Master of Pork-Barrel Politics Will Be Missed : Congress: Retiring U.S. Rep. Glenn M. Anderson will be remembered as the man who brought federal funding for public projects home to his district.

Now that U.S. Rep. Glenn M. Anderson has announced he will not seek reelection next year, ending more than four decades in public office, the question emerges: How will the San Pedro Democrat be remembered?

A major figure in foreign policy?

No way.

A force in national politics?

Sorry.

Anderson, rather, is likely to go down as a master in the art of bringing home the bacon. For years, he has used his seniority and a choice committee assignment to line up lucrative federal support for local projects ranging from port dredging to freeway and Metro Rail construction.

That explains the reaction to his announcement last Sunday that he will not seek a 13th term in Congress. Though the news may have brightened the day of his would-be successors, it has darkened the mood of local officials who have counted on Anderson to deliver the federal goods.

“I hate to see him go,” said state Assemblyman Dave Elder (D-San Pedro). “In terms of the infrastructure for our area, we have been dealt a severe blow.”

Said Dwayne Lee, development director for the Port of Los Angeles: “We’ll still work with Congress, but we’ll have to work harder now. . . . It will be a loss to us.”

Anderson, who began his political career as mayor of Hawthorne in 1940, says he wants to make way for younger politicians. He points out that he will be nearly 80 when his term expires next December. Early in his career, he says, he felt frustrated by elderly politicians who clung to office.

“I felt, ‘Now why don’t they retire?’ ” Anderson said last week. In recent years, he added, “I tried to tell myself I was not as far behind as those people I thought about years ago. But maybe I am.”

Anderson has, in fact, shown signs of slipping. Described earlier in his career as accessible and involved in day-to-day matters, he has been criticized in recent years for being inattentive and controlled by his aides.

Last December, fellow Democrats stripped him of the chairmanship of the powerful House Public Works and Transportation Committee, saying his advanced age had left him too reliant on his staff and unable to hold his own in policy discussions.

And this fall, California Democrats proposed to carve up his harbor-based political turf as part of reapportionment, a once-a-decade shifting of legislative boundaries intended to accommodate population shifts.

The change, part of a statewide reapportionment proposal adopted by the Democrat-controlled Legislature but killed by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, would have made it extremely tough for Anderson to win reelection next year.

“The Democrats served notice that if they were going to sacrifice someone, Anderson was the one who had to go,” said LeRoy Hardy, a political science professor at Cal State Long Beach. “The political reality was that the young bucks wanted to retain their power against the old guy.”

When he leaves office, Anderson is sure to be remembered for high points--and low points--in the earlier stages of his political career.

As lieutenant governor to Edmund G. (Pat) Brown in 1965, for instance, he was criticized for failing to send in the National Guard in the early stages of the Watts riots while Brown was out of the state.

As a congressman in 1972, he authored the Marine Mammal Protection Act, a federal law that set a permanent moratorium on the killing of certain ocean mammals and on the importing of their products.

But Anderson will probably be best known for garnering federal support for local projects as a member of the highly prized Public Works and Transportation Committee, which he headed from 1988 to 1990. During 1981 to 1988, he chaired its powerful subcommittee on surface transportation, a panel that plays a major role in determining which highway projects qualify for federal funds.

Made possible as a result were the Port of Los Angeles’ main shipping channel (called the Glenn M. Anderson ship channel), the Century Freeway (officially called the Glenn M. Anderson Freeway) and Metro Rail (which has erected a plaque in Anderson’s honor in its station at 7th and Flower streets.)

Officials say Angelenos are still unaware of many Anderson-backed projects, such as the plan to almost double the cargo handling capacity of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach or the elevated bus and car-pool lane now being installed on the Harbor Freeway.

“They have tunnels being built under their feet, busways and rail lines being built above their heads, and no one is really aware of all the things this guy has done,” said Ray Grabinski, chairman of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. “The best tribute you can give a public official is that he did everything for the future.”

Still, officials don’t relish trying to keep federal money flowing for such work without Anderson’s help.

“It will take a while for a new member to achieve both the seniority and the position on a key committee that Anderson has,” said James Seeley, Los Angeles’ lobbyist in Washington. “He has made my job so easy because in that one committee we got money for Hyperion (the city’s sewer plant), airports, the Port of L.A., and roads and transit. It was a happy experience for Los Angeles.”

Anderson’s departure, coupled with a shifting of his district’s boundaries under the latest reapportionment plan, appear likely to prompt intense campaigning for his seat next year.

The current district, the 32nd, includes most of San Pedro, all of Wilmington, and most of Harbor City, Long Beach, Lakewood and Downey. The new court-drawn district, which would be called the 38th, would encompass a tiny sliver of San Pedro, none of Wilmington, most of Long Beach and Lakewood, and all of Paramount, Downey, Bellflower and Signal Hill.

The new district would have a larger share of Republican voters than the current one, 42% compared to 36%, and Democratic voters would drop to 49% from 55%.

Norman Ornstein, a Washington scholar who follows congressional politics, says reapportionment shifts such as this one often prompt the retirement of elderly congressmen.

“If you’re getting up there in years and able to get by without significant campaigns and redistricting means a big hassle, you’re going to ask, ‘Do I really want to do this?’ ” he said.

Anderson denies that the prospect of a more hostile home turf influenced his decision, but Republicans assert that the new boundaries would have spelled serious trouble for the Democratic congressman.

GOP members planning to run in the proposed 38th District include Andrew Hopwood, president of a Santa Fe Springs oil products distribution company, and Sanford Kahn, an engineer from Long Beach who opposed Anderson unsuccessfully in 1988 and 1990.

Other Republicans interested in entering the race are Richard Dykema, legislative director for U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach) and Jerry Bakke, a former Wilmington labor leader whom Kahn beat in the GOP primary last year.

Among the potential Democratic candidates are Evan Anderson Braude, a Long Beach city councilman who is also Anderson’s stepson, and Grabinski, the county transportation commission chairman, who says he has “not discounted” a bid for the seat. James Barich, a former Anderson aide now with the Irvine real estate development company in Orange County, says he is also “taking a look” at the congressional post.

Anderson says he is not urging his stepson to run and so far has not decided whom he would endorse. “That’s something we’ll have to work out,” he said.

Anderson’s Career

After more than 40 years of public service, U.S. Rep. Glenn M. Anderson (D-San Pedro) announced that he will not be seeking reelection to Congress next year after 12 terms in office. Here are some key dates in his political career:

1940: Elected to the Hawthorne City Council; served until 1942

1942: Elected to the Assembly; served until 1951

1958: Elected California lieutenant governor

1966: Defeated in reelection bid for third term as lieutenant governor

1968: Makes political comeback in winning election to Congress

1988: Named chairman of the powerful House Public Works and Transportation Committee

1990: Stripped of the committee chairmanship amid complaints he was no longer effective

1991: Announces he will not seek reelection to Congress