Rep. Becerra’s Vote on China Trade Bill Could Affect His Campaign for Mayor

Dozens of wavering House Democrats are feeling the heat this month as they decide how to vote on a China trade bill bitterly opposed by organized labor. But just one has the added pressure of knowing his closely watched decision could help or hinder his bid to become the next mayor of Los Angeles.

Any day now, Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles), a four-term congressman who represents much of the central city, will announce his position on what is shaping up as a defining vote for this Congress. That decision could have key repercussions on his relations with unions, his ability to raise money for his mayoral campaign and on how some Angelenos perceive his candidacy.

On the one hand, many of Becerra’s constituents are from the working-class bloc of voters likely to back organized labor’s pitch against the trade bill.

On the other hand, the Port of Los Angeles and many business interests in the city that Becerra wants to lead expect to gain from expanded trade with China.

Becerra acknowledged the stakes in an interview last week in his Capitol Hill office.

“As much as this is a vote of national significance, a vote that might be remembered 50 years from now, I have to be able to boil it down beyond that to what I think is important for Los Angeles,” he said.

So far, the China trade issue has not factored much into the mayoral campaign, in which the other declared candidates are City Atty. James K. Hahn, real estate broker Steve Soboroff, Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa and City Councilman Joel Wachs. But the issue’s profile could be raised after a scheduled House vote in late May on whether to grant China permanent, normal trade ties.

On the whole, Becerra’s record leans toward free-trade initiatives. In 1993, his first year in office, he supported the North American Free Trade Agreement for the United States, Canada and Mexico. But a few years later, he voted in committee against giving the president so-called fast-track authority to negotiate new trade agreements.

Becerra has consistently voted in favor of granting China normal trade ties as the issue has come up for annual review in Congress. But this month’s vote would scrap the annual review of China’s trade status as part of an initiative that the Clinton administration says would open vast new markets in the world’s most populous nation.

Foes of changing the status of U.S.-China trade relations argue that such a move would make it harder to pressure Beijing to improve its record on human rights.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), a leading opponent of the China trade bill, said she has not spoken to Becerra about the measure and could not predict his position. But if Pelosi is to achieve her goal of getting at least 140 House Democrats to oppose the bill, she will need lawmakers like Becerra on her side.

Democratic opponents hope to forge a coalition with a sizable minority of Republican House members to obtain the 218 votes needed to kill the bill.

One prominent Democratic nose-counter who supports the bill predicted Becerra will eventually vote for it. The source also sees Becerra as pivotal to the outcome, saying, “We absolutely have to have him.”

Becerra, asked whether he is leaning one way or the other, gave a long pause and measured his words.

“You know, you hear from someone who has a strong position and you come out nodding your head and saying, ‘That makes a lot of sense.’ So I guess after I hear a strong argument from one side, for the moment, I’m leaning that way. And then when I hear the other side, I lean back the other way.

“I’d say right now, I’m squarely in the middle.”

One reason Becerra has gotten special attention is that he sits on the trade subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over the bill.

President Clinton has called Becerra and asked for his support of the measure, as have several Cabinet secretaries and other administration officials.

Becerra said the president argued that the bill is needed to bolster U.S. national security. Defeat, the president told him, would strengthen the hand of hard-line Communists in Beijing.

“I think that’s a very strong argument,” Becerra said.

But when asked whether he believed it was true, he added: “I wish I knew how the Chinese thought. I could then give you a better response to that.”