Politicians Who Ignore Valley Voters Pay the Price : In a region known for spirited grass-roots movements, officials have been swept in and out of office because of the heated issues of the day.

As we approach the elections of 1994, the issues that will guide the San Fernando Valley’s voters are already obvious: taxation, illegal immigration and the ineffectiveness of the behemoth Los Angeles Unified School District.

Our unpopular governor has begun his climb from the depths of the popularity polls on the immigration issue. Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), who for several years has been a proponent of calling out the National Guard to defend our borders, should fare well because of his ongoing concern over this issue.

Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills) and state Sen. David Roberti (D-Van Nuys) have been in the forefront of efforts to dismantle the Los Angeles Unified School District into smaller, more manageable districts. Concern over schools has always been a major issue within the suburban communities in the Valley. This effort will surely cement Boland’s and Roberti’s popularity and perhaps catapult challengers in other districts into office.

As always in off-year elections, the President’s party will surely take some losses, perhaps heavier losses than anyone imagines. With a few good candidates, this might be the time for Valley voters to unseat the entrenched Democratic Congressmen Henry Waxman and Howard Berman and their pal Anthony Beilenson.

Bill Clinton did these men no favors by going back on most of his campaign promises. It was at Valley College in May that the national press lionized two angry hecklers who confronted Clinton, shouting, “You broke your promise!” How our elected representatives respond to Clinton’s broken promises and runaway taxation plans will be watched carefully by the Valley’s astute electorate.

Such at least is one view of the year ahead. It should be noted that in being motivated by these issues, the often-maligned Valley electorate is acting in the mainstream tradition of U.S. politics, out of concern for their own well-being and that of their families.

It’s true that local elected officials in the Valley have often been swept in and out of office by the day’s heated issues.

Does this indicate character flaws among the voters? Are we intolerant? Naive? Divisive? Hardly. Our willingness to make a change reflects the ire of an electorate often treated with patronizing contempt by its elected representatives.

When the rest of the country has settled for the status quo, still complaining about government but seldom willing to take the lead in enacting change, grass-roots movements originating in the Valley have taken the country by storm.

In 1978 homeowners suffering from the crush of ever-increasing property taxes passed Proposition 13, the most significant tax revolt since the Boston Tea Party. The greatest margins of victory were in the bedroom communities of the San Fernando Valley. A tide of similar measures swept the country.

Valley voters also sent a team from their ranks to Sacramento to watch for the spending and taxing shenanigans that had brought about this revolt in the first place. Those freshman assemblymen, known as the “Proposition 13 Babies” (derisively referred to as the “Cavemen” by their opponents), showed a commendable unwillingness to yield on basic principles.

Controversy over forced busing raged through most of the ‘70s across the country, particularly in the Valley. Incensed parents organized to fight, and one organizer, Bobbi Fiedler, was soon elected to the school board. A few years later, voters turned Jim Corman out of Congress in favor of Fiedler. Voters saw her as more in touch with their concerns than an incumbent politician bent on bringing home the pork in the form of federal spending.

In the presidential elections of 1992 voters were disillusioned by President Bush’s broken “No New Taxes” pledge. But none of the Valley’s Republican Assembly members were turned out of office, because they had adequately addressed the concerns of their constituents: crime and taxation. Boland and Nolan were easily reelected, and Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) went on to the state Senate.

The elected officials who have supported grass-roots movements in the San Fernando Valley have fared well, while those who have held a contemptuous and condescending opposition to the voters’ concerns have been turned out of office. Here in the Valley, the democratic form of government continues to work effectively in the way the Founding Fathers envisioned.