Sybert, Sherman Push Hard in a Tossup Race

Long after most folks are tucked in their beds, Republican congressional candidate Rich Sybert is furiously pecking away on his computer keyboard.

His practice of churning out sharply worded letters, articles or legal documents until 2 a.m. began more than a decade ago as a corporate lawyer.

Admittedly thin-skinned, Sybert continues to pound away during the campaign against those who criticize him.

It’s a rare candidate who fires off a letter to a large and influential homeowners’ group, accusing its newsletter writer of conducting “a subtle and clever campaign of disinformation against me and my candidacy.”

Or dispatches a note to a septuagenarian volunteer with a local Sierra Club chapter, blasting the senior citizen for bias and “smear” tactics after he lost the club’s endorsement.

Or has a habit of filing lawsuits, including targeting a former congressional foe last year in a libel suit that a three-judge panel ruled “has no place in our courts.”

“I call them as I see them,” said Sybert, who is running against Democrat Brad Sherman in the 24th District, which stretches from Thousand Oaks to Malibu and Sherman Oaks.

“I think everybody ought to be held to high standards of conduct in both their personal and professional lives,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of tolerance for failing to meet that.”

Sybert, 44, the hard-driving son of an engineer, put himself through UC Berkeley, Harvard Law School and then rose to the top of a high-powered law firm--only to abandon it all for a life in politics beginning as Gov. Pete Wilson’s director of planning and research.

Supporters admire Sybert’s energy, his intellect and unwavering determination to fight for what he sees as right. Those attributes, they say, would quickly make him a standout in Congress.

“Give ‘em hell!” wrote one financial contributor.

Sybert’s detractors contend that he tends to shove, rather than push, his issues. They acknowledge he is smart. But they also call him arrogant and predict that his ambition and combative demeanor would undermine those alliances and friendships a political leader needs to get things accomplished.

“He seems to always be his own worst enemy,” said one Republican who worked with Sybert as a fellow aide to Gov. Wilson and spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

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Even in victory, the former colleague said, “instead of becoming a little more magnanimous, he pushes so hard that people are mad as hell at him.”

Wilson offers a more glowing assessment of his former aide. “I know him to be a man of great accomplishment and integrity,” he says.

Sybert, a wiry man with a boyish appearance, is more prone to action than self-reflection.

A tireless worker, Sybert has juggled the campaign with duties as husband and father to a 3 1/2-year-old daughter and with twin jobs as corporate counsel of Lanard Toys, a Hong Kong-based toy company, and president of its Oxnard-based toy design shop.

“I think the purpose of life is to accomplish something,” Sybert said. “I know there are people who think the purpose of life is to enjoy it. But I want to get things done.”

He has been charging ahead in his congressional quest for three years now, ever since he quit Wilson’s staff and moved to Calabasas.

He came extremely close to ousting Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) two years ago. He spent about $1 million--half of it his own money--on his first campaign that came up short by merely 3,536 votes. Beilenson has since decided to retire.

Sybert now faces Sherman, a well-financed Democratic candidate and twice-elected member of the state Board of Equalization.

Political leaders from both parties consider the race a tossup, given that the 24th Congressional District is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans who actually vote.

Sybert seems energized rather than daunted by the challenge. He has eagerly positioned himself to attract swing voters by downplaying some of his libertarian views and playing up his long-standing interest in the environment, his support for abortion rights and compassion for the poor.

Sybert points out that he has been a card-carrying Sierra Club member since high school. He tries to distinguish his views from those of House Republican leaders, saying, “We have an obligation to help those who are less fortunate.”

He also understands the unpopularity of lawyers. So he refers to himself as a businessman on the ballot and at political forums, even though his financial statement shows he still derives the bulk of his income as an attorney.

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Sybert has picked up the popular campaign theme of reforming the judicial system--as he puts it, “to reduce litigation and discourage frivolous cases.”

But court records show he has filed a number of lawsuits himself over the years, complaining that he has been personally wronged.

Sybert sued a Burbank appliance store for selling him an air conditioner that failed to sufficiently cool a room, despite the promises of a salesman.

He sued a Newport Beach-based vacation tour company, demanding a partial rebate for a tour of Mexico after the peso was suddenly devalued. He sued a Century City parking garage, accusing its employees of stealing an expensive sheepskin-and-suede coat from his car.

Another Sybert suit took on Budget car rental, claiming the company reneged on a promise made over the phone that he could rent a car in Canada’s Yukon Territory at a flat rate with no mileage charge.

He sued a river-rafting company after he fell and injured his knee while hiking to a nearby swimming hole alongside Oregon’s Rogue River.

He filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against a Beverly Hills dermatologist in 1983, accusing him of leaving visible depressions on his chin from the treatment of white blotches where facial hair refused to grow.

In a letter to the doctor, he wrote: “I am informed by my agent that the photographic difficulties caused by the indentations make me substantially less employable as a commercial actor, an activity on my part which I made known to you at the very beginning of my treatment.”

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Sybert said he sees no inconsistency between these personal lawsuits and his public position on reducing litigation.

“First of all, none of those were frivolous because I won all of them,” he said. “Second of all, that was 15 years ago and frankly, I’m older and more mature now.”

In fact, all of these lawsuits, which were filed between 1982 and 1985, were settled.

Last year, Sybert became embroiled in litigation again.

He sued Beilenson for libel, accusing him of besmirching his reputation in a 1994 campaign mailer that attacked Sybert for collecting $140,000 in private legal fees while holding a $98,000-a-year job on the governor’s staff.

In his lawsuit, Sybert said his moonlighting was cleared in advance with ethics officials and that the mailers accuse him of “criminal conduct and personal dishonesty” by suggesting “Rich Sybert Ripped off California Taxpayers.”

Sybert said he settled the suit with Beilenson in March and that no money changed hands.

A month later, the 2nd District Court of Appeal issued an opinion on the moot case, ruling it should have been tossed out of court early because such suits can bring “a disquieting stillness to the sound and fury of legitimate political debate.”

Born March 21, 1952, in Whittier, Sybert spent his early years in Oakland until his parents separated and he moved to New York City at age 5 with his mother and two sisters.

He split time between the parents’ homes and attending grammar school in New York, where his mother was a teacher and counselor. He spent summers in Oakland with his father, an engineer and businessman.

At age 11, he returned to Oakland to live with his father and continue school. But he was soon uprooted as his father’s career led them to British Columbia, Canada. Within months, Sybert was left in a boarding school as his father headed for work on another project in Mexico.

Although he loathes to dwell on these formative years, Sybert has described them in ways that reveal his frustration.

“My parents had a very bitter divorce involving protracted court proceedings, with the result that I moved around a lot and finally was dumped into a boarding school, then to find myself on my own at age sixteen,” Sybert once wrote.

He returned to Oakland, lived with friends and finished high school. He became active in the Sierra Club and in a campaign to stop developers from filling in salt ponds along San Francisco Bay for more housing subdivisions.

Sybert said he put himself through college with a combination of jobs and student loans. He majored in history at UC Berkeley, grew his hair long, played guitar and sang folk songs in coffeehouses and joined the Frisbee team.

He then attended Harvard to earn his law degree, served as a clerk for a federal judge in Honolulu and in 1978 landed a job at a Los Angeles law firm, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton. Five years later, he became the youngest full partner in the firm’s history.

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“He was very aggressive, bright and hard-working,” former law partner Joe Coyne said. “He would figure out the angles and be a step ahead of the opponents. . . . He’d work here until three and four o’clock in the morning when it would get hot, cranking it out.”

Yet Sybert soon grew restless.

“I’m a little frustrated by what I’m doing now, lawyering away in a big firm while trying to satisfy my desire for something more by teaching and writing on the side,” he wrote in 1984 on his application for a White House Fellowship.

He was selected as a White House fellow in 1985, and assigned to spend the year in the Defense Department, working near the office of then-Gen. Colin Powell.

Sybert’s hunger to join the debate on public policy has compelled him over the years to write numerous essays and letters to the editor.

This passion caused a bit of a commotion in 1986, when he was working in the tightly controlled Pentagon and penning letters and op-ed articles about delicate arms-control negotiations with the Soviet Union.

National Security Council officials wanted to screen his letters, tone down his rhetoric and make sure he revealed no classified secrets, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

One memo circulated among National Security Council staff members sought to omit any reference to Sybert’s connection with the Defense Department or the White House.

“FYI,” the memo said, “we had a problem with earlier unvetted correspondence from Sybert.”

Reflecting back on that time, Sybert said he remembers his articles drawing angry letters in response from the public. But he said he was never aware that his writings had touched off efforts within the National Security Council to tone him down.

He tried to parlay his fellowship into a job in the White House counsel’s office, but it never worked out.

Instead, he joined the Navy Reserves and signed on with then-Sen. Pete Wilson as a Senate aide and policy advisor in Wilson’s Senate reelection and gubernatorial campaigns.

He officially quit his law firm in 1990 and joined the governor’s staff as policy and research director. He spent nearly three years mapping long-range plans on how to manage growth in a state facing a mushrooming population and on weighing other policy matters.

Wilson liked having Sybert around because he stirred up new ideas for debate within the governor’s staff. Not everyone, however, shared the governor’s enthusiasm. Sybert stirred emotions too.

“Sometimes things got a little heated,” said Lee Grissom, who took Sybert’s place as research and policy director. “That goes back to his litigious nature. He’s a litigator, Harvard-trained. He is so bright and he has the ability to get impatient with those who are not tracking an item as fast as he is.”

Sybert said he felt fortunate to work in state government at the highest levels of policy-making.

But again he found it not fulfilling.

“What I found out is that whatever area, whether it is welfare reform or the impact of illegal immigration or even something as mundane as our water supply, sooner or later all roads lead to Washington,” he said. “That’s where I thought I could make a difference.”

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24th Congressional District

District At A Glance

* Party Breakdown

Republican: 40%

Democrat: 45%

Other: 15%

Ethnic Breakdown

White: 59%

Latino: 31%

Other: 1%

African American: 3%

Asian American: 6%

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The Candidates

Incumbent Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) has decided to retire from Congress, leaving a wide- open race for his seat. Republican Rich Sybert is going head- to- head with Democrat Brad Sherman. Also running are Libertarian Erich Miller, Ron Lawrence of the Natural Law Party and Ralph Shroyer of the Peace and Freedom Party.

Ron Lawrence

Age: 70

Occupation: Physician / administrator

Party: Natural Law

Education: Bachelor’s degree in zoology and master’s degree in physiology from New York University, and medical degree from UC Irvine.

Background: A practicing physician for 43 years, Lawrence has been a longtime advocate for alternative health care. He was one of the nation’s first medical doctors to use acupuncture. He is an assistant clinical professor at the Neuropsychiatric Institute at the UCLA School of Medicine and runs a small nonprofit institute on Alzheimer’s disease.

Issues: Lawrence advocates shifting federal spending from traditional medicine to alternative and preventive health care. He believes prevention could cut in half the $1- trillion federal health-care budget. He also supports greater reductions in the defense budget and an increase in NASA’s programs to explore space.

Erich Miller

Age: 35

Occupation: Businessman, teacher

Residence: Reseda

Party: Libertarian

Education: Bachelor’s degree in music, North Texas State University; master’s in music, North Illinois University.

Background: A San Fernando Valley resident for a decade, Miller is an elementary school music teacher and a steel drum percussionist in a calypso jazz band. He has been active in Libertarian Party politics for several years. Miller is making his second bid for Congress. Last time, he won 5.6% of the vote.

Issues: Miller advocates cutting the federal budget in half, ending welfare, Medicare and other entitlements, privatizing Social Security, eliminating congressional retirements and selling the government’s $12 trillion in assets. He wants to end America’s war on illegal drugs and move toward legalizing them. He suggests bringing home U.S. troops from abroad and ending federal control over education.

Brad Sherman

Age: 41

Occupation: State Board of Equalization member.

Residence: Sherman Oaks

Party: Democrat

Education: Bachelor’s degree, UCLA; law degree, Harvard Law School

Background: As a member of the State Board of Equalization since 1990, Sherman criticized the Legislature and Gov. Pete Wilson for imposing a sales tax on snacks and campaigned for an initiative that repealed the tax. He previously worked as a certified public accountant and lawyer specializing in tax matters.

Issues: Sherman vows to safeguard Medicare and student financial aid from budget cuts. He wants to protect the Santa Monica Mountains and federal clean air and water pollution standards. He advocates balancing the budget by the year 2002. He supports President Clinton’s program to hire 100,000 more police officers. He favors the assault weapons ban and wants to prohibit the sale of the handguns known as Saturday night specials.

Ralph Shroyer

Age: 66

Occupation: Retired schoolteacher

Residence: Woodland Hills

Party: Peace and Freedom

Education: Bachelor’s degree in psychology from University of Illinois and master’s degree in education from Cal State Northridge.

Background: A longtime San Fernando Valley resident, Shroyer taught school for 31 years and was active in the teachers unions before retiring in 1986. He was founding member of the Peace and Freedom Party in 1967 and has been active in the party’s organization ever since. He ran for Congress in 1974, trying to oust a Democratic incumbent who supported the Vietnam War.

Issues: Shroyer wants to replace America’s winner- take-all, two- party system withone of proportional representation that would give minor parties a voice in Congress. He favors taxing the assets of the wealthy rather than taxing income. He advocates universal access to medical care.

Rich Sybert

Age: 44

Occupation: Attorney / business manager

Residence: Calabasas

Party: Republican

Education: Bachelor’s degree in history from UC Berkely, law degree from Harvard Law School, master’s degree in business administration from UCLA.

Background: Narrowly losing to Beilenson in 1994, Sybert is making a second bid for public office. Sybert was an attorney in Los Angeles from 1978 to 1990 before becoming Gov. Pete Wilson’s director of planning and research. He moved back to Southern California in 1993 to run for Congress.

Issues: A fiscal conservative and moderate on social issues, Sybert wants to shrink the federal bureaucracy, repeal the 1993 tax increase and simplify the tax code. He supports reforming and sricly enforcing immigration laws, and making the criminal justice system more efficient. He proposes to end bilingual education, send federal grants directly to school districts and make education expenses tax deductible.