California Consensus as Rare as L.A. Snow

As states go, California is busting with superlatives: most populous, shakiest, smoggiest, most diverse. But 3,000 miles away in the nation’s capital, the Golden State can slip quite conveniently from memory sometimes, even from the memories of the 52 House members sent here to represent it.

They make up the largest congressional delegation in history, but they are better known as the team that cannot agree on anything. When a move was afoot to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling, 33 of the 52 stood together to protect the coastline, and observers thought that was pretty good. Florida, by contrast, was unanimous.

A national insurance bill that would make sure California gets aid in the next fire, quake or flood so far has just 35 sponsors from the state that is perhaps the most disaster-prone of all. Even an amendment that would have robbed California of reimbursements for the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants fell one vote short of glorious unanimity, with Compton Democrat Walter R. Tucker III the spoiler.

“It’s just been hell,” one congressional aide said of recent efforts to hold the splintered delegation together.

The members--most of them tremendously loyal to their districts--are forever being asked to consider the best interests of California. But which California? The Southern one with its influx of immigrants? The Northern one with its timber disputes? The Central one with its farm pesticide debates?

It has been suggested that someone just slice California at the Tehachapis and make the north one state, the south another and the Central Valley a third. That idea may hold less lunacy than the continued hope that the members of Congress from a state as geographically and ethnically mixed as ours will ever find much common ground.

“Our delegation is the largest one in history and it’s a microcosm of the diversity of the entire country,” said Jan Denton, executive director of the California Institute in Washington, founded in 1991 to help California lawmakers remember California. The only unanimous delegation vote she could remember was for aid after the Loma Prieta earthquake. “But that’s extremely rare, and we should not expect it very often.”

It would be easy to blame this lack of consensus on petty bickering. But the real root can be seen in a document released by Rep. Pete Stark (D-Hayward) predicting the impact of $270 billion in Republican-proposed Medicare savings, broken down by congressional districts.

The district on Los Angeles’ Westside represented by powerful Democrat Henry Waxman would, according to Stark’s figures, be financially annihilated by losses approaching $885 million. The Fullerton-area district represented by mild-mannered conservative Ed Royce would get off comparatively easy with about $62 million in lost funds.

Now members of the delegation do not agree on these figures. (Big surprise.) Still, the numbers illustrate the vast differences among congressional districts, the federal money they receive and the mind-sets of the officials who represent them.

The Westside and Fullerton are two pockets of California humanity 30 miles apart, but the distance might as well be 30 light-years. The Westside is heavily Democratic, full of show biz types, gays and seniors. The district is also rife with venerable medical centers such as UCLA, Cedars-Sinai and St. Johns, all of which stand to lose big from Medicare cuts.

“People in my district are very anxious about radical changes the Republicans are talking about--$270 billion they are cutting . . . to free up money for tax cuts. They don’t want Medicare ruined for that,” Waxman said.

At the other end of the political universe is the Fullerton-area district: solidly Republican, economically conservative and peppered with bedroom communities, malls and Knott’s Berry Farm.

“There is always concern about Medicare and we share that concern because the program is going to go broke in seven years,” said John Doherty, Royce’s press secretary, adding that Medicare reform could mean better coverage for seniors, not less.

So politically charged is the Medicare debate that the split is expected to follow party lines, meaning that the California delegation will divide just about in half, with little likelihood that any lawmaker will consider the state as a whole, experts say.

“The members personally struggle with their responsibilities to be true to their districts, serve on their national committees, figure out their role with their party and occasionally pull together on the part of California,” Denton said.

Asked if the delegation has improved much lately, she conceded: “Not really.” But she took heart from the fact that with partisan hatred at an all-time high, things haven’t gotten any worse. In fact, leading Republican David Dreier of San Dimas and senior Democrat George E. Brown Jr. of Colton have been quietly meeting in search of common ground. Among the issues on which they will try to unite: federal funding formulas, disaster assistance and NASA downsizing.

Other than that, “take a lesson from history and don’t expect much,” one longtime Republican aide chortled wryly. “There never has and there never will be a consensus on what California wants.”