His Only Predictable Trait Was Leadership

During his legislative career, Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) did things his way.

In 1967, the native New Yorker sponsored a trailblazing therapeutic-abortion law in the state Legislature before Roe vs. Wade became law.

Nearly three decades later, he miffed the liberals who had long adored him by writing a law that would have denied citizenship rights to babies born to illegal immigrants in the United States.

Along the way, the staunch environmentalist wrote legislation creating the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and refused special-interest money.

Beilenson also served on the House Intelligence Committee and was a ranking Democratic member of the Rules Committee at his retirement last year.

Neither the top-secret Intelligence Committee nor the powerful but arcane Rules Committee was the sort of assignment a legislator could brag about to the folks in the district. But for most of his career, Beilenson didn’t need to boast. He was the pride of his affluent, mostly Democratic constituents in the Valley and West Los Angeles.

Accordingly, the Harvard- educated attorney, as was the fashion for lawmakers in safe districts, saw his job as dealing with weighty national policy, not local issues.

Partly because he was more national policy wonk than local political insider, Beilenson was aced out of his cushy district in the 1990 reapportionment and had to run in a more conservative district encompassing parts of the San Fernando and Conejo valleys.

After nearly losing his seat in 1994, Beilenson stepped down last year, a calculated move to give his successor, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), the boost of a presidential-year turnout, which favors Democrats.