Former Lt. Gov., Congressman Glenn M. Anderson Dies at 81 : Politician: Longtime South Bay figure leaves legacy of public works projects.

Glenn M. Anderson, two-term California lieutenant governor and 12-term congressman who rose to the chairmanship of the powerful House Public Works and Transportation Committee, died Tuesday. He was 81.

Anderson, who chose not to run for reelection in 1991, died at San Pedro Peninsula Hospital Pavilion from complications of Alzheimer’s disease, his stepson Evan Anderson Braude said. Anderson had undergone multiple heart bypass surgery in 1988.

The Los Angeles Harbor ship channel and Interstate 105 bear Anderson’s name, a testament to his prowess at winning public works projects for his 32nd Congressional District in the South Bay-Long Beach area. He was also instrumental in winning federal funds for Los Angeles’ neophyte Metro Rail subway system.

But Anderson is probably best remembered in state political annals because of his delay in sending in the National Guard when the Watts riots broke out in August, 1965.

Anderson was acting governor at the time because Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown was in Greece on vacation.

The five-hour delay between the city of Los Angeles’ appeal for the troops and the time they went into action led to an uproar against Anderson. He was accused of procrastination and labeled as the man “who fiddled while Watts burned.”

Campaigning on Anderson’s failure to staunch the rioting immediately, Republican Robert Finch swept into office in 1966, denying Anderson a third term as lieutenant governor.

Richard Nixon, tutoring Finch’s campaigners, said flatly: “I want everyone in California to believe that Glenn Anderson was responsible for Watts.”

The McCone Commission, which investigated the riots, singled out Anderson by name for “hesitating when he should have acted.”

However, some political observers believed that Brown’s staff used Anderson as a scapegoat for their own indecisive behavior.

Anderson, a World War II infantry sergeant, claimed that his Guard order was “the fastest call-up of the Guard in any state.”

“My actions must be judged in context with the total situation, not only here but in the nation at the time,” he said in response to the McCone criticism in 1966. “The months immediately preceding the riots had seen . . . many disturbances between Negro citizens and state troopers. Like most Americans, I was shocked by the use of excessive force in some of these situations.

“I was therefore determined that a clear and responsible chain of command must exist and that any actions taken should be consistent with the American tradition of law and order.”

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Anderson was surprised by the Watts eruption because he had operated under the mind set that state legislative efforts to achieve equal rights would protect California from the riots occurring in other states.

“I believe the transition to the full realization of equal rights (in California),” he said two years before the Watts riots, “will be free of much of the violence which characterizes the civil rights struggle in other parts of this country today.”

A Hawthorne builder, Anderson remained popular in his area despite the criticism, and was elected to Congress in 1968, just two years after the Republican sweep of state offices.

He won the coveted chairmanship of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee in 1988, only to be stripped of the position 33 months later. He announced his intention not to seek reelection to Congress shortly after that.

Anderson disparaged criticism that either he or his committee specialized in pork barrel projects to members’ districts.

“I’ve been building all my life,” he said in 1988. “Public works pay for themselves. It’s paying people to work on a project that makes the economy better, makes the region better, makes everything better.”

His House colleagues claimed that Anderson’s abilities slipped dramatically in the late 1980s because of his advancing age. State Democratic leaders went so far as to suggest reapportionment in 1991 that would carve up Anderson’s harbor area district.

In the end, the district remained virtually unscathed, but Anderson chose to step down anyway.

“I make the decision to leave public life,” he said in late 1991, “so as to give the next generation of leaders the opportunity to pursue a career in the federal public policy arena.”

Anderson’s explanation for why his fellow Democrats ousted him from the committee chairmanship was that he was overly generous with the power of the position. He believed that his decision to share power with his five subcommittee chairmen fostered a false perception of weakness.

Despite his soft-spoken, nonaggressive style, Anderson succeeded in politics over a long career that began with his election as mayor of Hawthorne in 1940.

Throughout his more than two decades in Congress, he continued to deliver federal public works projects to Southern California. Interstate 105, popularly called the Century Freeway because of its proximity to Century Boulevard, was named the Glenn Anderson Freeway Transitway in 1987 in gratitude to Anderson for securing federal funds. The 17.3-mile freeway, at $2.2 billion, is the most expensive freeway ever built.

Among Anderson’s survivors is his wife, Lee, who served as his campaign leader.