Valley Perspective : The Roberti Recall--a Foolish Idea and a Waste of Money : The Gun Lobby’s Political Reasoning Is Easy to Shoot Down

Voters in the 20th Senate District--which includes Reseda, Van Nuys, North Hollywood, Panorama City, Pacoima and Sylmar--face an important civic responsibility on Tuesday. They will take part in the first recall election of a state official in 80 years. Recall elections are a fundamental right in a democracy, but the process has been horribly abused in this case.

Foes are trying to recall state Sen. David A. Roberti, a Democrat, and throw him out of office a few months early because of his eminently sensible stance on gun control. One of his initiatives, in 1989, was co-sponsoring a ban on military-style semiautomatic weapons. For such displays of courage, Roberti has been targeted by the gun lobby. He has not violated the law or the public’s trust, and voters should cast a ballot to keep him in office for the remaining months of his term.

Stung by the charge that the Roberti recall is nothing more than a political vendetta, his opponents have offered other reasons for the campaign to vote him out of office less than eight months before he is scheduled to step down. The arguments have little substance. We’ll deal with them one at a time.

Claimed reason 1: Recall Roberti because he opposed term limits. Well, they don’t get any sillier than this. If term limits had been defeated, the argument might make a little more sense (not much more, but a little). We now have term limits, however, thanks to the voters. That’s why Roberti can’t run for the 20th Senate District seat again. That’s why his name cannot appear on the 20th District primary ballot on June 7. That’s why he’s stepping down from the seat in December.

Claimed reason 2: Political accountability for corruption in Sacramento. Well, last we heard, the folks who admitted transgressions or were justly convicted for corruption, the Alan Robbinses and Pat Nolans, were getting their just deserts. Roberti has not been accused of any such wrongdoing.

Claimed reason 3: Recall Roberti, the liberal tax-and-spend Democrat. Oh, please. This particular recall election will be meaningful for just eight weeks. That’s how long 20th District voters have to wait until the real election, the primary, takes place on June 7th. For this, the Los Angeles County government has to ante up $800,000 to $1 million, and perhaps more, to conduct the recall election. That just adds to the roughly $1-billion projected deficit already facing the county. This is fiscal responsibility?

Meanwhile, the five challengers on the recall ballot amount to little more than a cast of wanna-bes and also-rans who do little to shed the image of this election as a vendetta by gun lovers and the gun lobby.

One is Randy Linkmeyer, a former sales representative for a national gun store distributor who bought Art’s Guns in Canoga Park in 1990. Linkmeyer helped found the Constitutional Rights Federation to fight gun control.

There is Bill Dominguez, a systems analyst from Van Nuys, who has said that he owned his first gun at the age of 8 and who recently reported the theft of 12 more recently acquired guns from his home.

There is Al Dib, the retired owner of a produce market, who has run for public office four times. He urges the following foolishness on a nation weary of gun violence: the abolition of all statutes outlawing concealed weapons and machine guns. Dib’s campaign adviser, Manny Fernandez, was purged from the recall coalition after he was quoted saying the movement was the gun lobby’s revenge against Roberti.

There is Larry Martz, a Van Nuys handyman who chairs the Valley chapter of the American Pistol and Rifle Assn.

And then there is Dolores White, a real estate broker who earned a whopping 10.5% of the vote against Roberti in 1992. “We need to draw a bead on David Roberti and bring him down to send a message to Sacramento,” White said to the audience at a National Rifle Assn.-sponsored forum for the recall election. Nice choice of words, Dolores.

How much gun money is fueling the Roberti recall? Well, of the meager amount raised by recall backers in the past year (just $164,000 as of late March), more than half a dozen of the largest contributions came from gun or ammunition makers. Kevin Washburn, manager of the effort to recall Roberti, claimed that $30,000 came from a victims’ rights group. Washburn touted the money as evidence of the diversity of recall backers. Wrong. The head of the alliance that gave the $30,000 later told reporters that it was indeed closely tied to gun-lobby interests.

The voters in the 20th District who have a stake in good government, who decry such blatant attempts at purposeless political retribution, can send the right message on Tuesday by casting a ballot for Roberti.