Political Storm Takes Toll on California

Sen. Barbara Boxer sat in her pastel office with a tray of bagels and the end in sight. Within hours, the Senate would vote to acquit President Clinton of all charges. Someone asked whether anything good had come of it.

She had to think hard. Her president was forever stained. And she was still trying to justify to her colleagues why she, a California Democrat and fierce champion of women’s rights, had not called for Clinton’s head.

On the other side of the Capitol, Rep. Tom Campbell of San Jose surveyed the damage. His vote to impeach Clinton has made him one of the most endangered Republican lawmakers in the state. He was working on inner peace.

“It’s serious,” he said of his political predicament. “And every day I feel stronger that my judgment was correct.” In impeachment as in most things, California is a microcosm of the country. Not all of the state’s 54-member congressional delegation was pleased with the outcome as the Senate rejected charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, but all of them were grateful to have it over.

Political Casualties at Every Turn

If this was a partisan war, there were no winners. The Capitol is littered with casualties on both sides. If it was political theater, then California cast leading players in every role. In one way or another, they all tried to stand tall, to look principled, to make a difference. And almost every one somehow was diminished at nearly every turn.

“It tarnishes whoever touches it,” said Campbell, a two-term moderate from a district that has staged protests and vigils denouncing his House vote to impeach. “People divided more deeply on this than any issue since I’ve been in public life. The Persian Gulf War came close but it did not equal this.”

Boxer assumed the mantle of the tireless defender, castigating Clinton’s private conduct while extolling his achievements as president. Her public crusade against former Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon and Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, both Republicans, left her branded a hypocrite in her reelection campaign last year. She won handily but still felt the need to explain the discrepancy to her 99 colleagues in a speech Thursday. “In this case we had a consensual affair, wanted by both parties.”

For Dianne Feinstein, California’s other Democratic senator, impeachment was an opportunity to stand apart from the partisan crowd. She was the first Democratic lawmaker to condemn Clinton’s behavior publicly in scorching remarks. In mid-trial, she looked toward a solution, drafting a censure measure that would produce a bipartisan denunciation for the history books.

But in the end, Texas Republican Sen. Phil Gramm blocked the resolution from coming to a vote. A bomb threat closed the Senate, and Feinstein had to settle for submitting a watered-down declaration into the record, an inauspicious end to weeks of cross-party work. Feinstein said afterward that she felt “a little bit” robbed.

For some members of the House, a national nightmare ended with the president’s acquittal. But for some lawmakers, the battle is far from over.

Rep. James E. Rogan--the Glendale Republican who vigorously prosecuted the president as one of 13 House managers--is perhaps California’s most targeted Republican officeholder. Hollywood notables have vowed to spend substantial time and money to defeat him in 2000. Sitting at his desk on the eve of the vote, Rogan sounded vaguely as though he already had lost a race that is still 21 months away: “There’s no shame in losing elections, as long as one loses for the right reasons,” he said.

In nearly as much peril is Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-San Diego), a moderate whose pro-impeachment vote could cost him in his swing district. Bilbray looks now to his party to change the subject over the next 21 months and give voters something other than scandal to think about.

“I expect the party to concentrate on taking care of business. I expect [party officials] to start articulating what we are doing and not keep talking about how much they hate Bill Clinton,” Bilbray said. “People are sick of hearing that.”

The relief in the Capitol was palpable as the Senate adjourned Friday, and the reactions among Californians swung from the political left to the right.

Democrats spoke of legislation to prevent a repeat performance: Rep. Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks wants a law protecting Secret Service agents from subpoenas. Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco is writing a bill requiring a two-thirds House vote to impeach a president.

GOP Hopes to Stand the Test of Time

Conservative Republicans were disappointed at the acquittal but convinced that time would vindicate them.

“When people have time to think and understand the historic decision to maintain standards or waive them for the president, they are going to realize that those of us who did our duty and voted to impeach were doing the right thing,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach.

For months, impeachment has made it impossible to get much else done in Congress. When something was accomplished, the media hardly noticed.

Bilbray introduced four bills the same week that Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt threatened to expose the private sins of prominent Republicans. Guess what the local media called him about.

With all that behind them, Rep. Jerry Lewis of Redlands, the state delegation’s Republican leader, planned to summon his GOP colleagues to duty.

“There is not any question that there was a very significant airing of the problems the president has brought upon himself and upon our process,” Lewis said. “But that is over now. It feels like a cloud has been lifted and I will convene my Republican members to say: ‘Let’s roll up our sleeves and go to work.’ ”