McKeon Accepts Presidential Invitation, but Is Left With Regrets

The Buck Stops Here: When he got an invitation to attend President Clinton’s recent visit to Los Angeles Valley College, Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon figured that “when the President calls, you should support him”--even if he’s from a different political party. So the Santa Clarita Republican refrained from taking his usual post-weekend flight back to Washington with the hope that he might get a few moments to discuss his mutual interest in defense conversion with the Democratic chief executive. It was a decision he regretted. McKeon says he was given wrong directions, mistakenly led to a room with local Democratic officials and then made to wait an hour while Clinton toured a job training program. He was not permitted to join Clinton on the tour. Finally, when the President introduced the lawmakers in attendance, he mispronounced McKeon’s name. “I don’t know whether they’re disorganized or whether they thought I was a Democrat and found out otherwise,” said a miffed McKeon, who is president of the 48-member GOP freshman class. “All I did was go there and hear his speech, which I could have heard on C-Span.” Susan Brophy, White House deputy director of legislative affairs, called the episode “a screw-up” and apologized to McKeon. She said that she was told--erroneously--by the advance people that McKeon was not present and that none of the lawmakers joined Clinton on the tour (which, it turns out, is not true: Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson of Woodland Hills and two other Democrats did accompany the President). In any case, Brophy noted that McKeon had been invited to a lunch along with his Democratic colleagues that Clinton attended, but that the congressman declined to stay for it. “It just had to do with logistics and not party identification,” Brophy insisted. “If he wanted to see the President or get a couple of minutes with him, I would have made sure that happened.”

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A cut below: Beilenson, meanwhile, spent the entire day with Clinton’s entourage in Los Angeles and, along with the other Democratic lawmakers, accepted the President’s invitation to return to Washington on Air Force One. As he boarded the plane, Beilenson recalled, “There was Christophe”--the Beverly Hills stylist to the stars who gave Clinton a now-infamous $200 runway trim. The decidedly un-Christophean Beilenson took some ribbing from his staff but insisted he had not received a haircut on the President’s plane as well. “I got one yesterday from Mary at Scissorsmith” on Capitol Hill, Beilenson reported this week. He paid $20. “It seemed to me, until recently, to be an awful lot,” he said of Mary’s going rate. “I feel much better knowing that it’s possible to pay so much more.”

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Strange bedfellows: It isn’t often that Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), one of the most liberal members of Congress, and Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale), one of the most conservative, join forces on a social issue. But that’s what happened recently when they co-sponsored a measure to provide $300 million for emergency medical care for low-income illegal immigrants--at least half of which would flow to California. The two lawmakers pulled this off through an amendment in the massive budget reconciliation bill that made this a one-year entitlement program. This followed pleas by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson for this and other federal funds for immigrant payments required by national laws. Attacked for his role on this issue as a business-as-usual spendthrift in a column by conservative commentator Robert Novak, Moorhead was clearly on the defensive. “I’m the last guy in the world who wants to spend money. I’m the last guy in the world who wants more entitlements,” Moorhead protested. But, he said, “The federals are responsible for immigration. They set the rules on immigration. They control immigration. They also control the border that’s allowing illegals to come across. There’s no reason why the state of California should pay for this federal policy totally out of the pocketbooks of the people of California.”

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Free trade cross-currents: The hotly debated North American Free Trade Agreement has broken down the usual partisan alliances amid competing claims that it will siphon thousands of U. S. jobs to Mexico or, alternatively, open new markets south of the border and eventually create well-paying jobs in this country. Valley congressional Republicans reflect this split. Moorhead and McKeon, normally ideological brethren, appear divided: Moorhead is strongly inclined to back the proposed treaty and McKeon is leaning against it. Moorhead said that he is waiting for the Clinton Administration to hammer out side agreements to enhance environmental safeguards and workers’ rights. “The jobs are going south right now without NAFTA because of the cheaper wages down there,” Moorhead said. “If we help the Mexican economy in the long run, as well as ours, their wages are going to come up and the advantages of moving the jobs down there” may be eliminated. McKeon is not persuaded. “Our district has been hit so hard with job loss,” he said. “We’re so close to Mexico that people might move down there.” He agreed with Moorhead, however, that the treaty might help stem illegal immigration in the long run by promoting increased economic opportunity in Mexico. Democrats Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), Waxman and Beilenson are each inclined to endorse the treaty--if the pending agreements resolve their concerns. Despite considerable opposition among constituents concerned about job migration, Beilenson said that NAFTA would remove Mexico’s higher trade barriers and pave the way for increased U. S. exports. Alternatively, he said that defeat for the proposed pact “would have potentially cataclysmic results: it might bring on a trade war.”