NEWS ANALYSIS : Roberti Turns Into Champion of Valley Causes

State Sen. David A. Roberti has succeeded as a politician for nearly three decades by keeping in touch with what matters most to his constituents back home in Los Angeles.

As the longtime representative of the Hollywood area and its many renters, Democrat Roberti repeatedly blocked measures by apartment owners to weaken tough rent control ordinances.

When Roberti switched districts last year, winning a hard-fought special election victory for a Senate seat in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, he quickly tuned in to a new set of priorities.

In short order, Roberti tapped into frustration with the Los Angeles Unified School District and parents’ demands for more local control and emerged as a crusader to split up the nation’s second-largest school district.

Last week, an Assembly committee scuttled Roberti’s legislation to break up the district. But even in defeat, the Senate leader has emerged a winner with many of his new constituents.

For years, the issue has languished on the back burner because it was largely the province of Valley Republican lawmakers in the Democrat-controlled Legislature.

By immersing himself in the cause, Roberti split with his traditional liberal allies in the labor union movement and in the African-American and Latino communities, where many oppose the breakup because they fear it would promote segregated education.

As president pro tem of the Senate, Roberti had the clout to move the measure out of the Legislature’s upper chamber. In doing so, he gave backers a ray of hope that, for the first time in 23 years, breakup legislation might reach the governor’s desk. In 1970, Gov. Ronald Reagan vetoed a bill to carve up the district, a proposal opposed by then-Assemblyman Roberti.

Roberti explains his transformation into a critic of Los Angeles schools this way: “My old (Senate) district was composed of people who were either very affluent and didn’t send their kids to public school anymore . . . or, conversely, very poor people who weren’t voters.

“So, the frustration of parents with the school system was articulated but it never came home to me to the extent it did when I moved into the Valley, which is essentially a middle-class area of homeowners where people who vote still send their kids to public schools and expect them to function. That’s the first thing they are going to complain to their senator about.”

Roberti wants to create a commission that would devise a breakup plan and then put it on the ballot. But despite his perch as Senate leader, Roberti last week failed to push his bill through the Assembly Education Committee, dominated by appointees of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), a staunch opponent of dismantling the 640,000-student school district.

Regardless, many observers believe that Roberti scored political points by carrying the breakup banner. He raised his visibility, cemented his new political base in the vote-rich Valley, where the breakup movement was born, and restyled himself as a moderate whom voters around the state might now find more appealing should he seek higher office.

“The people of the Valley embrace the senator as a breath of fresh air,” said Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills), a staunch conservative and Roberti ally on the school district issue.

One veteran state official who has kept close tabs on the breakup fight described Roberti as coming out a winner because he has “tried to do something about the problem. Whether he succeeds or not, he’s seen as a political crusader.”

In the Capitol, Roberti is viewed as a pragmatic insider who has held together the Senate Democratic majority for 13 years by rewarding his friends with committee chairmanships and doling out sizable campaign contributions.

Also as Senate leader, Roberti has seen two of his former committee chairmen, Alan Robbins of Van Nuys and Joseph B. Montoya of Whittier, sent to federal prison on political corruption charges. The conviction of a third, Paul B. Carpenter, was set aside and he is scheduled to be retried.

The conviction and resignation of Robbins, the Valley’s most visible standard-bearer in the Senate, prompted the special election won by Roberti. With the school measure, Roberti has assumed the mantle of Valley defender in the Legislature.

One of the Capitol’s most popular guessing games is whether Roberti will use the breakup fight to bolster his career. Because of term limits, he cannot seek reelection next year. But he appears well-positioned to run for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors or a statewide office.

If he decides to seek another office, he would probably step aside as Senate leader. In fact, rumors abound that he has reached a private deal to allow state Sen. William Lockyer (D-Hayward) to succeed him.

Roberti would carry some liabilities into a Democratic primary election. He is a longtime abortion foe, faces the threat of a recall by groups angered by his efforts to ban assault weapons, and continues to maintain a home in Los Feliz--outside his new district--as well as a residence in Van Nuys.

Roberti maintained that he jumped into the breakup fight because “the schools are a disaster,” not to advance himself. But asked if it has given him a shot in the arm, Roberti chuckled: “I hope so.”

Profile: David A. Roberti

* Born: May 4, 1939, in Hollywood.

* Residences: Van Nuys and Los Feliz.

* Education: Bachelor’s degree in political science, Loyola University; law doctorate, USC law school.

* Personal: Married, no children. A liberal Democrat and devout Roman Catholic.

* Career highlights: Clerk to Justice Robert Kingsley, state Court of Appeal, 1964-65; deputy state attorney general, 1965-66; assemblyman, 1966-1971; state senator, 1971-present. Senate president pro tem, 1980-present. Chairman of Senate Rules Committee; member of Senate Judiciary Committee.

After he had represented the Hollywood area for more than 20 years, his district was eliminated by reapportionment in 1992. He won election to the San Fernando Valley’s 20th Senate District in a special election after the resignation of state Sen. Alan Robbins. Under voter-approved term limits, Roberti must leave the upper house in 1994.

* Quote: “I neither aspire, nor desire, to cut the ties between the schools in the Valley and Los Angeles. The aim of my legislation is to ensure that every child, regardless of where he or she may go to school, be provided with the opportunity to experience quality education.”