The Weight of Roberti’s Baggage

As he begins his latest political journey, state Sen. David A. Roberti is weighed down with heavy baggage from the Legislature’s current scandals.

Reapportionment eliminated the Hollywood area district that Roberti, the Senate president, has long represented. Not wanting to retire, Roberti has rented a house in Van Nuys and will run in a special election April 7 for a vacant San Fernando Valley Senate seat. He’s heavily favored to win but, in the end, he’ll come out a loser.

The seat Roberti is seeking says a lot about the baggage the senator is carrying.

The district, stretching from Sherman Oaks to Mission Hills and from Sun Valley to Reseda, used to be represented by the once-irrepressible Alan Robbins, a veteran senator with a devilish smile, a sure feel for the Valley political pulse, and a dangerous style of pushing ethical limits to the farthest edge.

Last December, Robbins admitted that he’d gone too far. The smile disappeared as he resigned and pleaded guilty to racketeering and income tax evasion charges, confessing: “I operated my office as state senator as a racketeering enterprise.”

As a senator, Robbins supported Roberti for Senate president. So did two other once-powerful, ex-senators nailed by a federal investigation of state capital corruption, Joe Montoya of Whittier and Orange County’s Paul Carpenter.

The three of them were part of the 23-member majority that elected Roberti Senate president, a job that gives him the power to pass or kill legislation in the upper house. As far as power goes in the Capitol, Roberti is part of the Big Three, along with Gov. Pete Wilson and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.

Robbins was rewarded for his part in Roberti’s success. He was made chairman of the insurance committee, a well-known “juice” committee. It gets its name from the contributions members can squeeze out of insurance companies and lawyers.

Robbins was one of the better squeezers. He admitted accepting $12,000 from an insurance company for pushing through an important deregulation bill.

As Roberti began his campaign this week, the senator said he expects to be attacked for his links with Robbins. “Of course I will be,” he said. “In retrospect, I wish this cup would pass from me.”

“You have to deal with the senators as the people send them to you,” Roberti said. “The reality is that you cannot create a working majority if you take two or three senators about whom there has been gossip and say you can’t deal with them.”

These are frank words from a man who looks like he’s from the old days, before image-makers, when politicians would occasionally tell the truth about what was going on.

Roberti is a portly man who dresses in plain blue suits. His voice, high-pitched and nasal, isn’t right for television. But television performance doesn’t pay off in the legislative arena, where victory goes to the smart, the cunning and the ambitious.

Roberti demonstrated all those qualities. And once in power, he made the Senate into an efficient body that’s considered more productive than Brown’s feuding Assembly.

But in doing that, Roberti had to make some major compromises.

Twelve years ago, Roberti became president by promising to help fellow Democratic senators get reelected by raising money for them and providing them with political advice. He accomplished his goal, and also brought in enough funds to elect more Democrats to the Senate.

Such money comes from from industries and businesses regulated by the Legislature. The funds are actually handed out by lobbyists, who pour money into legislators’ fund-raisers at night, and then visit their offices during the day--asking for a vote.

Fund raising isn’t the whole story. Ambitious colleagues covet the Senate president’s job. As president, Roberti must constantly reward his followers, stroking them with key committee assignments and other patronage. An insulted or overlooked colleague can soon become an enemy.

Robbins had long coveted the insurance chairmanship. Why would Roberti, who knew Robbins’ reputation, give it to him? “Everybody, including Senator Robbins, is entitled to the presumption of innocence,” said Roberti. “That, to me, is basic to everything I believe in.”

And he also needed Robbins’ vote.

None of this is expected to hurt Roberti in the April election. So far, his opposition in the heavily Democratic district is weak.

It’s in the long term that he’ll feel the weight of the baggage.

As the Sacramento scandals unfolded, the voters narrowly approved term limits for legislators. So even if he wins in April, Roberti will reach his limit in two years, and be out of office. It’s as bad as losing an election.