Berman Ponders Leaving House for Home

Foreign ambassadors stop by his office to talk international affairs. C-SPAN cameras catch him maneuvering legislation through Congress. The White House invited him to a formal state dinner with the president of France.

After nearly a decade and a half in the House of Representatives, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) has built a reputation as a skilled legislative tactician with a firm grasp of a range of issues and valuable contacts on both sides of the aisle.

So why is he considering running for mayor of Los Angeles?

The reasons are varied, from diminished political clout to an intense lobbying campaign by his wife. But before Berman opts to launch a challenge to Mayor Richard Riordan, he must look inside himself to find the motivation.

“In the end, if you strip it all away, I have to decide whether in my gut it is something I want to do,” he said.

Berman says he would likely stay in Washington if he believed that the Democrats would regain majority status in the House this November. When the Republicans took over the House and Senate in 1994, they shunted Democrats to the margins of the legislative process, sending their job satisfaction level into a free fall.

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Numerous lawmakers, including Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), have chosen to retire when their terms end.

Berman has made the best of the change, scoring scattered legislative victories. But he is still forced to spend most of his time playing defense, trying to tone down GOP initiatives rather than advance his own.

Then there is Berman’s cross-country treks between home and office. Unlike many other veteran lawmakers who keep their primary residences near the Capitol, Berman lives in his congressional district. Every Thursday night or Friday morning, he catches a plane home to Valley Village, a community that abuts North Hollywood, only to return to his Capitol Hill apartment in time for business Tuesday morning.

Occupying the mayor’s office would cut a few thousand miles off his commute and please his wife, Janis, who is tired of the arrangement and eager to see her husband occupying the third-floor suite in City Hall.

Janis Berman served briefly as Riordan’s director of governmental relations near the start of the mayor’s term. But she was fired by Riordan’s then-Chief of Staff William McCarley, a move that angered both Bermans.

The congressman, however, insists that his relationship with Riordan is cordial and that his candidacy, should it materialize, would not be based on a grudge.

“I think we have an amiable relationship,” he said. “This isn’t about how we get along, it’s about where L.A. should be going and whether I have a different idea or not that I want to pursue.”

Berman has faced fateful decisions like this before. As a state legislator in 1980, he decided to take on Assembly Speaker Leo McCarthy for the top job. The year of fighting that resulted gave a victory to neither man, but instead opened the door for the long reign of Willie Brown.

And in 1993, after Mayor Tom Bradley decided to step down, Berman flirted with a mayoral bid, eventually opting out.

Should he run this time, he could keep his name on the November 1996 congressional ballot and return to his current post if Riordan prevailed.

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Even if Berman decides that a City Hall bid is the right career move in 1997, he must determine whether it’s possible in purely political terms. Although state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) and Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas are considering bids of their own, political analysts say Berman would be Riordan’s strongest adversary.

The Riordan camp, however, is confident that it can defeat any challengers.

“Dick Riordan will be reelected,” said William Wardlaw, a top Riordan advisor. “I can’t think of anyone who will beat Dick Riordan. He has done a very good job. He is very popular. He will outspend any competitor by at least 2 to 1.”

Those pushing Berman to run, including Ridley-Thomas and other members of the council, paint this scenario: African American leaders, many of them critical of Riordan’s performance in the black community, would help deliver the roughly 16% black vote to Berman, who has strong ties to many black elected officials. Berman could also tap his strengths among Jewish voters, residents of the San Fernando Valley, union members and others who helped elect Riordan in 1993.

Political consultant Joe Scott, a former Riordan aide who is encouraging a Berman candidacy, says such a contest would amount to a rerun of the 1962 mayor’s race in which Sam Yorty, with a base in the Valley, ousted incumbent Mayor Norris Poulson.

Berman announced publicly that he was mulling a mayoral challenge at a breakfast meeting last month, partly arranged by Scott.

“The conventional wisdom is that Riordan has a lot of money and can’t be beat,” said Scott. “But this is still an overwhelmingly Democratic city and Riordan’s support is soft.”

Not everyone who is talking to Berman is so enthused. A Berman candidacy would tear at many of the congressman’s longtime allies who are active in the Riordan administration. Some of them tell Berman to wait four years until 2001, when term limits would force Riordan out and the job would be up for grabs.

That’s not lost on Berman. Neither is the fact that Riordan’s war chest is awash in cash and that, with the Riordan campaign seeking to bring political consultant Don Sipple aboard, the mayor would likely come out swinging.

Sipple, now working for the presidential campaign of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), produced Gov. Pete Wilson’s TV ads showing immigrants illegally crossing the border. “They keep coming,” the announcer said, capitalizing on an issue that sent Wilson soaring over former state Treasurer Kathleen Brown in the governor’s race.

With Berman in the running, the Riordan camp could poke at the longtime congressman for his 67 overdrafts in House bank, for tax increases he has supported over the years, and for helping to formulate the 1986 amnesty law that gave legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants.

And although Berman may be a mover in the House, how many people know his legislative record in San Pedro or South-Central or West Hills?

The Riordan camp has conducted a poll that they say suggests Berman would have little chance of ousting the mayor. The majority of voters have not heard of Berman, according to the Riordan campaign.

Berman acknowledged that a member of Congress is often little known back home.

“I think most people in Los Angeles don’t know the name Howard Berman,” he said. “Part of it is a consequence of the media. The fact is, a member of a big-city delegation in Congress gets very little publicity, good or bad. . . . I have very little doubt that the majority of Angelenos do not know who I am.”

He is, however, known in Washington.

Just last month, Berman showed his powers of persuasion and ability to work with members of the opposition party in killing two provisions of the House immigration bill. He led the effort to maintain legal immigration at its current levels and defeat a proposed guest-worker program that would have allowed growers to bring up to 250,000 foreign workers into the country to pick crops.

“Far too many congressmen and women come to Washington armed with a few sound bites and a hair dryer to coif their hair,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. “They spend their time looking good. Berman stands head and shoulders above other reps. He actually studies and learns and translates his knowledge into policy.”

Berman is also the fifth-ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, within striking distance of someday becoming its chairman.

Trading international policy making for resolving local zoning disputes may appear to be the ultimate demotion, but Berman has long had a knack for connecting far-flung issues with his hometown. And if he can work with both Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) in the House, his backers ask, why couldn’t he connect with Hal Bernson and Rita Walters on the City Council?

Berman is the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee dealing with Asia and the Pacific and has used the new position to make contacts with immigrant communities in Los Angeles.

Berman has used his seat on the Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, to help local police departments use drug-forfeiture money to pay for the salaries of narcotics officers. And like Riordan, Berman has pushed for more police officers by championing the Clinton administration’s COPS program.

It is police staffing that would likely become a battleground in a Riordan-Berman contest.

Riordan had pledged to boost the Los Angeles Police Department by 3,000 officers or forgo a second term. He has not come close to the goal and Berman advisors are already relishing a television commercial asking: “Where are the cops?”

Yet with much to mull over, Berman realizes that valuable time is ticking away.

The primary election is a year off--a long time unless one focuses on the money he would have to raise and the organization he would have to build to unseat a multimillionaire who has ties to many of the same people a Berman candidacy would rely on.

The House is in recess through April 16, and Berman says he’ll spend the bulk of that time mulling his political future.

He will do the same thing he does before voting on a difficult piece of legislation. He’ll ponder the pros and cons.

And then, probably by month’s end, he’ll cast an “aye” or a “nay.”

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Howard L. Berman

Age: 54; Education: bachelor’s degree, UCLA, 1962; law degree, UCLA, 1965.

Career: Attorney, 1967 to 1972; California Assembly, 1973 to 1983; Representative, 26th Congressional District, 1983 to present. Currently serves on the Judiciary Committee and the International Relations Committee, where he is the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.

Family: Married to Janis Schwartz, with one child and one stepchild.

Quote: “I think most people in Los Angeles don’t know the name Howard Berman. Part of it is a consequence of the media. The fact is, a member of a big-city delegation in Congress gets very little publicity, good or bad . . . I have very little doubt that the majority of Angelenos do not know who I am.”