California Elections / CONGRESS : Democrats May Lose Grip on Delegation : A tight South Bay race will decide whether parties evenly split 52 seats in House. Democrats went into election with 30-22 edge.

Depending on the outcome of a photo finish in a race in Los Angeles’ South Bay, Democrats may lose control of California’s congressional delegation for the first time since 1956.

Three Democratic incumbents--Lynn Schenk of San Diego, Dan Hamburg of Ukiah and Richard Lehman of the San Joaquin Valley--fell victim Tuesday to 1994’s Republican tide.

Meanwhile, the South Bay race between Rep. Jane Harman (D-Rolling Hills) and Republican challenger Susan Brooks may not be decided until a final batch of absentee ballots is counted in the next few days. Brooks, a Rancho Palos Verdes City Council member, leads by 93 votes. Her camp is expressing optimism that she will prevail because in absentee ballots counted Tuesday she had an 8 percentage point advantage.

If Brooks wins, the 52-member California delegation will be split evenly with 26 seats for each party. The Democrats went into the midterm election with a 30-22 edge.

No Republican incumbents were defeated or seriously threatened Tuesday. As bad as the picture was for Democrats, it could have been worse.

Three longtime Democratic incumbents--Anthony C. Beilenson of Woodland Hills, Vic Fazio of West Sacramento and George Brown of Colton--narrowly survived strong challenges.

Brown, the current chairman of the California delegation, had a simple analysis of the Democrats’ performance in California and nationwide.

“We got walloped in spades,” he said.

In other GOP triumphs in the state’s House races, entertainer-turned-politician Sonny Bono won an open seat in the Palm Springs area; Ken Calvert, a first-term Republican from Riverside, was reelected despite being snared in a sex scandal, and Assemblywoman Andrea Seastrand from San Luis Obispo declared victory in the race for the seat now held by GOP Senate candidate Mike Huffington.

In the latter race, Democrat Walter Holden Capps refused to concede. Seastrand had a 969-vote lead, with an untold number of absentee ballots to be counted.

The chairman of the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, New York Rep. Bill Paxson, attributed the GOP’s strong showing in California to good candidates and the slumping popularity of President Clinton.

Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of a Washington-based newsletter that analyzes congressional contests, pointed to another potential factor. The state, he said, may have witnessed a kind of mid-course correction from 1992, when Republicans were hurt badly by then-President George Bush’s abandonment of his California campaign in the final weeks of his losing campaign.

“Democrats overperformed two years ago,” Rothenberg said, “so it’s not surprising that the Republicans regained some seats they should never have lost.”

Harman was one of those surprise winners two years ago, handily defeating a better-known Republican foe in a district in which registration slightly favors Republicans.

Her race this year, which attracted national party leaders from both sides, shaped up as one of the fall’s quintessential matchups--a freshman incumbent, elected on Clinton’s coattails in 1992, facing a challenger who tried to capitalize on an anti-Clinton backlash.

Harman tried to walk a fine line between characterizing herself as an independent and embracing the Clinton agenda. She broadcast commercials throughout the Los Angeles Basin--the only congressional candidate to do so--in which she declared: “My party leadership isn’t always happy with me.” But as recently as the end of last week, she was at Clinton’s side when he campaigned in Los Angeles County.

For her part, Brooks pounded Harman for backing Clinton’s deficit-reduction plan.

In the other squeaker in Los Angeles County House races, Beilenson won by 49% to 47% over Republican Rich Sybert, a former official in the Administration of Gov. Pete Wilson. Beilenson, first elected in 1976, has seen his district become increasingly conservative because of changing boundary lines and changing voter attitudes.

Brown, a 22-year House member, also won by 2 percentage points in his Riverside County District. He defeated wealthy Fontana businessman Robert Guzman.

In the Sacramento area, Fazio faced the stiffest test of his 16-year House career in turning back a challenge from Republican Tim LeFever of Dixon, an attorney and former aide to former Lt. Gov. Mike Curb, by 50% to 46%.

Defeating Fazio would have been particularly sweet for the GOP--he is chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The three definite Democratic losers--Schenk, Lehman and Hamburg--were facing uphill campaign fights even if there had not been a national Republican landslide. All three had opponents who were seasoned campaigners, current or former officeholders and longtime residents of their districts.

Schenk’s district, which includes half of San Diego and the cities of Imperial Beach and Coronado, has a slight GOP registration edge. When she was elected in 1992, she became the first Democrat to represent the district in decades and the first woman in history to represent San Diego County in Congress.

Like other Democrats, she had difficulty confronting Proposition 187, the anti-illegal immigrant initiative. She finally came out against the measure while adding that she realized illegal immigration poses problems.

Schenk’s GOP opponent, San Diego County Supervisor Brian Bilbray, was a strong supporter of Proposition 187. With a combative temperament and conservative philosophy, he depicted the campaign as “the blue-collar Navy kid against the debutante from La Jolla.”

Bilbray beat Schenk 49% to 46%. In part, he credited talk radio, where his brand of conservatism gets a sympathetic treatment, for his victory.

To some degree, Lehman was a delayed victim of reapportionment. For five terms he represented a “safe” Democratic district in the San Joaquin Valley. But in 1992, in a new district where registration is split nearly evenly, he barely survived a challenge from a 28-year-old political novice.

Shaken by that race, Lehman had tried to develop a political network in the new half of his district, returning every weekend from Washington and holding 40 town meetings to hear constituents’ complaints.

“The district didn’t like Lehman much in 1992 and they haven’t learned to like him any more since then,” said his Republican opponent, winegrower and ex-Mariposa County Supervisor George Radanovich, a member of a pioneer family in the San Joaquin Valley.

“We had an unbeatable message of local control, less government and lower taxes,” Radanovich said, “plus the nationwide sweep.” He won 57% to 39%.

The sprawling 1st Congressional District, where Hamburg was defeated by ex-congressman Frank Riggs 53% to 47%, has a recent history of political volatility, despite what would look like a safe registration margin for the Democrats. Riggs defeated long-term Democratic incumbent Doug Bosco in 1990, then Hamburg defeated Riggs in 1992.

Riggs, a former police officer, was relentless in his pursuit of political revenge, ridiculing Hamburg as a “serial job killer” because of his voting record. Hamburg, a former Vietnam war protester at Stanford University, seemed pained at having to distance himself from Clinton. “I understand Bill Clinton,” Hamburg said the morning after a bruising debate with Riggs. “You’re talking about my generation.”

In other races, criminal problems--real and potential--did not prove a hindrance to two Southern California congressmen, one Democrat, one Republican.

Walter R. Tucker III (D-Compton) was reelected despite being under criminal indictment on charges of taking bribes while mayor of Compton. Tucker drew no Republican opponent but Libertarian Guy Wilson, a merchant seaman, garnered almost a quarter of the vote.

Jay Kim (R-Diamond Bar) easily won reelection despite being under federal investigation because of irregularities with the funding of his 1992 campaign.