as his job to forge agreements--even if he does not personally agree with the final result.

For example, in this year’s tumultuous budget negotiations, Roberti helped put together a deal that included the state’s largest cutbacks in welfare benefits. Although Roberti personally opposed the cuts, he argued that it was the best compromise that could be reached. He pushed the bill through his house and voted for it himself.

“It’s a vote I’m sure that he cast with a lot of bile in his mouth,” said June Roberti, his wife.

The biggest stain on Roberti’s record as Senate leader is the corruption scandal that led former Sen. Robbins (D-Van Nuys) to resign earlier this month and agree to plead guilty to racketeering and tax evasion charges. Former Sens. Montoya (D-Whittier) and Carpenter (D-Cypress) were convicted last year by federal juries on extortion and racketeering charges.

Roberti acknowledged that he could not have become pro tem in 1980 without the support of the trio. After taking power, he rewarded all three with important positions.

The Senate leader appointed Montoya as chairman of the Senate Business and Professions Committee, a post he used to extort honorariums and campaign contributions from people seeking legislative action before his committee.

Roberti appointed Carpenter as Democratic caucus chairman, the No. 3 position in the Senate. Carpenter was responsible for raising campaign money for Democratic legislators and used his post to extort money from interest groups pushing for passage of legislation in the Senate.

Until Robbins resigned from the Senate, Roberti kept him in the post of chairman of the Senate Insurance, Claims and Corporations Committee, where he wielded influence over a wide range of important bills. Robbins also served on a pivotal two-house conference committee that is responsible for writing the state budget.

All three lawmakers had reputations for heavy-handed fund raising and sleazy back-room deals long before the FBI caught up with them. But Roberti took no action to limit their power.

Roberti declined to discuss the cases of the three senators. But rather than having dictatorial powers over the members of the Senate, he argued, he is beholden to a large extent to the members who elected him leader.

“You have to put together a majority, let’s be honest about it,” Roberti said. “You have to deal with the membership as they’re sent to you. The underlying presumption is that I have picked the membership. Not only have I not picked the membership, but the membership has picked me.”

Unlike Assembly Speaker Brown, who moonlights as a lawyer and accepts controversial clients, Roberti does not practice law outside the Legislature. There are no signs that he has become a wealthy man in office. Roberti said he and his wife own just two pieces of property--their house in Los Angeles and their house in Sacramento.

The Senate leader does, however, have a penchant for taking free trips at the expense of various interest groups--a practice he defends on the grounds that foreign travel broadens the outlook of legislators.

Stung by the corruption scandal, Roberti sponsored Proposition 112, a 1990 constitutional amendment that banned the acceptance of honorariums by legislators and restricted the gifts and free travel they can receive.

Even so, Roberti remains close to many of the special interests that dominate decisions in the Capitol. As the Senate’s chief fund-raiser, he has raised more than $10.6 million since 1985 through 18 separate campaign committees he controls. Roberti received huge donations from such groups as labor unions, the California Trial Lawyers Assn. and the California Medical Assn.

A rarity in modern politics, Roberti grew up in the Hollywood district he represents.

The close-knit Roberti family lived in a working-class neighborhood filled with people who held jobs on the back lots of the movie studios. His father, Emil, was a tailor who made costumes for the movies.

Roberti’s parents instilled in him the values of hard work, humility and high personal standards as well as faith in the church, labor unions and, of course, the family. Roberti lived with his parents until he was elected to the Assembly at the age of 27. Some years later, they came to live with him.

Roberti’s mother, Elvira, hoped her two sons would become entertainers, and she made sure they took tap dance, singing and piano lessons. “When I was a little kid, my mother dressed me in a little army suit and I would have to perform,” the Senate leader recalls. “I hated it.”

Later, his parents signed him up for lessons in public speaking to help him overcome his shyness, and the skill he developed as an orator has helped him throughout his life in politics.

Roberti’s career was shaped by one campaign he never waged. As a senior at Loyola University, he considered running for student body vice president but was afraid of losing. The winner ran unopposed--and Roberti is still sorry he did not run.

“I’m probably the only person left who remembers the event,” he said. “It was a wonderful lesson: Regrets are worse than losing.”

Roberti’s entrance into Democratic politics was an accident. He was a young law student--and a Republican--when he attended his first meeting of the Young Democratic Club in Hollywood. To his surprise, he was elected president--and changed his registration shortly afterward. It was the easiest election he ever had.

In 1966, he ran for the Assembly as an anti-Vietnam War candidate, one of 11 Democratic candidates in the primary. “We were young and very idealistic,” June Roberti said. “We were into the peace movement and farm worker issues. We had a cause.”

David Roberti was as startled as anyone when he beat the front-runner in the race. He won a paltry 20.7% of the primary vote, but it was enough to guarantee his future in politics.

“I never even thought of it in terms of being my career,” he said. “I always thought I was going to be a lawyer.”

After winning his Senate seat in a 1971 special election, Roberti held a series of increasingly important leadership positions. After Senate Democrats suffered serious losses at the polls in 1980, he mounted his successful coup against then-Senate President Pro Tem Jim Mills of San Diego.

Since taking power, Roberti helped the Democrats expand their hold on the Senate to a high of 26 seats last year.

As President Pro Tem, Roberti has shown that he is skilled at understanding what his members want--and giving them enough to keep them from getting restless. Often that can mean something as simple as assignment to a particular committee or a chairmanship.

Roberti has made that easier by establishing 38 standing and select committees, ensuring that there are plenty of plum positions to go around. He also has succeeded in placating disgruntled senators by doling out new staff positions.

Roberti also has had some success in pushing his personal agenda. He won passage of legislation creating afterschool child care facilities for latchkey children. He has championed programs that provide housing assistance for the homeless. And he led the successful effort to ban assault weapons.

He has not done as well with other matters that are important to him, such as prohibiting abortion--an issue on which he disagrees with many of his fellow Democrats.

But he is philosophical about what he can accomplish: “Even in building consensus you can move the world a little bit in the right direction.”

For now, the greatest threat to Roberti’s future appears to be Proposition 140, the ballot measure passed by voters last year that limits senators to two terms in office and slashes the Legislature’s budget. It will force him to leave the Senate by 1996.

“Proposition 140 has made us all face our mortality,” he said.

When the time comes, Roberti said, he might run for another office. Or he might travel, or teach history. But for the time being, he says, he is not considering his personal future.

“Hey, I’m as ambitious as the next person, believe me,” he said. “Otherwise I would not be holding this position. But it would be a terrible shame to have spent my time here worrying about what I was going to do next.”