New Year Promises New Faces in High Places : Politics: Much turnover is expected among Valley legislators in 1996, fueled largely by term limits.

Turnover at the top will be the hallmark of politics in the San Fernando Valley in 1996 as seven incumbent lawmakers resign or are forced from office and a new generation steps up to the plate.

Term limits are the catalyst for most of the coming change, with four of the seven incumbents leaving office due to Proposition 140, the measure voters approved in 1990 to bar California Assembly members from serving more than six years and state senators more than eight years.

In addition, two battle-weary veterans--U.S. Reps. Anthony Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) and Carlos Moorhead (R-Glendale)--plan to resign seats they have held since the 1970s.

Despite the bumper crop of vacancies, some familiar figures will be trying to move up the political ladder to fill departing incumbents’ shoes.

For example, Assemblyman Jim Rogan (R-Glendale) is making a strong bid to succeed Moorhead while Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills), a term-limits victim in her chamber, seeks to replace state Sen. Newton Russell (R-Glendale), a victim of term limits in the Legislature’s upper house.

Another familiar face is that of Tom McClintock, the odds-on favorite to win the Boland seat. McClintock was a state assemblyman during the 1980s and a candidate for Congress in 1992 and for state controller in 1994.

Besides Boland and Russell, Assembly members Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) and Barbara Friedman (D-North Hollywood) are losing their jobs due to term limits. Neither Katz nor Friedman, both of whom are in their 40s, have disclosed any immediate political plans.

Other Valley-related political developments to watch in 1996:

* A credible bid for the Katz seat by Latino Democrats. Realtor Tony Cardenas, a political neophyte, is the best-financed and most richly endorsed of three Latinos running to represent a district that is 65% Latino.

A Latino victory here would be a first; to date, none has been elected to the Legislature from the Valley. Sacramento’s increasingly powerful Latino Legislative Caucus, led by Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), is putting its resources behind the 32-year-old Cardenas, who is also expected to win the support of Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon.

* A Democratic political offensive to break the GOP’s hegemony in the Glendale-Pasadena area.

Katz, the leader and chief strategist for Assembly Democrats, has high hopes that a large Democratic turnout in next year’s presidential election, coupled with GOP candidates’ weaknesses, may enable his party to score upsets in this traditional Republican stronghold.

Katz believes he’s found a sound prospect in former Pasadena City College president Jack Scott to beat Assemblyman Bill Hoge (R-Pasadena). Democratic strategists maintain that Hoge’s ties to the religious right and gambling interests make him vulnerable.

Katz also is hopeful that a divisive GOP primary will put a weakened Republican up against former federal prosecutor Adam Schiff, the local Democratic standard-bearer, in the battle for Russell’s Senate seat.

* The GOP’s effort to capture the Beilenson seat, continuing a Holy Grail-like quest. Republicans--again--have identified the 24th Congressional District among a handful of California House seats they will target for national campaign support.

The beneficiary of this anticipated largess will be Richard Sybert, a former aide to Gov. Pete Wilson who narrowly lost to Beilenson in 1994. Sybert is expected to eventually face state Board of Equalization member Brad Sherman, the only big-name Democrat with his hat in the ring.

Other Democrats have sized up the 24th--with its large number of registered Republicans--and concluded that the seat wasn’t worth the fight.