Back From Summer Break, Lawmakers Focus on Pet Projects

IT’S BACK TO WORK WE GO: It’s time for local congressmen to change out of their swimming trunks, put away their passports and slip into their business suits. As far as Congress is concerned, summer has come and gone.

After a month of recess--and an opportunity to recover from one of the most intense legislative periods ever--the House of Representatives will open its doors again on Wednesday. When lawmakers return, the federal budget will dominate the spotlight, as critical negotiations heat up on what the government will fund in the 1996 fiscal year.

But Valley-area representatives will have their legislative plates spilling over with numerous other matters.

The B-2 Stealth bomber will be foremost on Rep. Howard (Buck) McKeon’s agenda when the Santa Clarita Republican returns to Washington next week. For Southern California, the B-2 means 30,000 associated jobs, although McKeon has been making the case to his colleagues that the production of 20 more bombers makes good national security sense as well.

A member of the House National Security Committee, McKeon has been designated the Republican whip for the B-2, giving him responsibility for rounding up the votes for continued funding of the plane.

In June, McKeon and other B-2 supporters narrowly staved off an attempt by some colleagues to end the bomber’s funding in the defense authorization bill. The vote was 219 to 203. The B-2 returns to the House floor on Thursday, and McKeon will be working to repeat his earlier success.

McKeon has two other matters on his mind as well. A major overhaul of the nation’s job training programs, McKeon’s first major stab at legislation, is expected to move to the House floor for a vote shortly after Congress convenes. And the subcommittee on post-secondary education, training and lifelong learning--which McKeon chairs--is also in the midst of a controversial restructuring of the federal student loan programs.

With his recent retirement announcement, Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) has a new self-imposed deadline hanging over his head as he works to push legislation before his final term in Congress expires at the end of next year.

Chairman of the subcommittee that handles court and patent matters, Moorhead is pushing a series of bills aimed at reforming the nation’s intellectual property laws.

One Moorhead bill would turn the federal Patent and Trademark Office into a government corporation. Another would prevent doctors from patenting their surgical procedures. A third would limit the punitive damages that could be levied against individual law enforcement officers in federal court.

Moorhead will also begin drafting a bill to protect the patent rights of material on the Internet. And in early November, he will address the contentious issue of how long patent terms ought to be. Moorhead and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) have proposed competing reform plans, with Rohrabacher publicly lambasting Moorhead for not allowing his bill to proceed.

After trips to China, Taiwan and Japan in recent weeks, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) is ready to hit the ground running on the subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, on which he serves as the ranking Democratic member. But he says local concerns will also be on his mind, such as securing funding for more police officers in the Valley, closing the Lopez Canyon Landfill and reducing noise at Burbank Airport. Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) intends to monitor closely the immigration reform bill moving through the House, and work to include a tamper-proof Social Security card to help the government enforce the law forbidding employers to hire those in the country illegally.

In addition, Beilenson will push his bill promoting family planning and reproductive health services in foreign countries, aimed at slowing international population growth.

Tobacco will continue to dominate the agenda of Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles). Taking aim at the nation’s tobacco companies, Waxman has unveiled confidential documents on the House floor that he says shed new light on the marketing of cigarettes to young people and the awareness by executives of their negative health effects.

Waxman won a victory last month when President Clinton announced a new clampdown on teen-age smoking. But he argues that much more remains to be done.

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EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Carlos Moorhead’s announcement this week that he is retiring from Congress at the end of 1996, after 12 consecutive terms in the House, showed how little things have changed over the years.

When Moorhead first announced his candidacy on Feb. 8, 1972, he mentioned as his top priority several issues that Congress is still grappling with today. Moorhead said back then that he wanted to move from Sacramento to Washington “because my six years in the Assembly have convinced me the federal government rests too heavily on affairs in state and local government.” He also said reform of the welfare and tax systems would be among his top priorities.

Twenty-three years later, lawmakers are still arguing that the federal government is interfering too much in state and local affairs. And lawmakers are still mulling over ways to implement welfare and tax reform.

Back at the launch of his congressional career, the mild-mannered Moorhead expressed a distaste for the nastiness of politics, saying “petty partisan bickering and political rivalry” too often interferes with the more important issues of the day.

As he announced Tuesday that he was stepping down, Moorhead was sounding the same concern, complaining about the cantankerous nature of today’s political debate.

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RECALL OR RETALIATION?: A former campaign worker for City Councilman Richard Alarcon has announced that he is launching a recall petition, but he still has a long way to go before Alarcon should begin to worry.

Donald Gross, a teacher from Reseda, worked for Alarcon for three weeks during his 1993 campaign against former Fire Capt. Lyle Hall and was assigned to reach out to African American voters.

But Gross, who said he represents a small group of residents, accuses Alarcon of ignoring the African American community in his northeast San Fernando Valley district and failing to combat crime, unemployment and declining property values.

On Tuesday, Gross accomplished the first step in the recall process by getting an official notice of his petition published in the Metropolitan News Enterprise, a Downtown newspaper.

Now Gross has six months to get the signatures of 15% of the registered voters in the district, or about 8,000 signatures. If he is successful, the council would schedule a special election on the recall question.

For his part, Alarcon dismisses Gross’s allegations, saying he is a disgruntled former employee who is still bitter because Alarcon did not hire him on his staff after he was elected.

Alarcon said he started to lose faith in Gross when he allegedly began referring to Hall during the campaign as an “Aryan.” Alarcon rejected such characterizations of his opponent and decided not to hire Gross.

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PLEASE MR. POSTMAN: The Los Angeles County Hall of Administration and Los Angeles City Hall are only a block apart, but somehow the word hasn’t gotten to some county officials that Councilman Mike Feuer was elected in June to replace Zev Yaroslavsky, who resigned to sit on the county Board of Supervisors.

This is evident by a letter that Supervisor Mike Antonovich sent late last week to all the council members regarding a plan to reorganize the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The letter to Feuer began: “Dear Honorable Vacant.”

Lacey reported from Washington, D.C., and Martin from Los Angeles.