Bill Seeks to Name Park Site for Lagomarsino : Politics: The state’s GOP House delegation--minus Rep. Michael Huffington--co-sponsors legislation to rename the Channel Islands visitor center.

Republican friends of former Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino want to name the Channel Islands National Park Visitor Center after him to honor his work in establishing the park.

But a Republican adversary of the longtime Ventura County congressman is not taking part in the tribute.

Rep. Michael Huffington (R-Santa Barbara), who defeated Lagomarsino in a bitter primary battle last year, is the only one of the 22 Republicans in the House of Representatives delegation from California who is not co-sponsoring a bill to name the center for Lagomarsino.

Lori Arguelles, a spokeswoman for Huffington, said she did not know why he was not sponsoring the bill. “I’m not sure whether we have seen it,” Arguelles said, adding that Huffington was unavailable for comment.

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), who introduced the bill on Thursday, said Huffington’s office was approached about co-sponsoring it. “It may have gotten lost” amid the tumult surrounding the opening of a congressional office and the start of a new session, Gallegly said.

Lagomarsino was unfazed by the absence of Huffington’s name on the bill.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Lagomarsino said. If he were asked to join a similar tribute for Huffington, he said, “I probably wouldn’t have done it either.”

Last year, Huffington--heir to a Texas oil fortune--ignored pleas for Republican unity and spent $2.7 million of his own money to unseat Lagomarsino after 18 years in Congress and 34 years in politics. Running in a redrawn district that did not include his Ventura County political base, Lagomarsino lost by 7% of the vote.

Gallegly, who has often described Lagomarsino as his mentor in politics, said the bill is intended to honor Lagomarsino for his role in establishing the national park in 1980. Lagomarsino sponsored the legislation that created the 125,000-acre park on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel, Anacapa and Santa Barbara islands off the Ventura County coast.

“Without question he is the father of the Channel Islands National Park,” Gallegly said Thursday. “He’s the one due all the credit for it.”

He said he expects Lagomarsino’s former colleagues in Congress to approve the bill.

“I’m optimistic that this will sail through,” Gallegly said. “The one thing about Bob Lagomarsino is that even people who disagreed with him had great respect for him.”

Gallegly spokesman Jon Frith said the only cost incurred by the bill would be “a few bucks to change the name on the plaque.”

Lagomarsino said he felt honored by the bill and considers the legislation preserving the islands as one of his most important achievements in Congress.

“Right now I’m looking out and seeing Santa Cruz,” Lagomarsino said from his home at Solimar Beach. “It’s something my father and grandfather saw.”

The visitor center, at the foot of Spinnaker Drive at Ventura Harbor, is as close as most people ever get to the only national park in Southern California. Of the 180,000 people who visit the center every year, only about 60,000 take a boat excursion to the islands, the shortest of which takes five hours round trip.

Programs on the islands’ natural and cultural history are conducted at the center’s 80-seat auditorium and 200-seat amphitheater. The center also has an observation deck, a bookshop, giant photographs and exhibits showing the islands’ topography.

“The tide pool is probably our biggest attraction,” said park spokeswoman Carol Spears. The indoor pool contains starfish, sea urchins, anemones, lobster, mollusks and snails that inhabit tide pools on the islands.

The visitor center and Anacapa Island are in Gallegly’s district. The rest of the park is in Huffington’s.