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Valley Lawmakers Split on Congressional Term Limits : Legislation: With vote due this week on 12-year cap, debate renews on change versus experience.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) intends to vote this week to limit future members of Congress to 12 years in office. But he’s been in the House of Representatives 23 years himself, and he’ll cast his ballot grudgingly.

“I’m not red-hot for term limits,” he said. “I think some of our greatest leaders in history have spent a long time in government. . . . And there are complicated issues here. It takes a lot of expertise and judgment. We can’t have a Congress full of novices.”

Yet Moorhead, 72, pledged to support term limits as part of the GOP “contract with America.”

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“I feel I have somewhat of an obligation,” said Moorhead, who was elected to Congress in 1972, the same year Richard Nixon won reelection to the White House. “It’s a very tough decision, but I’ve pretty much made up my mind what I’m going to do.”

While Moorhead struggles with the issue, other veteran San Fernando Valley-area lawmakers have long ago made up their minds. Only Rep. Howard (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) will join Moorhead in voting for limits. The others agree with Moorhead’s arguments against term limits and, as the House considers limiting terms today, they intend to vote no.

The main bill under consideration, introduced by Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), would limit members of the House and Senate to 12 years in office.

But three alternative options are also being debated.

Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rep. Pete Peterson (D-Fla.) introduced a version that would apply the 12-year limit retroactively to sitting members of Congress and allow states to impose shorter limits. Introduced as a tactical device, it is given no chance of passage.

A hard-line bill by Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) would impose limits of six years on House members and 12 years on senators. Another proposal by Rep. Van Hilleary (R-Tenn.) would impose a 12-year limit in the House and Senate but allow states to impose stricter limits if they choose.

If none of the measures pass Congress, the final word may come from the U. S. Supreme Court, which is reviewing the constitutionality of an Arkansas term-limits measure and is expected to rule soon on whether states can limit the terms of federal officials.

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The legality of California’s six-year limit on House members and 12-year limit for senators, which voters approved in 1992, hangs on the court’s ruling.

Despite different views on term limits, Valley lawmakers agree that California loses clout in Congress to other states if it enforces a term limit of its own.

Furthermore, an active electorate, say Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) and other opponents, is the best way of limiting the terms of ineffectual lawmakers.

“I think the best term limit is the one you have every election when the voters of your district can decide,” said Berman, 53, who was first elected in 1982. “The people in my district know I have served for six terms and they sent me back for a seventh.”

Also opposing terms limits are longtime Reps. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), 62, and Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), 55, who contend that lawmaking is a job that takes time to master, especially the complicated foreign policy, budget and environmental issues that members of Congress frequently face.

“Experience in legislative work is valuable, just as it is in teaching, medicine, law, engineering, carpentry and every other profession or vocation,” Beilenson said on the House floor Tuesday.

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Limiting terms, opponents say, would also transfer more power to the lobbyists and unelected congressional staffers who already wield enormous power on Capitol Hill.

“No new member comes here with the information at hand to deal with these very complicated problems,” said a veteran staffer for one Valley congressman. “The notion that someone off the street could do this job is absurd.”

But term-limit proponents, while doubtful that the House has the votes to pass any measure, say that lawmakers are exaggerating the complexities of the job to make themselves appear indispensable.

“They keep saying that Congress is such a complicated institution that it takes one term to find the bathroom,” said Patrick Burns, a spokesman for U. S. Term Limits, a group pushing for a six-year term limit in the House. “Believe me, there are people that can do it. I think these guys just don’t want to leave.”

The newest member of the Valley’s delegation, McKeon, is the strongest term-limits supporter of the group. But even he has withdrawn his support for a six-year term limit in favor of a 12-year limit.

“The reason I ran is that we needed more citizen-legislators,” said McKeon, 55, a businessman who entered Congress after brief stints as a school board member and mayor. “I think it’s good to have turnover. You can get co-opted by the system here.”

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Yet the system is more complicated than most people realize, McKeon says. When he ran for Congress in 1992, he favored a state ballot measure to limit House members to six years. Now in his second term, McKeon says the six-year limit in Proposition 164 is not enough time to learn the ropes.

With two years behind him, McKeon says he is struggling to get up to speed as the new subcommittee chairman overseeing vocational education. And that is a relatively low-level position in the House. Still above him on the congressional ladder are committee chairmanships and House leadership posts.

“There is so much to learn,” McKeon says. “When I came here I had no idea how the system worked.”

* HYDE DEFECTS

Leading Republican will break ranks to oppose measure. A21

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