CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / U.S. SENATE : Seymour Pursues Job as ‘Realtor’s Senator’ : Politics: A landlord and former broker, incumbent has advocated changes that may benefit him. He says portfolio does not get in the way of his convictions.

Real estate is at the core of U.S. Sen. John Seymour’s personal wealth as well as his political philosophy.

Seymour is a landlord and investor with a home in San Clemente and seven single-family rental properties in Sacramento and Anaheim.

And in politics, the man who proudly calls himself the “realtors’ senator” has aggressively pursued tax breaks and other advantages for the beleaguered real estate and development industry--changes that in some cases may benefit him as a landlord and investor.

The fact that Seymour’s personal and public interests would coincide in the Senate is nothing new for the politician of 22 years, a former Orange County broker whose public career has often been grounded in articulating and serving the needs of real estate and development interests.

Seymour said his actions have only marginally affected his holdings, and he compared his circumstance to that of a doctor who is elected to the Senate and votes on a national health plan.

He also said the size of his portfolio does not get in the way of his convictions, adding that the value of his holdings has declined since he entered full-time elected office in 1982.

“If I were a Donald Trump in real estate, and have the holdings that would be so significantly impacted, I could understand the point,” he said. “I vote my philosophies, not my personal pocketbook.”

There is no evidence that Seymour has violated Senate ethics rules, and ethics experts say his votes pose no conflicts because they would help realty agents as a class, rather than specifically help him.

Seymour gave up brokering long ago. But his portfolio deals exclusively in real estate and he rents five single-family homes in Sacramento and two in Orange County. Figures provided on tax forms and government disclosure forms indicate that his rental properties have an estimated net value of $750,000.

In addition, Seymour owns a home in San Clemente and holds a $52,000 note on his son’s home in San Diego.

His holdings are the fruit of a real estate career that began in the mid-1960s when he took a $10,000 bank loan co-signed by his father and built a brokerage, investment and property management business.

Through the years, a myth sprang up that Seymour had become a millionaire by age 30. In fact, court records show his net worth was $50,000 at age 34, when he divorced his first wife.

What is no exaggeration is the frenetic pace at which Seymour and his company pursued real estate deals, racking up more than 1,500 entries in the Orange County recorder’s office index over the last 25 years.

During that time, court records show, disgruntled home buyers and investors named Seymour’s company in at least 18 fraud, deception or breach of contract lawsuits filed between the early 1970s and 1984, when Seymour relinquished all interest in the firm that bore his name.

Some plaintiffs collected settlements for allegations such as misleading termite reports, selling inadequately secured second trust deeds, mismanaging rental properties and failing to make complete payment for acquiring another realty agent’s firm.

Seymour emphasized that there has been no court judgments filed against him as an individual. He said the number of suits against his firm was lower than might be expected in light of the fact that he had 125 people working for him.

The real estate business helped Seymour launch his political career, which took him from the Anaheim City Council in the 1970s to the state Senate in the 1980s. In 1980, before he went to Sacramento, Seymour also served as president of the California Assn. of Realtors.

In the state Senate, Seymour repeatedly carried legislation that would weaken or abolish local rent control laws--even though he owned rental property. And in 1988 he introduced an unsuccessful measure that would have repealed the $600 minimum tax on limited partnerships such as the dozen or so he put together as real estate investments over the years. He was involved in one partnership at the time he wrote the bill.

Seymour’s support from real estate interests was evident during his unsuccessful 1990 bid for lieutenant governor. Individuals and companies in the land business donated $589,465, or 46%, of his campaign receipts during the Republican primary.

The close relationship was underscored when freshly appointed U.S. Sen. Seymour appeared before his fellow realtors and said he would carry their agenda to Washington.

“For eight years, I called myself ‘the realtors’ senator’ in the state Legislature just across the street,” Seymour said two months after being appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson. “I plan for at least the next eight years to call myself ‘the realtors’ senator’ in the United States Senate.”

Seymour has kept his word.

Appointed to a six-member Senate Republican task force on the real estate industry, he has fought to loosen what he said was the “credit crunch” that has strangled housing starts and cost the California economy an estimated $34 billion since 1990.

Seymour has pushed to make it easier for large pension funds to invest in real estate, and to allow the first-time home buyer to withdraw funds without penalty from IRA accounts for down payments, according to congressional staffers and a lobbyist for the National Assn. of Realtors.

He has advocated raising the limit on Federal Housing Administration home loans, an important move for high-priced real estate sectors such as California. He has also pushed for opening up a secondary funding market for commercial real estate.

Two of the more important proposals, however, would change portions of the federal tax code that have directly affected Seymour’s pocketbook as an investor.

He was principal sponsor of legislation that essentially cut the capital gains tax in half for anyone who makes a profit on the sale of long-held real estate. Seymour’s tax records show he recorded $13,777 in capital gains from a tax-deferred exchange of rentals, but he said he will retain the rest of his property for retirement income.

And the former broker also sponsored a measure that would have lifted the “passive loss restriction” that now limits real estate professionals from taking full write-offs on their property investments.

Asked if he would benefit personally from the passive loss restriction, Seymour said: “Of course I would.” However, he emphasized that it was never a consideration in his actions.

Both provisions are part of the urban aid legislation that President Bush is expected to veto.

Despite that outcome, Seymour’s efforts have not been lost on the realty agents, who are rallying to bolster his underdog campaign. Although their designated political action committees have given relatively little in direct contributions--$54,500, or about 5% of his receipts--state and national realtor associations have spent $223,500 on an independent campaign to help him.

The 126,000-member California Assn. of Realtors has sent its members brochures, commissioned trade magazine articles, held a seminar and released a videotape touting Seymour, according to Federal Elections Commission reports.

Ann Pettijohn, an Orange County broker helping to coordinate the drive, said the effort was necessary because association leaders found a surprising lack of knowledge about the Republican among rank-and-file members. Focus groups commissioned last year showed that many realtors couldn’t even place his name.

But she said that Seymour’s low visibility has been addressed and that the association sold his campaign a list of 7,000 realtors willing to help. “Seven thousand--that’s a lot of people who are willing to work for this man, willing to walk a precinct, willing to work a phone bank,” Pettijohn said. “I like to think of the realtors as Sen. Seymour’s volunteer army,” she said.