A Sidelined Rosenthal Weighs Options for a Comeback Effort

THE LAST HURRAH?After nearly 20 years as a lawmaker, Sen. Herschel Rosenthal is looking for a new political home. When his district was redrawn last year in the once-a-decade reapportionment, the Democrat believed he had found the perfect spot to finish his career: the new 23rd District, which covers Studio City to Westlake Village in the San Fernando Valley.

But the voters thought otherwise and Rosenthal lost the seat to fellow Democrat Tom Hayden in a bitterly contested election.

Conventional wisdom in the Capitol has been that the 75-year-old political veteran, first elected to the Assembly in 1974, would not seek reelection in 1994. But Rosenthal says it’s too soon to count him out.

Rosenthal says he hasn’t “made a final decision” but is weighing several options for 1994, including a campaign for the 20th District seat now occupied by Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys), who is prohibited by term limits from seeking reelection.

Before making up his mind, Rosenthal says, he wants to determine the plans of two other potential Senate contenders: Democratic Assembly members Richard Katz of Sylmar and Barbara Friedman of Los Angeles.

Rosenthal, part of the loosely knit political organization of U. S. Reps. Howard Berman and Henry Waxman, says he would not run against Friedman, who also has close political ties to the Berman-Waxman group.

“Or I just may want to do something else,” says Rosenthal, adding that he’s also been encouraged by friends to weigh whether to run in another open seat in East Los Angeles, far from his political base in West Los Angeles and the Valley.

ROBERTI WATCH: Predicting Sen. David A. Roberti’s next political move is one of the state Capitol’s most popular guessing games. The Van Nuys Democrat’s future is the subject of numerous rumors because term limits prohibit him from seeking reelection in 1994.

Roberti watchers say a partial list of his political options includes:

* The State Board of Equalization, an obscure but powerful taxing agency.

* The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors seat now held by Ed Edelman.

* The state Assembly seat now held by Democrat Richard Katz, who is regarded as a potential candidate for Roberti’s Senate seat.

Or the 54-year-old attorney might drop out of elective politics entirely to practice law or seek an appointment to the federal bench from President Clinton.

In recent weeks, most of the attention has been focused on the possibility of Roberti seeking a statewide office.

Several weeks ago, Roberti’s friends say, he was flirting with a campaign to succeed Bill Honig as state superintendent of public instruction. Roberti could use the school chief’s job as a bully pulpit to press for his controversial bill to break up the massive Los Angeles Unified School District into smaller districts.

More recently, however, those close to Roberti are saying he’s become increasingly intrigued at the prospect of campaigning for state controller, a job now held by Gray Davis, who is considering a run for lieutenant governor, or state treasurer, now held by Kathleen Brown, who is expected to run for governor.

One potential snag is that once Roberti announces his plans, especially if he decides to run for another office, he’ll probably be forced to step down as Senate president pro tem, a leadership position that gives him high visibility and the ability to attract sizable campaign contributions.

One persistent rumor is that Roberti already has arranged for an orderly transition of power, agreeing to help Sen. William Lockyer (D-Hayward) eventually succeed him as Senate leader.

Roberti, who just helped cobble together the state budget compromise, is not making announcements about his plans. His staff cites past statements in which the veteran lawmaker has said that seeking statewide office is a possibility depending upon which incumbents do not run.

HAYDEN MAKES WAVES: Sen. Hayden isn’t typically on the social circuit of receptions and Sacramento fund-raisers. So it came as something of a surprise to Hayden that he was among 25 to 30 California lawmakers to receive an invitation from seven of the state’s giant utility companies “for a superb evening of cruising and dining” later this month during the National Conference of State Legislatures in San Diego.

“We will board the luxury yacht The Entertainer beginning at 5:45 p.m. for our gourmet dinner and entertainment cruise of San Diego Harbor,” reads the letter on Southern California Edison Co. stationary.

Never one at a loss for words, the reform-minded Hayden, who had initially considered going to the convention, shot off a sharply worded response. He maintained that the interests of Edison’s customers were not being “served by this kind of extravagant wining and dining of susceptible politicians” and turned down the invitation.

Hayden, who owns an electric car, urged Edison to provide politicians with a ride in an electric vehicle and ask them to require cars that don’t emit pollutants into the air. “Then, I would have something to toast you about--on dry land, of course,” Hayden said.

That triggered a response from Jim Cassie, an official with San Diego Gas & Electric, which is co-sponsoring the cruise. Cassie said that his firm plans to have a number of compressed-natural-gas vehicles available for demonstration rides at the convention. He also assured Hayden that his firm works “very hard to make sure ratepayer dollars are not used for lobbying type activities such as the dinner cruise.”

Hayden, however, is not about to let up on scolding the utilities, saying “the whole affair still casts an appearance of extravagant collusions between politicians and those they regulate. Even though ratepayer funds are not used, it is impossible to conceive how ratepayer interests are served.”

Lew Phelps, Edison vice president of corporate communications, dismissed Hayden’s rebuke, saying the lawmaker “is trying to turn a small desert lizard into Tyrannosaurus Rex.”