Voters Mad as Hell, and Waxman’s Taking It : Politics: At a public forum, irate constituents’ questions run the gamut from pertinent to peculiar.

Rep. Henry Waxman came home from Washington last week to talk to the folks who sent him there.

Nearly all the 240 seats at the Santa Monica College auditorium were filled for this freewheeling 1 1/2-hour session June 3. He told his listeners what was going on in the Halls of Congress; they told him what was on their minds.

Did they ever.

Questions. Speeches. Diatribes. Tears. Waxman heard it all. If this group was at all representative, people remain mad as hell at the way things are going in Washington, including on many fronts over which Waxman said he has little or no control.

“I wish I had as much power as people sometimes think I have,” he said. Though he may not be all-powerful, Waxman does wield considerable clout in Washington. As a 10-term U.S. representative who is chairman of the key House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and the environment, Waxman, 53, is one of the most powerful Democratic members of Congress.

When it comes to voter registration numbers, Waxman’s district is Democrat heaven, but at times Thursday night he must have thought he had landed in Republican hell. Except, that is, for periods when he appeared to have entered a Twilight Zone for the politically and emotionally off the wall.

The occasion was the first in a series of six town-hall-style meetings in Waxman’s district, which covers virtually all the Westside. They are the first such events Waxman (D-Los Angeles) has had in about a decade.

The first set of invitations went out via postcards to all registered voters in Santa Monica and just beyond--among the new parts of Waxman’s 29th Congressional District.

So what was on the minds of Westsiders? Everything from chaparral tea being banned from health food stores to the pressing need for the federal government to license fitness instructors at local health clubs.

One man proclaimed that all doctors are “quacks . . . who don’t know anything about nothing.” Another insisted that mammograms cause cancer.

A 78-year-old woman asked Waxman to hold up all federal grants to Santa Monica until the “asses” who run “The Republic of Santa Monica” let her do what she wants with her property.

This same woman said she was upset about something else as well: why the offspring of women who “come across the border and drop their babies” are granted American citizenship.

“The Constitution provides that anyone born in this country is a citizen,” Waxman responded. “Some people want to change that. I disagree.”

The reaction from the crowd indicated that this was not a popular answer.

Though the night’s topics hopped about from health care to the homeless to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the two themes most on the minds of this group were immigration and alternative medicine.

The mood was angry. Consider the following (slightly condensed) series of exchanges:

Woman in audience: “What are you going to do to close our borders tight to illegal aliens and drug-runners?”

Waxman: “I voted for the Simpson-Mazzoli bill--”

Man in audience yells out: “It doesn’t work!”

Waxman: (That’s because there was never enough money allocated to patrol the borders.) “We now have a runaway situation of undocumented aliens coming into this country. We have to stop it. . . .”

Next question (from homeless activist Len Doucette): “Most people working on government-funded projects don’t even speak English. We should have a law to force contractors to hire people from this locality who are homeless.”

Waxman: “Just because someone doesn’t speak English doesn’t mean they’re here illegally.”

Man in audience retorts: “Ten out of ten times it does.”

Comment from the audience: “Everyone not an American Indian is an illegal alien.”

And so it went.

There appeared to be a large contingent present of devotees of vitamins, dietary supplements and other so-called homeopathic remedies. They have been dogging Waxman lately over a bill he sponsored.

These critics accused Waxman of trying to pass a law that would require a prescription for such substances. He insisted again and again at the meeting that his bill does no such thing and that he opposes limiting the availability of these substances.

To a man who suggested these products should be able to make any claim they wanted, Waxman responded, “I don’t agree with you. . . . You shouldn’t be able to sell colored water and say it will cure cancer.”

At another point, an angry man in the audience said, “Chemotherapy--that’s the real quackery.”

More mainstream topics such as the economy and the nation’s ailing health care system also were covered. But whatever the topic, Waxman handled it with the humor and aplomb of a veteran legislator, even when under attack.

When Waxman was challenged to explain why it was necessary to accept thousands (it’s actually millions) from Political Action Committees (PACS) to vote for what’s right, he was unflinching.

Instead of glossing over the hot topic of the influence of the PACS, which are unpopular with voters, Waxman defended them as necessary to fund campaigns until the system is reformed--reforms he said he supports.

“I think PACS are given a bad rap,” Waxman said. “(They are) organizations with certain points of view, and they’ve gotten together to push their points of view.”

Since he doesn’t need much money to hold his own seat, Waxman said, he gives a lot of it away to less well-heeled candidates who share his point of view.

Sometimes, Waxman was stumped by the questions. In such cases, as well as in hearing constituents with individual problems with the federal bureaucracy, Waxman invited them to call his local staff. If even only some of them do, the staff is going to be quite busy this week. Perhaps that is why Waxman balked at a suggestion he cut the staff’s salaries.

“They earn their salaries, and they deserve it,” Waxman said. When the audience applauded, he added, “I think those were my staff people.”

Before wading into the lively question period, Waxman gave a brief overview of what he’s up to in Washington, including, he said, noodling with Hillary Rodham Clinton over how to solve the health care crisis.

He gave her rave reviews as “one of the most impressive people I’ve met.” The First Lady, Waxman said, has a masterful grasp of the policy questions surrounding the health care issue, along with an equal understanding of its public relations and political aspects.

As for Hillary’s husband, Waxman admitted he did not agree with everything President Clinton has done, but pleaded for tolerance from the voters as the President gets his sea legs in the job. “We need to give him the benefit of the doubt and work with him,” Waxman said.

With what did Waxman disagree? That expensive haircut, for one. “I’m shocked at people spending $20 for a haircut, let alone $200,” the congressman said. Waxman, whose own locks are in notably short supply, has his hair trimmed at the House barbershop for $10.