Area Lawmakers Did Some Horse-Trading Before Vote : Politics: Battle over the treaty created unexpected opportunities and pitfalls for Valley congressmen.

Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) says he had already made up his mind to vote for the high-stakes North American Free Trade Agreement.

But two days prior to announcing his decision Friday, McKeon said he received a phone call from Transportation Secretary Frederico F. Pena asking if Pena could “be helpful.”

Aware of the Clinton Administration’s frantic effort to corral undecided votes through old-fashioned horse-trading, McKeon told Pena that there were in fact some highway projects in his district that were personal priorities.

“We’re in the process of talking,” McKeon acknowledged hours before the historic vote Wednesday. But the freshman congressman, who ran last year as a government reformer, insisted: “There is no deal.”

McKeon’s experience is but one example of the way that the hand-to-hand political combat over the treaty to create a hemispheric free trade zone created unexpected opportunity and political pitfalls for San Fernando Valley area lawmakers leading up to the pact’s passage.

The scrambled politics of the NAFTA debate also saw Republicans McKeon and Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) join a majority of their GOP colleagues to give Democratic President Clinton a desperately sought victory and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) oppose an Administration with which he is closely allied on health-care reform and other issues.

Earlier, it led Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) to break ranks with his longtime organized labor allies to back the pact and Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) to risk antagonizing labor and supporters of former presidential candidate Ross Perot by doing so as well. They were among the first California Democrats to announce their support.

This was only the second time in three years that veteran liberal allies Waxman and Berman went separate ways on a highly charged vote. Berman also broke ranks with the majority of Democrats to vote for the Gulf War in 1991; Waxman voted against it.

Beilenson and Berman disclosed their support in late September, when opposition was high prior to Clinton’s recent concerted push to influence public opinion as well as lawmakers. McKeon and Moorhead, both of whom had said they were leaning against the measure, jumped in as polls showed that sentiment was more evenly divided.

Most of the Valley area members reported that their correspondence indicated a recent shift in sentiment within their districts from strongly anti-NAFTA to slightly opposed or evenly divided. McKeon’s office received 200 calls a day this week, with 55% opposing NAFTA; for the year, McKeon’s tally stands at 2,272 against, versus only 1,154 in favor.

But each of the four congressmen who voted for the proposal to gradually phase out trade barriers among the United States, Mexico and Canada say that they expect to pay a political price even though they feel they did the right thing. Each said the measure will create jobs, increase trade and help stem illegal immigration.

Waxman cited health, environment and labor concerns in voting against the pact. He had repeatedly urged Clinton to scrap the proposal and renegotiate a better agreement.

Moorhead, an 11-term lawmaker who has felt more electoral heat than usual in recent years, waited until the eve of the vote to announce his decision. “I’m worn out,” he lamented Wednesday. “I’ve had about all I need.”

In contrast to the strident partisanship that marked last summer’s budget battle, the NAFTA showdown provided both McKeon and Moorhead with unaccustomed clout and access to the highest levels of the Democratic Administration. The two conservatives used it in different ways.

At a Sunday dinner at the White House, Moorhead said he pursued a longtime concern by pressing Clinton to increase resources at the border to combat illegal immigration. He also said he discussed the issue of repatriating Mexican felons to serve their time in prisons in their homeland--a process that Clinton said the Administration was working on.

By then, though, Moorhead said he had decided to vote for NAFTA as best for the country.

“I can’t think of anything that’s more important to Southern California in the long run than getting control of this illegal alien problem,” Moorhead said. “People don’t like to hear about back-room deals on this. But if you’ve decided to vote for something, that’s a horse of a different color.”

McKeon invoked that rationale as well. But he took a somewhat more parochial approach.

The former Santa Clarita mayor and businessman said he was becoming increasingly convinced that NAFTA would create jobs--despite a campaign pledge he had made to oppose it “with no information.” But he had also let Administration lobbyists for NAFTA know that he was interested in federal assistance for highway projects in his 25th District.

“I do understand the way the system works here, and if there are things being done for districts, then I would certainly like to have something done for my district,” McKeon said. “I wouldn’t let something like that determine my vote, but when I know they need votes and I’m going to vote that way anyway, it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

He said Pena never mentioned NAFTA but said he “heard that I was interested in something (and) he indicated he wanted to be helpful.” McKeon said subsequently his staff was working with Pena’s aides “to see if there’s any way they can be helpful in expediting anything.”

In his discussion, McKeon focused on the proposed construction of an interchange on California 126 that would link the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways north of the Santa Clarita Valley and create a new east-west corridor. McKeon has been seeking to get the interchange included in the Administration’s National Highway Systems plan, a comprehensive transportation blueprint that the Transportation Department is scheduled to release Dec. 18.

McKeon said he was uncertain what form the Administration’s help might take--or whether it will be forthcoming. A spokesman for Pena could not be reached Wednesday.

McKeon’s late announcement particularly angered the activists in Perot’s United We Stand America in his district.

“We’re outraged because he led us to believe all the way up until last Monday that he was going to vote ‘no’ on it and keep his campaign promise,” said Jim Stroud, the group’s coordinator for McKeon’s district.

He said the group was already “trying to see if there’s someone we can run against him.” He said a campaign to boycott the Western clothing chain that McKeon and his brothers own had been discussed. McKeon said unsigned signs and flyers urging such a boycott had already begun to appear around his stores in the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

Berman said his friends in the labor movement went to extraordinary lengths to sway him. He recalled telling them that he traced his commitment to free trade to his days at UCLA when he read the classic economics textbook by Paul Samuelson. The labor leaders then tracked down the Nobel Prize-winning economist to ask him to call Berman and urge him to oppose NAFTA.

Their effort was for naught: Samuelson told them that he himself supported the treaty.