Roberti’s Political Dusk Becomes New Dawn : Politics: Senator was ready to bow out from state government, until a recall effort changed his mind. The 27-year veteran came out fighting, and is running for state treasurer.

After 27 years in the Legislature, 13 of them as head of the Senate, Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys)--prodded by his wife, June--had finally decided to bow out of politics.

Hadn’t the people cast their votes against career politicians by imposing term limits? And hadn’t running for office changed a great deal since 1966, when civic-minded volunteers and $3.50-a-plate spaghetti fund-raisers vaulted Roberti into the Capitol?

Enough, he declared. Term limits would end his Senate career in December anyway.

Then, late last year, something happened that made him so angry that it changed his mind. A coalition including firearms rights advocates, upset by Roberti’s legislation against military-style semiautomatic weapons, got a recall election against him set for April 12.

“I think they were stupid because I actually had him convinced to look for something else . . . to go into private life, get out of public life,” June Roberti, her husband’s closest adviser, said in an interview. “But the recall changed everything. We’re in it now to the end.”

As his foes called for his removal, Roberti vowed that he would fight the recall, and also tossed in a bid to run for state treasurer, declaring that he would not be forced out of politics.

Thus the first recall election of a state official since 1914 may be remembered as something of an oddity, based on a series of paradoxes: a man fighting for his political life at a time when the exit light had beckoned; an election-turned-referendum on an assault weapons ban that fails to outlaw all such firearms; a slick anti-recall campaign that skirts the issue of whether the senator has done a good job.

Friends in the Capitol say it is typical of Roberti, a naturally introverted man, to step out of his shell when challenged to protect his legacy. They say he desperately wants to avoid ending his long career as the victim of a recall effort.

“You can’t turn your back on these people,” Roberti said of the opponents he openly calls “cuckoos” or “nut cases” for the intensity of their pro-gun views. “Otherwise, you turn your back on a career of 27 years, you turn your back on your life.”

But recall proponents are quick to point out that 46,000 registered San Fernando Valley voters who signed their petitions apparently agree that Roberti has served too long in the Legislature.

“What we are saying is he presided over the Senate at a time of the worst corruption of the democratic system in California history,” said Kevin Washburn, manager of the recall campaign. “And the people of this district are entitled to their democratic rights to recall him.”

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By now, the senator’s strategy is apparent: deny that this is about Roberti the officeholder, and define the election as retaliation for his legislation to ban military-style weapons.

Although that tells part of the story, Roberti’s own rhetoric shrinks away from his record or what he stands for (“You don’t have to like Sen. David Roberti, . . . “ says one campaign brochure urging a vote against the recall.)

“I really don’t view it as an election about me,” Roberti said in an interview. “If David Roberti were somebody else who had been able to (pass gun control laws), they’d be on their case.”

Capitol observers sum up Roberti, 54, as an adroit politician, one who shrewdly negotiates trade-offs, if need be, to further his agenda. And his sharp survival skills enable him to home in on issues that grab people, such as the move to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District, which he championed in the San Fernando Valley.

He has a track record of successful fund raising, collecting hefty donations over the years from unions, law enforcement groups, the California Teachers Assn., trial lawyers and large corporations such as Arco and Chevron.

His ideology, he says, is derived from his belief that government has a responsibility to help people so they can eventually help themselves.

“I guess I gravitate toward the have-nots, the people who need somebody to fight for them,” said Roberti, who represented Hollywood for a quarter-century before moving over to the San Fernando Valley.

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Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), who succeeded Roberti in January as leader of the upper house, describes his predecessor as being adept at forging the kinds of compromises that keep the wheels of state government churning.

When it comes to the recall, “People tend to focus on guns,” Lockyer said, “but I tend to see him in a different way. If there’s an overarching philosophy, it’s his sympathy for the underdog.”

But Republicans in the Senate view the Roberti legacy in a harsher light.

“He strikes me as having been a typical liberal Democratic legislative leader,” said Sen. Bill Leonard (R-Upland). “He has blocked legislation that would have helped California’s job situation over the years--in tort law, environmental law, business regulation and taxation.”

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Roberti is currently pushing Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren to use his authority under the 1989 Assault Weapons Control Act to ban so-called copy-cat firearms. Gun manufacturers are getting around Roberti’s 5-year-old law by making identical weapons under different names from those identified by the ban.

One of the hot themes in the recall debate stems from fallout over the disgrace brought on by three Roberti lieutenants in the Senate--former Democratic Sens. Alan Robbins, Joseph Montoya and Paul Carpenter, all of whom were convicted of political corruption in the exchange of money for political favors.

By association, this has reflected poorly on Roberti. Washburn says: “We’re not trying to prosecute Mr. Roberti. We’re saying there is political accountability.”

Roberti says he was unaware of his colleagues’ criminal activities. “The best thing I can say is, Alan Robbins represented the 20th District for 18 years, and there was never a recall against him. . . . And nobody, but nobody, has accused me of any wrongdoing.”

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That it is he, not Robbins, who ended up on the receiving end of a vigorous recall effort is an irony that leaves Roberti feeling stung.

“I’m a human being. And human beings, they feel sorry for themselves sometimes,” Roberti said. “Why should I have to go through this?”

June Roberti acknowledges that the recall campaign sometimes leaves her husband physically tired. But, she says, “I think he has the fighting spirit more than he has the low spirit.”