Waxman, Beilenson Districts Hit Hard by Clinton Tax Hikes

The affluent Valley areas represented by lawmakers Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) and Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) are among the 10 districts nationwide hit hardest by the tax increases on high-income people under President Clinton’s five-year economic plan.

Waxman’s largely Westside 29th District ranked second among 435 nationwide, with 22,714 taxpayers facing higher income taxes. Beilenson’s 24th District, extending from Sherman Oaks to Thousand Oaks, was ninth, with 12,749 paying higher rates.

Both lawmakers voted for the plan last summer, citing the need to reduce the budget deficit by nearly $500 billion over five years as well as increasing tax progressivity.

A recent study by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, calculated the cumulative five-year income and Medicare tax increase in every district. Residents of Waxman’s district will pay $2.3 billion more in taxes; Beilenson’s constituents, $1.3 billion.

A Treasury Department official could not confirm these figures but said it was hardly surprising that “districts with relatively wealthy people find a lot of people paying higher rates.” The effect on Waxman’s district is 1,058% of the national median; the figure for Beilenson’s district is 594%, Heritage said.

Nevertheless, a Waxman aide said the lawmaker’s constituents overwhelmingly supported the tax hike. The same cannot be said for Beilenson’s more moderate district.

At the same time, Heritage did not cite the number of low-income constituents who will benefit from Clinton’s expansion of the earned income tax credit.

However, according to the Treasury Department, the figure in Waxman’s district is 69,487; in Beilenson’s, 23,270. These individuals will receive considerably smaller sums than those facing higher taxes will pay.

The 27th District of Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) ranks 28th in the nation with 7,830 people paying higher income taxes and increased income and Medicare taxes totaling $805 million. The 25th District of Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) ranked 73rd with 4,966 paying higher income taxes and increased taxes of $511 million.

In Moorhead’s district, 41,404 residents will benefit from the expanded earned income tax credit; the figure in McKeon’s district is 22,324. Both voted against the Clinton proposal.

Rep. Howard L. Berman’s (D-Panorama City) lower-income 26th District, meanwhile, ranked 355th nationally with 1,331 people paying more income taxes and residents facing $136 million more in taxes overall. In contrast, 44,350 constituents will receive more in earned income tax credits. Berman supported the budget plan.

*

MAKING MOUNTAINS: Gov. Pete Wilson’s appointment of Richard Sybert to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has drawn quick bipartisan fire as a sign that Sybert is part of a Sacramento old-boys network.

Sybert, a former top aide to Wilson, is the all-but-announced GOP candidate for the seat of Rep. Beilenson. He has already been endorsed by several local GOP leaders. “Clearly, Richard Sybert will reap some advantages from his partisan Pete Wilson appointment,” snapped Craig Miller, political adviser to Beilenson. But Sybert “no doubt will also discover some disadvantages to his background as a Sacramento insider,” Miller continued.

Sybert, who loaned his campaign more than $300,000 of his own money, has also taken some shots from fellow Republican Robert K. Hammer, a Newbury Park-based banking consultant who also hankers to win the GOP primary for the Beilenson seat. The voters, Hammer recently said in reaction to the conservancy appointment, don’t want a candidate with all Sybert’s evident “political ties and strings” to Sacramento and to the politicians responsible for “California’s economic debacle.”

*

SUPPORTING THE UNDERDOG: What office state Sen. President Pro Tem David A. Roberti runs for matters little to Virginia Handley, the state coordinator for Fund for Animals. The cold truth for Handley and other animal rights activists is that, in either case, they will be losing their chief legislative ally, who--due to term limits--is shedding his role as top dog of the Senate.

During his 13-year Senate reign, the Democrat from Van Nuys built a reputation as a shrewd deal maker, not only on behalf of fellow party members but for needier constituents. He fought to preserve rent control, funding for latchkey children and the renters’ tax credit. Lesser known to the general public was that Roberti also emerged as the Legislature’s No. 1 champion for the downtrodden of the animal kingdom, even before it was fashionable.

“It used to be you had to grit your teeth and figure your intelligence and masculinity were going to be questioned,” Roberti said, “because the thinking was that animal rights was an issue that only kids and a few softhearted women got involved in.”

In fact, back when he was in the Assembly, Roberti said, he endured no small amount of ridicule from his colleagues. “In the last decade, what’s changed is that people don’t laugh at you. You don’t get the catcalls and the arfs and the barks.” Roberti, whose antiabortion rights stance puts him at odds with many Democrats, put a pro-life stamp on animal rights as well.

His legislation prohibited movie makers from killing or abusing animals on the set, attempted to ban pounds from selling animals for research and established California’s animal bill of rights in 1979--the first in the nation. This session, Roberti is trying to prevent slaughterhouses from abusing sick and injured livestock in their last hours of life.

“He always gets what we call the ‘paw of appreciation,’ which is the highest rating lawmakers can get,” said Handley. “I think he has a real feeling of justice for the underdog--literally.”

*

DEFENSE SPENDING: After being cast in an unfavorable light by a government document alleging he took payment in exchange for legislative favors, Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale) returned to a tried-and-true method of raising defense funds.

He sent a batch of letters to supporters, urging them to renew their $100 annual membership in his “Capitol roundtable” political club. In a letter mailed just after Thanksgiving, Nolan wrote: “I hate to intrude on your holidays, but preparations for the challenges of next year confront me each day. I’ll be fighting a war on three fronts: in the Legislature, at the trial and in the election. I need your help now to be ready for the tough fights ahead.”

What will undoubtedly be Nolan’s toughest battle will take place in U.S. District Court before the same judge who presided over the recent Sacramento political corruption convictions of lobbyist Clayton R. Jackson and former state Sen. Paul B. Carpenter, a Democrat from Downey.

Nolan’s trial is scheduled for March, and he has been raising money for legal fees since last June, when he took in $100,000 at a Burbank fund-raiser, the highest amount he’s collected in a single event in 15 years in the Assembly. He says he is innocent, but he faces six counts of racketeering, extortion, conspiracy and money laundering in charges that he used his office to extort money from parties needing help with legislation.

One of the charges stems from a case in 1988 in which Nolan allegedly asked for and received $10,000 in connection with a bill that would have aided developers of an Indian Wells resort that was opposed by the Marriott Corp. Nolan voted against the bill.

Some Capitol observers note that Jackson’s conviction, which included a guilty verdict for his role in lobbying against the Indian Wells resort bill, does not bode well for Nolan.

Ever the optimist, however, Nolan told his followers in the mailing that, due to their support, his opponents “haven’t been able to lay a glove on me.”

Craft reports from Sacramento, Miller from Washington and Schwada from the San Fernando Valley.