NEWS ANALYSIS : Cranston and Seymour Lack Clout, Colleagues Say : Senate: Democrat’s ethics problems, Republican’s freshman status hinder them, critics contend.

One is an aging lawmaker serving out his 24th--and final--year after surviving a bout with cancer and a reprimand for “repugnant and unethical” behavior.

The other is an appointed newcomer struggling to persuade voters that he deserves their support in the June 2 primary.

Together they represent California, the nation’s largest state, in the U. S. Senate. As a duo, Democrat Alan Cranston and Republican John Seymour are widely regarded by their colleagues as among the weaker Senate delegations in terms of clout and effectiveness--a marked decline from previous years when Cranston alone wielded considerable influence.

Today, neither Cranston nor Seymour commands the high level of respect or loyalty that can be essential when soliciting support on votes, according to interviews with 10 senators. Nor do they sit on key committees that shape the federal budget and dole out lucrative projects. In 1991--the first year the two senators served together--they often neglected legislation of importance to the state, said a dozen California House members from both parties.

On a critical issue to the statesuch as federal water policy, for example, the most influential voices in the Senate are not from California. They are Sens. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) and J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), leading members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee who have introduced separate legislation to bolster the state’s authority over federal water decisions.

“Sure, it hurts,” Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey) said of the state’s reduced standing in the Senate. “California . . . has been in a strong 1-2 position in the House and Senate. Now you have a situation where you have lost the right-hand punch you used to have to move issues through.”

The contrasting manner in which the two senators initially responded to the Los Angeles riots says much about their current political status. Cranston the lame duck issued a statement and remained in Washington to undergo hernia surgery--at least the third medical condition that has hospitalized him since last year. Seymour the candidate traveled to Los Angeles immediately after the riots and then again with President Bush aboard Air Force One. He stuck so close to Bush through two days that White House officials jokingly began referring to Seymour as “the Velcro Senator.”

To be sure, there is no precise formula for measuring the effectiveness of a legislator in Washington. This is particularly true in the Senate, a tightknit body where deals often are struck behind closed doors and personal traits such as collegiality can be critical.

Moreover, shortcomings in the Senate delegation tend to be mitigated in the House, where California has a 45-member delegation that will expand to a record 52 seats next year. In the Senate, California has the same number of senators as any other state.

Both Cranston and Seymour bristle at the suggestion that they have fallen short in carrying out their duties on Capitol Hill.

Seymour, 54, who is seeking election this year following his appointment by Gov. Pete Wilson in January, 1991, said he understands the perception that California’s two senators are ineffective. “You’ve got one guy who’s been under a cloud both physically as well as ethically and professionally, and another guy who is the new kid on the street,” he said.

But he pointed with pride to his accomplishments during 1991 “in a year in which Congress didn’t do a lot. . . . When I measure myself up against that, I feel very good about it.”

From day one, Seymour has been afforded little opportunity by the Democratic majority to establish a legislative track record. A former California state senator, he has been saddled with the daunting task of serving as a freshman member of the minority party while trying to win an election this year and, if successful, again in 1994.

Cranston, 77, who once occupied the second-highest position in the Senate among Democrats, insisted that his influence has not waned since the ethics reprimand he received six months ago for his involvement in the “Keating Five” savings and loan scandal.

“In terms of my own effectiveness, I don’t believe it’s been hampered in any way,” he said. Fully recovered from prostate cancer, Cranston said he is busy working on “many matters with reasonable effectiveness. I’ve got a lot of energy on a lot of things.”

The loudest complaints about the two senators come from California Democrats and Republicans in the House.

They said funding for California projects ranging from military construction to pest control facilities are approved by the House but often receive no attention in the Senate. As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars in federal programs that would benefit California are slashed during negotiations by House-Senate conference committees. In some cases, House members said, they seek the support of senators from other states on issues affecting California.

Last fall Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), the third-ranking Republican in the House, said he worked “more effectively” with senators from Nevada and Arizona during a House-Senate conference on a highway bill affecting his district.

“Seymour is interested in helping, but no doubt he is concentrating his time on getting elected,” Lewis said then. “Cranston people, I’m sure, would want to help but they have other irons in the fire that have more priority.”

(At the time Cranston was contesting his ethics reprimand; Seymour issued a standard letter in support of the highway project.)

While there is no objective standard for legislative performance--voters ultimately make that judgment--there are some ways to evaluate California’s two senators:

- Attendance: Cranston had the fourth-worst voting participation record--83%--of the 100 senators last year. Only Sens. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who were running for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Sen. David H. Pryor (D-Ark.), who suffered a heart attack, had worse records. Cranston spent much of last year in California recovering from cancer, and some of his colleagues say he has yet to re-establish a presence.

One Republican senator who shares a committee assignment with Cranston said he rarely sees him. “What has he done? Is he working?” asked the senator, who requested anonymity.

For the past 16 months, Seymour has spent at least half of nearly every week campaigning in California. Nonetheless, he participated in 96% of 280 recorded votes last year, the 12th-worst record in the Senate. Because the scheduling of votes is arranged so that virtually every lawmaker is able to attend, more than half of the senators last year had voting records of 99% or better.

- Assignments: California is not represented on the Senate Appropriations or Finance committees, the two panels that largely decide how federal dollars are allocated. The leaders of these committees have substantial power; since becoming Appropriations chairman in 1989, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) has steered more than $1 billion in projects to his home state.

“There’s no question we’re very weak in the Senate, particularly due to our committee assignments,” said Rep. Robert Matsui (D-Sacramento). “We’ve got to get our next senators on Finance and Appropriations. That is where the power is.”

Although Cranston has not aggressively sought opportunities to help California by obtaining these key spending committee assignments, he sits on the prestigious Banking, Foreign Relations and Intelligence panels, and serves as chairman of Veterans Affairs.

Seymour is assigned to the Agriculture, Energy and Natural Resources, Governmental Affairs and Small Business committees. These are less-prestigious panels, but they deal with California issues such as water, the environment and farming. If elected in the fall, Seymour said, he will push for appointments to the Finance and Armed Services committees.

- Reputation: A recent survey asked top aides on Capitol Hill to name the lawmakers who most deserved to be thrown out of office. Cranston ranked fifth among senators, an apparent reaction to his role in the Keating Five scandal. One Republican staffer was quoted anonymously as saying, “Can’t we get rid of him early?”

Seymour did not rank among the 10 worst Senate Democrats or Republicans in the poll conducted by Washingtonian magazine. But the survey noted a “surprise” finding: Nearly 10% of Capitol Hill staffers said that Seymour, despite being newly appointed, should get out.

- Legislation: Seymour has introduced 19 bills during the current two-year session, but has failed to navigate a single piece of legislation through the process to full Senate approval. This is attributable in part to the control exercised by Democrats who make it difficult for Republicans such as Seymour to build a legislative agenda.

Cranston, despite his attendance record, introduced 62 bills, ranking him near the top of all senators during the current session. Twelve of the bills were passed by the Senate; seven provide added benefits for veterans.

The number of bills introduced by a senator and later passed is only one indicator of legislative skills, however. In many cases, senators advance their causes by inserting amendments into legislation written by other senators.

Seymour won Senate approval, for example, of a provision that extends long-term water subsidies to California farmers using the Central Valley Project. The measure is expected to be gutted by Democrats in upcoming House-Senate conference committee deliberations.

- Teamwork: In the 16 months they have served together, Cranston and Seymour rarely have combined their efforts on behalf of California, except on non-controversial, nonpartisan issues such as providing disaster relief funds.

California’s congressional delegation is notorious for its inability to work cohesively, largely because of the state’s size and diversity and party and ideological splits. The situation is no different in the Senate: The last time California voters elected two members of the same party was in 1971, when Cranston served with Democrat John V. Tunney.

Cranston, who said his relationship with Seymour is no different than it was with Wilson, could not recall any specific issues where he joined with Seymour. The Republican said he and Cranston did not work together on any major issues last year, in part because Cranston was away much of the time.

Their working relationship, Seymour said, is “nothing like you’d like it to be. What you’d obviously like is two philosophies that were close enough so you were flexing all of the California muscle.”

Cranston and Seymour remain at odds over one of the most important California issues of the current session--legislation to protect the desert. A leading proponent of environmental causes, Cranston introduced the bill in 1986 and has been unable to bring it to a vote on the Senate floor. Soon after being sworn into office last year, Seymour called the measure his highest legislative priority.

Yet they have not come close toresolving their differences. In recent months, their disagreement has turned increasingly bitter, with Cranston accusing Seymour of playing the role of “spoiler” and Seymour charging Cranston with failing to negotiate in good faith.

Both senators say their major legislative achievement last year was passage of a landmark transportation bill. The $151-billion measure, signed into law by President Bush in December, is considered a substantial improvement for California.

Though they did not collaborate on behalf of California interests, Cranston and Seymour each took credit for different portions of the legislation. Cranston said his Housing and Urban Affairs subcommittee wrote the portion of the bill that gives states greater flexibility in spending traditional highway dollars on mass transit. Seymour said he joined “a revolt” of 10 Republican senators who threatened to block the bill unless more favorable funding formulas were approved for larger states.

But several congressional aides and lobbyists familiar with the California portion of the bill said Cranston and Seymour came nowhere close to wielding the kind of clout the state received from Rep. Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose) and Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside).

In fact, California’s two senators were not considered major players when a 92-member House-Senate conference committee hammered out the bill during two weeks of bruising negotiations in November. Seymour was not assigned to the conference committee and Cranston was fighting his ethics reprimand, which was handed down one week before Congress approved the transportation package.

“I can’t tell you the sense of frustration it caused me,” said one California lobbyist actively involved in the bill. “I had virtually zero influence in the Senate. . . . Cranston is quite senior, (but) you know his influence is gone. Seymour (was) the most junior senator over there. I couldn’t get anything done.”

California’s weakness in the Senate is particularly distressing, congressional observers say, because Cranston was once at the pinnacle of power in his leadership role as majority whip. In that position, he was highly regarded as a skilled legislator and an outspoken champion of liberal causes on Capitol Hill. His many legislative accomplishments included improving civil rights, halting the spread of nuclear weapons, upgrading the nation’s housing and providing increased benefits for veterans.

Cranston also worked hard for a variety of California business interests--defense and aerospace contractors, agricultural interests, Hollywood, real estate agents and the savings and loan industry.

“When Cranston was in his strong years . . . a phone call (to him) was translated into a discussion with the (Senate) leadership side,” said Panetta, chairman of the House Budget Committee. “Things got done.” Today, Panetta added, “You’re never sure if he can deliver because of his situation.”

Cranston’s fall from power occurred in November, 1990, when he disclosed he had cancer, surrendered his whip post and announced he would not seek reelection. A year later, he was reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee for “improper and repugnant” behavior in his fund-raising relationship with former Lincoln Savings and Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr.

While his Senate colleagues say he has suffered irreparable political damage, Cranston believes otherwise. He said in a recent interview that the reprimand actually will make him more effective during his remaining months in office.

“I get the sense, if anything, that (other senators) are more eager to try to be of help. They have sympathy for what I went through. They recognize that many senators have done (similar) things and it wasn’t particularly fair to have me singled out,” he said.

To illustrate his continued influence, Cranston cited a controversial bill to redesign the nation’s coins, which he has pushed through the Senate 13 times since 1988. In recent weeks, however, the Cranston coin proposal was defeated twice by the House and rejected by the Senate amid criticism that the proposal amounted to nothing more than a pet project on behalf of a Cranston social companion.

One Republican senator who sits on the Banking Committee said he has yet to hear a word from Cranston on a proposal that could benefit the ailing savings and loan industry in California. Instead, the senator said, he has been approached by Cranston twice in the past year for help with the coin bill.

“What do I care about coins?” said the senator, who turned down the requests.

Before a recent interview, Cranston scrawled on a legal sheet a list of objectives for the remainder of his term, including increasing the “peace dividend” to stimulate the economy, passing a “Freedom of Choice Act” if the Supreme Court overturns or weakens the Roe vs. Wade abortion rights ruling, improving U. S. relations with Russia, and preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The only California issues on the list were environmental measures, including the desert bill.

By comparison, Seymour said he is focused on local issues that directly affect his constituents.

“I’m probably 90% California and 10% global,” he said. “I’m worried about California. California is in deep trouble, short-term and long-term. Sunshine, palm trees and our mountains and beaches don’t hack it anymore.”

Among the items atop Seymour’s legislative agenda are enacting the desert bill, restoring $1.1 billion in cuts to immigrant programs and passing water legislation. His biggest accomplishments to date, Seymour said, include Senate passage of an amendment he introduced that would cut Congress’ operating budget by 25% and his personal lobbying within the Bush Administration to keep the Long Beach Naval Shipyard open.

Although Seymour has not had a single bill adopted by the Senate, his tenaciousness has won praise from several colleagues.

“Seymour is a guy that you don’t push around,” said Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.). “He is very strong-willed and he is fearless. I admire that.”

Seymour has not endeared himself to the Senate leadership by voting against a pay raise, proposing a measure to dock senators’ pay and running his campaign on themes that attack Congress. Seymour said he expects to face even more resistance in advancing his legislative agenda.

“(Do Democrats) want to see me here next year? No way,” Seymour said.

Indeed, with at least one--and possibly two--new faces to be elected in the fall, California’s clout within the Senate is not likely to improve anytime soon.

“In 1993, California is going to have two inexperienced senators,” said Cranston spokesman Murray Flander. “If there is anything to worry about for the rest of 1992, 1993 is going to be a good deal worse.”

Times staff writer Douglas Jehl contributed to this report.