Lagomarsino Struggles to Adjust as Long Career Comes to an End : Politics: The congressman indulges deferred passions as he considers what to do next. Bitterness remains from his last campaign.

The man who has represented Ventura County in Congress for the last 18 years looks openly pained these days that his political career is at an end.

Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura) says he’s not sure what he will do next. He speaks of helping out with his family’s beer distributorship. Or joining a Santa Barbara law firm.

For the moment, however, Lagomarsino continues to mourn the loss of his congressional seat, six months after Republican upstart Michael Huffington dipped into his Texas oil fortune to hand Lagomarsino his first defeat since he entered politics in 1958.

Sitting beside his wife, Norma, in their plush oceanfront home in Solimar Beach, Lagomarsino made it clear that he still has a problem accepting that his 34-year political career will end when Congress reconvenes this week.

“It’s tough to read in the papers about things that are going on and to realize that you don’t have anything to say about it,” said the lawmaker, whose term officially ends when Congress reconvenes Tuesday.

Longtime friends and colleagues agree that retirement will be hard for the 66-year-old Lagomarsino, whom they describe as a modest, diligent man who prefers discussing big issues to engaging in idle chitchat.

“Being a member of Congress was never a job for Bob--it was a way of life,” said Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), who has called Lagomarsino his mentor. “Bob was always working, and it’s not something you can turn off like a light switch.”

Pat Clark, a longtime family friend, predicted that Lagomarsino will land on his feet as soon as he and Norma have had a chance to regroup.

“I’m sure not having that schedule on his desk Monday morning is going to be a real change for him,” she said. “He needs a new focus, and I’m sure one will come up.”

Already, Lagomarsino is sifting through a pile of options. Trained as a lawyer, he said he will probably work part time providing legal assistance for his family’s beer-distribution business, and he may serve as an attorney emeritus for a Santa Barbara law firm.

He also is considering working as a consultant in a public relations firm or teaching political science and government courses at Santa Barbara City College and Cal State Northridge’s Ventura campus. He plans to keep his fingers in Ventura County politics as well, helping friends out with campaigns if they ask, he said.

While the likelihood of a federal appointment for the lifelong Republican appears dim with the incoming Clinton Administration, Lagomarsino has not ruled out the possibility of serving in a future Republican regime.

“One thing in politics is true: You should never say never ,” Lagomarsino said. “Who knows? If Clinton is a one-term President, who knows what could happen?”

One of his oldest friends, John Autry, a former Ojai resident who served as Lagomarsino’s campaign manager when he first ran for the state Senate in 1961, hints at the possibility of an appointment by Gov. Pete Wilson to a commission dealing with conservation or other land issues.

“He’s got too many years of solid experience,” said Autry, a lobbyist in Washington. “I think the state could use him as well as the country.”

No matter what comes his way, Lagomarsino, whose real estate and stock holdings make him a millionaire, is in no hurry to make a decision.

He and Norma have been busy in recent weeks trying to sell their home in Alexandria, Va., and buy new property in Ojai, he said. They will keep their $1-million-plus home in the gated community of Solimar Beach near Ventura as their primary residence because of their love for the ocean, the couple said.

Lagomarsino is spending much of his free time hunting and fishing, passions he had long deferred because of his busy Washington schedule. His longtime administrative aide, Susan Gerrick, recently gave him a yellow Labrador puppy as a goodby present, and Lagomarsino said he intends to find out if Missy is adept at retrieving game birds.

For now, he said, he enjoys working crossword puzzles and reading as he tries to figure out what to do with the rest of his life.

It was never his intention to be pushed from office, he said. Despite rumors of imminent retirement in recent years, Lagomarsino often dismissed them as wishful thinking on the part of his political opponents.

In his long career, Lagomarsino never lost an election until the June primary. He was first elected to the Ojai City Council in 1958. Eight months later, he was elevated to mayor.

In 1961, he won a special election to the California Senate, serving there until voters sent him to the House of Representatives in 1974. It was at the height of the Watergate notoriety, and Lagomarsino was among the few Republicans to enter Congress that year.

He survived a stiff challenge to his seat in 1988, when state Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) came within about 4,000 votes of defeating him. It was 1988’s most expensive House campaign, with both competitors spending about $1.5 million.

After the bruising battle with Hart, Lagomarsino was reinvigorated by trotting the globe as chairman of the Republican Institute for International Affairs, visiting emerging nations to preach the benefits of democracy.

Lagomarsino was looking forward to another two years in Congress when he agreed last year to move out of his Ventura County district to run in the newly created 22nd Congressional District, which encompasses San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

A loyal party man, Lagomarsino made the move at the urging of Wilson and White House strategists to avoid a primary battle with his protege, Gallegly, in the aftermath of redistricting. But the unexpected occurred when multimillionaire Huffington announced his intention to challenge Lagomarsino in the primary and proceeded to spend nearly $3 million of his own money doing it.

Despite loaning his campaign $240,000 in a last-ditch effort to match Huffington’s flurry of campaign commercials and mailers, the imbalance was too much to overcome, especially in northern areas where Lagomarsino’s name was not well-known. Huffington defeated Lagomarsino by a nearly 7% margin, and went on to win the seat in the November race.

The experience was, as Norma recently summarized it, every congressman’s nightmare. Lagomarsino said he still feels bitter toward Huffington and has rejected his efforts to mend political fences.

“It was just not right what he did,” Lagomarsino said, embittered by what he considers personal attacks on his character and congressional record.

He also had some harsh words about how Huffington will fare as a legislator in the nation’s capital.

“There are some people in Washington who are impressed with money, and he will do well with them,” Lagomarsino said. “But many others have already told me that they are not impressed.”

Lagomarsino’s own reputation during his 18 years as a congressman was that of a solid, experienced lawmaker with a low-key style. He made sure to attend to the nuts and bolts, like attending committee meetings and being on hand for votes, instead of trying to grab headlines, colleagues said.

“I’ve never known a more solid, hard-working, straightforward member of Congress,” said Autry, who has worked with senators and representatives for more than 20 years.

He served on the House’s Foreign Affairs Committee, where he was a staunch supporter of President Reagan’s anti-communist policies in Central America. Returning from Nicaragua shortly after the 1979 revolution, Lagomarsino declared it a Marxist country and said, “If it looks like a Cuba and walks like a Cuba and quacks like a Cuba . . . it is probably a Cuba.”

And as a ranking Republican member of the Interior Committee, Lagomarsino was known for his moderate views on the environment, favoring the expansion of national parks but also supporting offshore oil drilling to help meet America’s energy needs.

But even some of Lagomarsino’s supporters agree that his lack of aggressiveness may have hurt him in the rough-and-tumble world of national politics. The congressman lost a prominent appointment as vice president of the House Republican Conference--the caucus of GOP members--in 1984 partly because fellow Republicans wanted to see a younger and more aggressive legislator get the spot.

And Autry said Lagomarsino was becoming disenchanted with his inability to get legislation passed in a Congress dominated by Democrats.

“I saw an increased frustration with him,” Autry said. “I think they were slowly wearing him down.”

Lagomarsino was successful in shepherding two bills that he now counts among his greatest achievements as a legislator. Ironically, neither legislative effort was completed until after Lagomarsino was turned out by the voters.

The first was a 1980 bill that created the Channel Islands National Park off the coasts of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. The designation ensures that the islands will remain free of development and open to the public for generations to come.

After the park was created, it took 12 more years to get the funding to buy the property from private landowners, Lagomarsino said. The final $8 million was appropriated this fall.

And just this summer, President Bush signed a Lagomarsino bill that designates 400,450 acres of forest in Ventura, Santa Barbara, Monterey and Los Angeles counties as protected wilderness.

The Los Padres Wilderness Act also permanently protects 31.5 miles of Sespe Creek in Ventura County as a “wild and scenic river” and sets aside another 10.5 miles of the river for study for possible future protection.

Lagomarsino, a Ventura native, has said he sought the protection so future generations can enjoy hiking and fishing in the same areas he did as a boy.

But his portrayal as a moderate on the environment has often been attacked by activist groups. In 1988, the politically aggressive group Environmental Action named him one of its Dirty Dozen, politicians that it deemed particularly damaging to environmental concerns.

And Ventura County environmentalists have faulted Lagomarsino for not seeking more extensive restrictions on development along Sespe Creek, noting that his bill leaves open the possibility of dams being built on its lower portion.

But Autry and other supporters have called the attacks nonsense.

“There are those who will accuse and attack anyone, no matter what they do,” Autry said. “Bob did what he thought was right.”

Lagomarsino said he also is proud that he and his staff have helped steer “tens of thousands” of people through government red tape over the years.

“He was a mayor, like I was, so he knew the importance of responding to the concerns of the people,” said Gallegly, who has used Lagomarsino’s office as a model for his own constituent service.

Lagomarsino’s legislative records will soon be enshrined at the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge. A few weeks ago, he donated his congressional papers--about 50 boxes--to the campus archives for cataloguing and storage.

But Lagomarsino gets his greatest satisfaction from looking at his legacy from his oceanfront window. On a clear day, he can spot several of the Channel Islands, now protected forever as a national park.

“That,” he said, “was one of the best things I’ve ever done.”