Gallegly, Beilenson Share Pair of Goals : Congress: The lawmakers both seek to speed economic recovery and stem the tide of illegal immigration.

Looking ahead to the next session of Congress, Reps. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) and Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) share two priorities: doing whatever they can to speed the country’s economic recovery and cracking down on illegal immigration.

The lawmakers, who will represent Ventura County in the 103rd Congress, both appear well positioned to pursue their agendas.

Beilenson will gain seniority on the Budget Committee and remains a member of the powerful Rules Committee, which sets the terms of debate on all bills. Gallegly, meanwhile, hopes that his clout will be enhanced by his recent appointment to the House Judiciary Committee.

Gallegly said that his appointment to the Judiciary Committee will better enable him to pursue his controversial immigration package, which did not advance in the 102nd Congress but became a major issue in his reelection campaign. He is now seeking a spot on the panel’s subcommittee on international law, immigration and refugees.

“It will give me a conduit to more aggressively work on the bills that I have strong feelings about,” said Gallegly, who will be the Judiciary Committee’s only non-lawyer. “There’s even greater reason today to address illegal immigration.”

Gallegly’s highest-profile proposal was a constitutional amendment that would deny automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants who are born in the United States. He said he would like to find a less cumbersome alternative to the amendment process to accomplish his goal of discouraging women from coming to America to bear children.

Latino activists have accused Gallegly of exploiting white fears and economic tensions, a charge he strongly denies. He calls himself “a strong advocate of legal immigration.”

In recent interviews, Gallegly joined Beilenson in expressing a willingness to work with the incoming Clinton Administration. Beilenson, predictably, waxed more enthusiastic about the prospect of a Democrat returning to the White House.

“It’s a great sense of relief for many of us to look forward to coming back to Washington and being part of a government that, on the whole, we believe will at least try to do the necessary and right things,” said Beilenson, whose new 24th District includes most of Thousand Oaks.

“The country is in some trouble and we need to pull ourselves out of it.”

Gallegly, a conservative who reaped political benefits from his ties to outgoing President Bush, nonetheless expressed cautious optimism about Clinton’s agenda.

“If he follows through with many of the proposals that he advocated in his campaign, his problem is not going to be with the Republican side of the aisle, but with the Democrats,” Gallegly said, citing Clinton’s support for a line-item veto and investment tax credits for business.

“I hope that he will be able to work with Congress,” said Gallegly, whose 23rd District includes Carpinteria and all of Ventura County except for most of Thousand Oaks. “The state of the country’s economy right now is a heck of a lot more important than partisan bickering. I will do what I can to see that we try to move his agenda ahead.”

Both Gallegly and Beilenson are coming off tough reelection fights in districts that include considerable new terrain. Beilenson won a 10th term to represent communities from Sherman Oaks to Malibu and up to Thousand Oaks. Gallegly, a former Simi Valley mayor, is starting his fourth term.

Gallegly said he plans to reintroduce a number of bills that made no progress in the last session. They focus on economic incentives and immigration reform.

A Gallegly jobs bill aims to assist workers displaced by defense cuts, a process that has hit Southern California particularly hard. The measure would provide a tax credit for companies that adopt programs to hire defense-industry workers whose jobs were lost in military cutbacks. They would be eligible for a maximum credit of $2,400 for each employee hired.

“We’re going to have to come up with new ideas for individuals who have been displaced through this process,” Gallegly said. “This is a much more responsible way to spend federal dollars through a tax credit than through unemployment or welfare and, at the same time, put people back to work.”

A second bill would provide a two-year tax credit to assist companies making capital investments to enhance their competitiveness. Gallegly said that this would provide an immediate economic stimulus.

In addition to his constitutional amendment regarding the offspring of illegal immigrants, Gallegly said he expects to fine-tune his proposals to increase the authorized strength of the Border Patrol, prohibit giving federal benefits such as unemployment and welfare to illegal immigrants, and impose new sanctions on employers who transport day laborers to job sites without verifying that an individual is eligible to work in the United States.

He said there was less need for another of his measures--a tamper-proof identification card for legal aliens to discourage counterfeiting--because the Immigration and Naturalization Service has made progress on this front recently. The INS has produced a new card, which uses a kind of hologram, that Gallegly said “is 100 times better than what we had before.”

Gallegly said he will also continue to press for additional improvements for the Port of Hueneme. He said this might involve negotiating agreements to use warehouses at the adjacent Port Hueneme Navy base. Port of entry status, he said, “could ultimately mean tremendous economic development.”

Gallegly obtained a waiver from House rules to enable him to remain on the Interior Committee. Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino, Ventura County’s senior Republican who was defeated in the June primary, had been a member of Interior Committee’s subcommittee on national parks and public lands--which made him a key advocate for the county’s various park and harbor projects.

“Remaining on Interior will be helpful as I continue my efforts on behalf of the Channel Islands National Park and the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area,” Gallegly said in a news release last week. But he acknowledged in an interview that, with his appointment to the Judiciary Committee, he will not “put as much energy” into his Interior Committee work as “a matter of physical limitations.”

Beilenson said his priorities will not change with the arrival of the new Administration. But he said he’s far more optimistic about seeing them succeed.

His first goal is cutting the federal budget deficit. He will move up to fourth-ranking member of the House Budget Committee after considering, but then forgoing, a bid to become chairman of the panel.

Beilenson, also a member of the Rules Committee, has long been outspoken about the dangers of mounting debt. But the hardship wreaked by the recession has persuaded him in recent months that “some increases in government through temporary targeted tax cuts and investment in infrastructure are necessary even if it balloons the deficit for a year or two.”

At the same time, he said, he would like to see the President and Congress “put in place a long-term deficit reduction plan which will be signed into law in 1993” that would provide assurance “that we have done something real about bringing the deficit under control.”

Beilenson said he is also optimistic that the new President and a reform-minded Congress will overhaul campaign-finance laws to reduce the influence of special-interest money and decrease campaign spending overall. Clinton has said this will be one of his priorities.

The veteran lawmaker also said he plans to push for expanded family planning services overseas. He called this longstanding concern “the No. 1 issue facing the planet.”

At the district level, Beilenson said that the change in Administration is unlikely to affect the amount of money available for land acquisition in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The Santa Monica Mountains received $13.2 million in the current fiscal year.

Beilenson said he also hopes to get more involved in job creation for laid-off aerospace workers through conversion of military industry to civilian economic opportunities.

Finally, he, too, aspires to a more active role in stemming illegal immigration by advocating a forgery-proof ID card for legal immigrants and beefing up the Border Patrol. Beilenson was the only Democrat to co-sponsor Gallegly’s proposed constitutional amendment to deny citizenship to the offspring of illegal immigrants born in the United States.

Illegal immigration, Beilenson said, “is a major national problem. We have to take some strong steps to stem it.”

Another difference in the new congressional session is that California members and others will be operating under term limits. Voters passed a cap in November, which many legal experts think will ultimately be declared unconstitutional.

Beilenson and Gallegly fundamentally differ on the issue but both say they don’t expect California’s six-year restriction to affect them.

Beilenson said he opposes term limits as “foolish and wrongheaded.” Referring to the six-year cap, he said, “it takes you at least that length of time to find your way around and get on top of the job.”

Although he hopes the courts will invalidate California’s limits, Beilenson said he does not expect them to restrict his service in any case.

“If the people back home are good enough to send me back an additional four years after these two years, that may be enough,” said Beilenson, who is 60.

The 48-year-old Gallegly, in contrast, supports term limits but maintains that, for any state to adopt them before all other states do so, is “truly cutting off your nose to spite your face.” He predicted the eventual passage of national term limits of 10 to 12 years.

No matter what happens on this front, he said, “I have absolutely no intention of serving in Congress for more than six more years anyway.”