Brady Forces Give National Scope to Roberti Recall Battle

A seemingly imminent recall election against state Sen. David Roberti began to shape up Thursday as a national referendum after gun control champion Sarah Brady pledged to throw her organization’s support behind the embattled Roberti, who has been targeted for ouster by pro-gun activists.

Brady, whose efforts recently resulted in the enactment of a federal law requiring a five-day waiting period for the purchase of handguns, called the effort to recall the Van Nuys Democrat an attempt to “martyr” a man of courage for his support of gun control legislation, most notably a precedent-setting 1989 state ban on the sale of military-style semiautomatic assault rifles.

Brady is the wife of former President Ronald Reagan’s press deputy James Brady, who was severely injured in the 1981 assassination attempt against Reagan.

Meanwhile, Roberti held a news conference Thursday flanked by supporters, including Los Angeles Police Chief Willie Williams, Sheriff Sherman Block and members of law enforcement organizations, during which he pledged to fight the recall “with every ounce of my being.”

The news conference, held outside Reseda High School, where a student was shot to death last year, was repeatedly interrupted by hecklers who accused Roberti of being a Nazi and an ally of European banking interests.

“I’m working for European banks?” Roberti said with a grimace, reacting to his foes as TV cameras and a host of reporters looked on. “I think that shows the wacko degree that some of my opponents have risen to.”

But Steven Glazer, the senator’s press secretary, warned that Roberti’s gun control foes should not be underestimated.

“Narrow special interests can have an enormous influence” in low-turnout special elections like a recall vote, Glazer said.

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A recall election against Roberti is not a certainty, but advocates have filed petitions carrying an estimated 45,000 signatures of people who support the idea, twice that required. “We are taking this very seriously,” Glazer said.

The signatures must be certified by the Los Angeles County registrar of voters. About 10,000 signatures, which must be from voters in Roberti’s 20th Senate District, have already been deemed valid. An election might be held as early as April.

Roberti advisers welcomed the idea that the recall could spark a national debate on the subject of gun control and called it inevitable.

“When there’s such a serious attack on the author of the nation’s first law against assault weapons, it will naturally create a national referendum,” Glazer said.

Sandy Cooney, western regional director of Handgun Control Inc., the group founded by Brady, agreed.

“Sen. Roberti will have our full support,” said Cooney, speaking at the Roberti news conference.

Although recall proponents have said Roberti should be ousted for a number of reasons, Roberti accused his foes of harboring a single motive: to drive a gun control advocate from office.

“This is an Uzi,” Roberti said, holding up a semiautomatic weapon. “That’s what this is all about!”

The Uzi is one of more than a dozen assault rifles banned by the 1989 law he authored in the wake of a widely publicized schoolyard shooting in Stockton. A man wielding an assault rifle killed five children and injured 30 people.

With the enactment of that law, Roberti said, “we lit a small candle for peace.” The embattled lawmaker also pledged to press forward with new legislation to ban the sale of large ammunition clips in California.

If the gun lobby’s recall campaign is defeated, Roberti added, it will hopefully embolden the federal government and lawmakers in other states to enact tougher measures to control guns.

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Applauding Roberti were Block and Williams; Fred Tredy, a director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, and Frank Grimes, head of the Southern California Assn. of Law Enforcement.

Motioned to a table laden with three assault weapons, Williams pledged his “100% support for any program that will help remove weapons like these from the streets. There’s no use for these weapons but to hurt other human beings.”

Earlier Thursday, recall activists held a news conference outside the modest Van Nuys bungalow that Roberti claims as his official residence, although he admits that he lives outside the 20th District in Hollywood.

At the event, Bill Dominguez, a Van Nuys systems analyst and chairman of the Coalition to Restore Government Integrity, a group seeking Roberti’s ouster, called Roberti a “political dinosaur” who deserved extinction.

The coalition includes anti-gun control groups, such as the American Pistol and Rifle Assn. and the Gun Owners Action Committee.

Dolores White, a Republican who ran against Roberti in 1992, when he assumed the state Senate seat vacated by Alan Robbins, said Roberti deserved to be recalled not only because of his position on gun control but because he opposes term limits for state legislators, campaign finance reform and tougher laws against criminals, and permitted corruption to flourish in Sacramento.

White said she would run on the recall ballot to replace Roberti.

Some of the speakers also warned that other state lawmakers--including Assemblymen Terry B. Friedman, D-Brentwood, and Richard Polanco, D-Los Angeles--are in danger of being recalled due to their support of gun control.

Roberti’s defeat, predicted Chairman Manuel Fernandez of the Constitutional Rights Federation, will serve as an example of what happens to lawmakers who “disarm the good citizens” as a substitute for enacting tougher anti-crime laws.

The Constitutional Rights Federation represents gun owners in the San Fernando Valley.