On Their Own Terms : Valley-Area Congressmen Frosty to State-Mandated Limits on Tenure

By ALAN C. MILLER

July 1, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON —

As a first-time congressional candidate two years ago, Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) lined up with voters who were unhappy with long-term incumbents by backing a state ballot measure to limit terms in the House of Representatives to six years.

But now, well into his first term, McKeon maintains that Californians made a mistake by approving Proposition 164. Rather, after learning the legislative ropes in all their knotty complexity as a freshman lawmaker, he says, he would prefer to see a national cap of 12 years.

And McKeon’s San Fernando Valley-area colleagues, all veteran lawmakers, voice even less support for term limits--which, not surprisingly, are a bigger hit with voters than with those whose careers they seek to cap.

In the wake of the announcement that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether states can impose term limits on members of Congress, each of the five lawmakers expressed opposition to such action by individual states. McKeon aside, the other four have represented Southern California in the nation’s capital for a total of 72 years.

“People really ought to have a right to choose whom they want,” said Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), who is seeking a 10th two-year term. “We already have limits. Many of us are involved in close and difficult and expensive reelection campaigns now, as we have been all our lives. People have an opportunity every two years to pass judgment on us.”

Beilenson and fellow Democrats Howard L. Berman of Panorama City and Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles said they have become better representatives over time, particularly in terms of handling complicated national intelligence, foreign policy and environmental issues. Term limits would rob Congress of its accumulated wisdom and institutional memory, they contend.

On the fence is Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead of Glendale, the dean of the California Republican delegation, who was first elected to the House when Richard M. Nixon was reelected to the White House in 1972. Were term limits adopted, Moorhead said he would prefer uniform, nationwide restrictions through a constitutional amendment rather than state-by-state caps.

“Term limits on a national basis could make some sense,” Moorhead said. “If one state alone does it, it gets left out of the leadership and committee chairmanships and ranking positions in the end, especially if the terms are relatively short.”

Moorhead knows whereof he speaks. He became the senior Republican on the prestigious Energy and Commerce Committee last year.

The Supreme Court will hear an appeal of a decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court. That court ruled in March that a term-limits amendment approved by the state’s voters in a 1992 referendum violated the Constitution, which stipulates the qualifications for federal lawmakers. The case will be argued this fall and is expected to be decided next spring.

California voters, like those in Arkansas, approved an initiative that restricts House members to six consecutive years and U.S. senators to two six-year terms. If the measure is upheld by the court, House members first elected in 1992 or before could not hold office after 1998.

Twelve other states besides California and Arkansas have placed restrictions on the number of terms that members of their congressional delegations can serve. The Arkansas appeal was the first to reach the Supreme Court.

Several Valley lawmakers said they would not be surprised if the court rules that states do not have the right to limit congressional terms.

“There’s a pretty good argument that term limits, as applied to Congress on a state-by-state basis, constitute an impermissible effort to set a qualification for office in violation of the Constitution,” said Berman, who declared that he’d be “a hypocrite” not to oppose such restrictions as he asks voters to reelect him to a sixth term.

The Constitution requires only that a member of Congress be 25 years of age, a citizen of the United States for seven years and an inhabitant of the state from which he is elected. Waxman said that capping lawmakers’ tenure will have an unintended consequence: “It will give greater power to lobbyists, to special interests and to the permanent staff.”

And the Valley lawmakers say that California has much to lose in leadership positions and committee chairmanships if the court upholds term limits imposed by individual states.

Their own circumstances support this contention. In addition to Moorhead’s position, Beilenson will be the next Democrat in line to become chairman of the powerful Rules Committee if he’s reelected. Berman is chairman of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on international operations, which oversees the State Department’s budget.

And Waxman is the longtime chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and environment, which has a sweeping jurisdiction that has helped him play a key role on health care, clean air, tobacco, food and drug safety, medical devices and numerous other issues.

The four veteran Valley lawmakers are the epitome of career politicians. All are lawyers who served in the state Legislature before coming to Congress. Waxman and Berman first met at UCLA when they worked on Adlai Stevenson’s presidential campaign in the late 1950s.

McKeon is an exception. A successful businessman, he entered politics as a school board trustee and later as Santa Clarita’s first mayor and never served as a state legislator before winning election to Congress in 1992, on his first attempt.

He ran on a government-reform platform and has continued to advocate the cause as president of the Republican freshman class. Nevertheless, he has determined that “six years is a little short, though for myself it may be adequate. It takes the first term almost to get to know people and know your way around and how the process works.”

McKeon said that he’d like to see House members limited to three four-year terms to ease the constant pressure to raise campaign funds and scramble for reelection every other year. But, he said, “the only way for term limits to really work is to be even across the country.”

McKeon acknowledged that he has had second thoughts about any restrictions at all.

“We would lose some great people, who never lose their enthusiasm, never lose their work ethic,” he said. On the other hand, he added, “there are some people who get so entrenched that there is no way to get rid of them without term limits.”

He cited Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, whose predilection and ability to steer pork-barrel projects to his home state are legendary. “The people of West Virginia would be crazy to vote him out,” McKeon said.

The Santa Clarita freshman said he has a particular problem with the term limits proposition passed by California voters in 1992, because it amounts to unilateral disarmament.

McKeon said he “didn’t understand when I first signed on” how it would just affect California and other states that passed similar restrictions. “I would not like to see it done that way. There’s no reason why you would cut off your nose to spite your face.”

In any case, McKeon refused to commit himself to a personal congressional end-point.

“If people elect me, I would plan to serve eight to 10 years,” he said. “It’s not in concrete. I just don’t want to be here that long.”

Legislative Veterans

Howard L. Berman

(D-Panorama City)

Age: 53

First Held Public Office: California Assembly, 1973

First Elected to Congress: 1982

* Anthony C. Beilenson

(D-Woodland Hills)

Age: 61

First Held Public Office: California Assembly, 1963