Ex-Racketeer Nolan Now Squeaky Clean, but a Little Too Late

GETTING SETTLED: It seems like every time a state lawmaker from the San Fernando Valley area gets sent up the river, prison authorities hand him a mop, a pail and a dose of humility.

Former Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale) is now in his third week at the Dublin federal minimum security camp east of Oakland and, according to a prison spokesman, has been assigned to sanitation detail.

“He is keeping his area neat and clean and making sure that the floor is swept and mopped,” said Wilson J. Moore, the camp unit manager. “He’s doing basic janitorial service.”

The same job taught former state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) never to take cleaning crews for granted, he said recently in an interview. Robbins spent two years in a Lompoc federal prison after pleading guilty in 1991 to racketeering and a related tax charge.

Nolan, who admitted to one count of racketeering while in office, still has ample opportunity for recreation, Moore said. “He can walk, run or lift weights. He has plenty of free time.”

Presumably, he won’t be too lonely in prison. There are three other inmates at Dublin under similar circumstances: former Assembly aide Tyrone Netters, former California Coastal Commissioner Mark Nathanson and former lobbyist Clayton R. Jackson--all convicted in a federal probe of Capitol corruption.

“They can see each other at mealtime, or any time there’s free time,” Moore said.

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PERPETUAL CAMPAIGN: Now that the recall campaign against state Sen. David A. Roberti is history, he can relax a little and get back to the business of being an elected representative.

So long as he doesn’t spend too much time pursuing the job he’s set his sights on next, that is.

Roberti, who is running hard for the Democratic nomination for state treasurer against Sacramento developer Phil Angelides, racked up quite an absentee rate while fighting the recall.

Senate Secretary Rick Rollins notes that the Van Nuys Democrat was gone 10 of 55 days when the Legislature was in session.

“I might add that even when he was here, he was terribly distracted,” Rollins said. “His attention span was not there.”

Now, the well-financed Angelides is hoping his head start on Roberti will give him the momentum he needs to capture the Democratic nomination.

This week, the Angelides campaign attacked Roberti on an issue that defines a critical difference between the two candidates--the issue of abortion rights.

A devout Catholic, Roberti is opposed to abortion. Angelides, who calls himself “the candidate of choice,” holds the more traditional Democratic view that a woman has the right to choose abortion.

In a letter that Angelides circulated this week, James Wagoner, executive vice president of the National Abortion Rights Action League, attacked Roberti for failing to support a resolution condemning violence at abortion clinics.

“The reason we are supporting your opponent in the treasurer’s race, Phil Angelides, is that he has . . . stood up for women and against terrorism and violence at clinics around the country.”

And you probably thought the state treasurer’s office focused mostly on fiscal affairs.

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WHEN NAME RECOGNITION GOES BAD: The notoriety of Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich spread a bit more under the state Capitol dome this week.

Alas, it was again Antonovich’s misconduct, not his record as a public official, that held the attention of legislators.

When a bill to reduce government liability in the wake of an elected official’s misdeeds came up before the Assembly Judiciary Committee, Chairman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento) immediately pegged it as another measure on “how to solve the famous Antonovich case.”

That brings to three the number of bills advancing through the Legislature to amend laws that forced Los Angeles County taxpayers to shell out $1.2 million to pay for a civil judgment against Antonovich.

The supervisor was found liable last year for conspiring to influence a judge on behalf of a businessman who contributed thousands of dollars to his political campaign. Under the new measures, elected officials would have to pay the cost of such judgments themselves.

Assemblyman Paul V. Horcher (R-West Covina) said his bill was not necessarily aimed directly at Antonovich, but “was more of a rifle shot” fired at the broader issue.

“When elected officials act like buffoons, they don’t deserve to be bailed out by taxpayers,” Horcher said, accusing those in Antonovich’s shoes of “committing idiocies and foolishness at taxpayer expense.”

Harsh words, particularly coming from a fellow Republican. The measure passed easily.

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SOKA SETBACK: The next item on the committee’s agenda fizzled when Horcher unexpectedly withdrew a bill to aid Soka University of Calabasas in its long-running battle with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Seems that Horcher, described by Assemblyman Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria) as “pragmatic . . . a good nose counter,” simply had not mustered enough votes to pass the Soka bill, so he dropped it for the time being.

The Soka-sponsored bill would have made it tougher for the conservancy to seize the language school’s property for parkland through eminent domain. In so doing, it would have changed priority rankings for land-use, putting nonprofit educational institutions on an equal footing with protected public lands.

“Our belief is that college degrees are at least as valuable as a walk in the park,” said Jeff Ourvan, Soka spokesman.

But the Assembly members wanted to hear support from a broad coalition of college campuses, not just Soka. Ourvan says he is working on that.

For three years now, the Legislature has been an arena for the continuing Soka/conservancy showdown. That’s not likely to change any time soon, given the kind of budget (tens of thousands of dollars) that Soka dedicates to Capitol lobbying.

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SENSITIVITY TRAINING: In recent weeks, racist literature launching crude attacks on Latinos and Jews has been slipped into lockers and distributed in parking lots at high school campuses throughout the San Fernando Valley and beyond.

Parents, teachers, students and school administrators are alarmed at this hate leaflet trend and want to see it stopped.

In an attempt to crack down, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) on Thursday introduced a measure to make distribution of such material a crime. It’s a follow-up, he says, to a 1992 law he co-authored requiring California public schools to teach students in grades 7 through 12 about the Holocaust and slavery.