Santa Clarita Representative Off to a Fast Start in 103rd Congress

So, here is Howard P. (Buck) McKeon, elected to Congress as an outsider seeking to shake the place up, anxiously trying to figure out which prospective House office is a few steps closer to the members-only elevator.

Isn’t that McKeon, a Santa Clarita Republican who ran vowing to cut pork from government, winning appointment to the House committee known as the place where lawmakers can bring home the bacon?

And there is McKeon, who came to the nation’s capital pledging to help end partisan bickering and gridlock, returning home for his first community meeting to blast the House Democratic majority as arrogant proponents of the “pro-labor, anti-business movement.”

All of which is not to suggest that the folksy but savvy ex-mayor has undergone some kind of metamorphosis. Rather, he has found himself engaged in the inexorable process of becoming a member of Congress, with all of its unique rituals and inevitable trade-offs.

“I’ve learned a lot,” McKeon reflected last week during a lengthy interview in his office where the newly painted walls remain largely unadorned.

“I didn’t really understand how Congress worked. I didn’t understand how the Democrats really controlled things. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know anything about legislation. I didn’t know how committees worked.

“I didn’t know much,” McKeon finally acknowledged. “And there’s still a lot I don’t know.”

McKeon, 54, is receiving his education as the first representative of a sprawling district that encompasses the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys and parts of the San Fernando Valley. This is his maiden legislative experience after serving as Santa Clarita’s first mayor, a school board trustee, bank chairman and co-owner of a chain of Western clothing stores.

As part of the reform-minded class of ‘92, he is one of 110 freshmen--Capitol Hill’s largest group of newcomers since 1948. To his dismay, the conservative lawmaker arrived in the Republican minority as the Democrats regained the White House.

Seen through periodic interviews and observations, McKeon has shown, in his first months in Washington, a mixture of awe and aversion, hopefulness and frustration, bipartisan good will and bare-knuckled partisanship. He has apparently been well-served by his ability to combine an aw-shucks, down-home manner with shrewd, aggressive pursuit of his goals.

In addition to his steep learning curve, he is off to a fast start--befitting a man who vows not to make a career of congressional service but pledges to make a mark while he’s here.

First, he won a coveted assignment on the Public Works and Transportation Committee. Then, he helped gain Palmdale designation as a Foreign Trade Zone. And, most recently, he was elected president of the Republican freshmen.

Not bad for a guy who’s yet to find his way to the House gym.

McKeon has seen how heavily the deck is stacked against him and his GOP colleagues, who have been the minority in the House for the past 38 years. Even small victories can become a big deal.

Last month the Republican freshmen provided the crucial support in a vote to kill the House Select Committee on Narcotics as part of an effort to streamline the legislative process. Later they bucked their own leaders, as well as the Democrats, by opposing a compromise that would have extended the narcotics committee and three other temporary panels for another year. The Democrats, fearing defeat, withdrew the proposal.

McKeon considered this merely a “somewhat symbolic” win. But then, he recalled, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) told him: “That was the biggest victory we’ve had in the eight years I’ve been here.”

“Oh, gee, if that’s what I can look forward to for eight years,” McKeon replied, “that’s just not satisfying.”

Bright Lights, Big Boots

A month after his election and a month before his swearing in, a wide-eyed McKeon arrived in Washington to begin his orientation.

From his hotel’s 11th-floor lounge, the view of the nearby Capitol--its enormous gleaming white dome bathed in brilliant light--was breathtaking at night.

“Every time he had a chance to go stand by the window in the restaurant and look at the Capitol, his heart started thumping and he got a twirl in his stomach,” said Armando Azarloza, McKeon’s campaign manager and soon-to-be district director.

“It was a sense of excitement about seeing the Capitol lit up at night and about his responsibility. Every time he had an opportunity, he’d take one of us over and show it to us. It became kind of a ritual.”

But McKeon was not so reverential about the indoctrination process.

Long and lean in a dark suit and black ostrich cowboy boots, McKeon discussed the orientation program one evening. He said the freshmen were repeatedly being advised about “what you should do for your career here.” That, he said, was not his frame of reference.

Referring to his trademark leather footwear, he’d told veteran Rep. Dick Armey (R-Texas) earlier that day: “If I hear some more of this, I’m going to get higher-topped ones.”

Conversely, he said he was struck by the consensus among the 47 GOP freshmen on the need for congressional term limits, a balanced budget amendment, a presidential line-item veto and reform of House committees. He would get a chance to sign on to Republican efforts on each of these fronts shortly after taking office.

The seduction of power, meanwhile, was not a worry.

“At this point in my life, I’ve been enough places that I’m hoping nothing will co-opt me here,” McKeon said with a wide grin.

Shortly thereafter, he strolled into a private reception for the GOP freshmen. The sponsors: political action committees representing defense contractors and other sectors of corporate America.

Tyranny of the Majority

A gap between expectations and reality has emerged in McKeon’s early experience with the ruling Democrats.

Shortly after voters in the heavily Republican 25th District gave him an overwhelming victory, he declared: “I got the message during the election that they’re tired of partisan bickering.”

He also praised some of President-elect Clinton’s objectives--the desire to revive the economy and create jobs through such measures as an investment tax credit and a capital gains tax cut.

Shortly after arriving, he met Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice President-elect Al Gore at a reception.

“I thought it was great that he was reaching out to meet new congressmen of both parties,” McKeon said of Clinton. Azarloza described his boss as “very impressed.”

McKeon was sworn in with the rest of the 103rd Congress on Jan. 5. Five of his six children made the trip for the occasion. Brittney, McKeon’s 2-year-old granddaughter, was in his arms, raising her right hand next to his when he took the oath.

But shortly thereafter, partisanship replaced good cheer as McKeon was introduced to the power of the Democratic majority. The issue was whether voting rights on the House floor should be extended to delegates from the District of Columbia, Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Puerto Rico--giving the Democrats additional votes.

The Republicans vociferously opposed this proposal. They pointed to the small populations of the territories and the fact that only the District of Columbia pays federal taxes. The Democrats responded by voting to allow the delegates to cast ballots unless they proved decisive.

“The arrogance of them,” a still-seething McKeon said the next day. “ ‘Do what you want to do. Say what you want to say. We got the votes.’ . . . It’s totally a pure power play and they have the power and they can do it.”

He brought that sentiment to his initial forum in the district on Jan. 30. He confessed to about 40 constituents at Santa Clarita City Hall: “I went back there as a nonpartisan and came back as a partisan.” One Democrat in attendance expressed disappointment that McKeon had engaged in “a lot of Democrat-bashing.”

Then came Clinton’s agenda. McKeon opposed the family and medical leave bill--the first measure the new President signed--as well as Clinton’s call to lift the ban on gays in the military. This was just a prelude for his response to the President’s economic program.

“I’m not happy with it,” McKeon said the day after Clinton’s Feb. 17 national address.

“We were elected at the same time but we seemed to get different messages. I got the message that people want government out of their lives. He’s calling for more government, more spending. . . . It would be disastrous for the country.”

The optimistic talk about working with the Democratic President already seemed long ago.

Settling In, Moving Up

McKeon has, however, made progress on various fronts.

On the sensitive task of office assignments, he just got lucky. He picked No. 6 out of 110 in a freshmen lottery in mid-December, giving him early choice for prime vacant office space. In a process resembling draft day in the National Football League, he, his wife, Patricia, and two future aides nervously sweated out the first three picks in the cavernous caucus room where the freshmen had gathered.

The criteria: size, attractiveness, proximity to committee hearing rooms, the Capitol and elevators (better yet, members-only elevators) and views.

“One congressman here told me he walked six, seven miles a day just to vote,” McKeon said as he waited for his number to be called.

He decided on a suite in the Cannon Office Building opposite the Capitol. Cannon 307 is a 1,003-square-foot warren down the hall from one of those exclusive elevators.

The office was being vacated by California Sen.-elect Barbara Boxer, one of the House’s most liberal Democrats. The irony was not lost on the conservative McKeon as he stood amid numerous Boxer plaques and awards and posters proclaiming “Peace is Patriotic” and the like.

More important were committee assignments, which determine the policy areas where a lawmaker will have a chance to develop expertise and seniority and to exercise clout.

Seeking to draw on his extensive business background, McKeon’s first choice was Energy and Commerce. This is a choice assignment because the panel deals with a broad range of finance, energy, technology, health and environmental issues. Not coincidentally, many members raise considerable campaign funds from interests the committee oversees.

McKeon downplayed his hope for this post because the odds were against him as a freshman.

He did lobby colleagues successfully, however, for a spot on Public Works--which is known for dispensing largess for highway, airport and water projects back home. McKeon said he would seek federal funds to improve the congested Antelope Valley Freeway and dangerous California 138, which runs across the Antelope Valley, and to expand Palmdale Regional Airport.

Why, he was asked last week, was this different than the pork barrel spending he railed against as a candidate? Is pork really only those projects that are in other members’ districts?

The query sent McKeon across his carpeted office to pull out a “Porkbusters’ Manual” by a group seeking to trim government waste. He read the litmus test aloud: No-no’s include projects that were not approved in a committee or subcommittee hearing or were inserted during a joint House and Senate conference session at the last minute. “Purely local projects with no national or regional impact” are also targeted.

McKeon vowed to seek funds through the normal legislative process--which he said means on the merits. And he maintained that each of his proposals has broad regional impact. The Antelope Valley Freeway, for instance, carries 40,000 to 50,000 cars--most of them constituents--daily from Palmdale and Lancaster through the Santa Clarita Valley to the city of Los Angeles.

These projects “have real significance for our district but meet these criteria,” McKeon said. “So they wouldn’t be called pork.”

The freshman was already able to hail one economic boost for his district. On Jan. 21, the Commerce Department designated Palmdale a Foreign Trade Zone, exempting manufacturers there from paying import duties on foreign parts used for products sold abroad. In a news release, McKeon said, “We have been working on this . . . for several years.”

In the interview, McKeon said he had been approached about this proposal by business leaders during last year’s campaign. After the election, he said he called other members of Congress who had previously represented Palmdale and contacted Commerce staffers “to let them know how important it was to our area.”

How significant was his role?

“I don’t know that I had any impact on the decision, but I was doing all I could to try to make it work,” McKeon said, showing un-congressional humility.

He was also low-key about his campaign to become Republican class president. An aide said the office did not alert the media about the race in case McKeon lost. And McKeon said he ran belatedly because he felt “a little bit guilty” initially sitting on the sidelines.

Yet, interviews and documents indicate he waged a well-executed campaign from early on. He mailed his initial letter to colleagues asking for their support on Dec. 28--a week before they took office--and sent a second mailing a month later. He told others his goal was “to ensure that our class acts as a cohesive body, as much as possible, under effective leadership.”

On Feb. 3, he defeated Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston. Colleagues said he had earned their trust--and mounted the most active campaign.

“He was the earliest candidate,” said interim class leader Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio). “I think he called every member and wrote everyone. He put the effort into mustering the votes is what it boiled down to. Kingston did not start as early and was not as persistent.”

Keeping Perspective

All California lawmakers face six-year term limits approved by voters last November. Most, including McKeon, believe this measure will eventually be thrown out by the courts.

McKeon, however, said before he got to Washington that he intends to remain only eight to 10 years in any case. He reiterated his determination last week not to get too enamored of the place or too caught up in its ways.

“I can compromise on certain things to get things done,” he said. “In fact, I like working together with people rather than being confrontational. But you can only compromise on things that don’t compromise your ultimate objective and your ultimate ideals.”

Had he seen anything thus far to make him change his mind about the decade-long timetable?

“I worry that if I start thinking I want to be here longer, then there’s something wrong,” McKeon said. “If you start falling in love with this place and you start falling in love with your self-importance, that’s indicative that maybe it’s time to look elsewhere. On the other hand, I haven’t felt that I’m ready to give up and quit either.”

Howard P. (Buck) McKeon

Born: Sept. 9, 1938.

District: Elected Nov. 3, 1992, to represent the 25th Congressional District, which encompasses the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys and a portion of the northwest San Fernando Valley. McKeon serves on the Public Works and Transportation and Education and Labor committees.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in business production, Brigham Young University.

Personal: Co-owner, along with four brothers, of Howard & Phil’s Western Wear, a chain of clothing stores. Former chairman of the board of Valencia National Bank, board member of William S. Hart Union High School District (1979-1987) and Santa Clarita city councilman (1987-1992). Also served as Santa Clarita’s first mayor. He and his wife of 30 years, Patricia, have six children.