McKeon Criticized at Meeting Over His Vote Backing NAFTA : Politics: The congressman wanted to use the occasion to focus on future legislation, but Perot supporters used it to protest.

Ross Perot backers assailed Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) at a public meeting Friday night for voting in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

McKeon had hoped to use the Antelope Valley meeting--and similar meetings today in Northridge and Santa Clarita--to focus on future legislation.

But Perot supporters, smarting from McKeon’s surprise decision to vote for the trade pact, used the occasion to protest.

“Buck says he wants to look to the future,” said Mary Hockensmith, Antelope Valley coordinator for United We Stand America, the Perot-founded advocacy group. “But we want to talk about NAFTA.”

And that’s a problem for McKeon in the 25th Congressional District with its vocal United We Stand America chapters and partisans. The 25th District includes the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys and part of the San Fernando Valley.

McKeon, who faces reelection next year, was repeatedly challenged Friday night over his NAFTA vote, and today United We Stand America plans to picket McKeon’s Santa Clarita field office.

“Your vote on NAFTA took away all the good part,” retired industrial engineer Earle Stratford of Palmdale told McKeon, after acknowledging that he liked many other parts of the congressman’s voting record.

Others, such as Halim Shams, drew applause when they told McKeon of their disappointment with his NAFTA vote. “Why did you change your mind at the last minute?” Shams asked.

Replying to the complaints, McKeon said his vote was “not based on politics or anything else but what was best for the country.” NAFTA, he said, should be good for the American economy and help curb illegal immigration.

Earlier in the evening, McKeon said the NAFTA vote was the hardest one he has cast since going to Washington and that a key factor in his decision was Perot’s unconvincing performance in his debate on the issue with Vice President Al Gore.

McKeon also said he regretted deciding early in his 1992 election campaign to oppose NAFTA because he did not know enough at the time to make an informed decision. “I will not make a snap decision like that anymore,” McKeon promised the audience.

Still, McKeon advisers say their worries over a NAFTA backlash are subsiding. “We thought there’d be more calls and letters,” said one of adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Armando Azarloza, McKeon’s press secretary, also has grown more confident. “It’s a small minority of United We Stand America that are a problem,” Azarloza said Friday. “They’re very fanatic. But this one vote is not going to make a campaign against his reelection. It’s not going to be his political albatross.”

This is a more optimistic assessment of the political damage than the one given by McKeon himself when he announced his decision to vote for NAFTA. The freshman congressman said then that he believed he would pay a heavy price politically for doing so, declaring that his own political fate was less important than doing the right thing on the NAFTA vote.

Now, however, those in the McKeon camp believe the damage is manageable and perhaps minimal, and they are breathing easier. “We’re now looking forward to binding the threads together again,” said Azarloza, who maintains that McKeon and United We Stand America still have much in common.

For instance, both advocate Populist-style political reforms, including reducing costly congressional bureaucracies and giving junior Republicans with fresh ideas greater opportunities to serve as committee leaders, Azarloza said. “These are issues where we agree with the Perot community,” Azarloza said.

Even Hockensmith, an Antelope Valley homemaker who said she can’t imagine forgiving McKeon for his NAFTA vote, conceded that United We Stand America was pleased with McKeon’s support of a measure that finally makes so-called discharge petition records public. The secrecy of these records had long annoyed reformers who claim it has encouraged congressional duplicity.

(A petition must be signed by 218 House members before any legislation can be considered by the full House. According to critics, members sometimes championed legislation publicly to gain political points, while at the same time working against the same bill by refusing to sign the discharge petitions, which until recently were secret documents).

But the key issue is still NAFTA, Hockensmith said. “I haven’t gone anywhere in this town without hearing people say they’d like to give Buck a quick kick in the tush. People feel they were double-crossed by him.”

Brian Ages, membership coordinator for United We Stand America in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys, agreed.

McKeon’s NAFTA vote was bad enough, but making it worse was that he led the Perot people to believe he was leaning in their favor until six days before the House vote, Ages said. Then, McKeon was seduced by Clinton Administration promises of financial aid for the district, Ages contends.

“To me that’s crooked government,” Ages said.

McKeon has acknowledged talking with Clinton Administration officials on funding for transportation projects in his district but has denied that he received any promises of aid in return for his vote.