No Peace From a Congressman Who Speaks Freely

Have we found a successor to B-1 Bob Dornan, the most explosive mouth on Capitol Hill?

Pete Stark is a liberal Democrat who has represented the East Bay for nearly 30 years, an MIT-trained engineer who once put peace symbols on the checks of the Walnut Creek bank he started.

What happened in Congress last month was hardly peaceable. The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported that a Ways and Means subcommittee was scrutinizing the overlap of welfare policy and marriage, and Stark observed how curious that was, given that the “two previous Republican speakers both had extramarital affairs” and that a GOP conference chairman’s children “were all born out of wedlock.”

The conference chairman is Oklahoma Republican J.C. Watts, and two days later, after he got wind of this, Watts cornered Stark on the floor of Congress. “Visibly angry,” he demanded to know why his children had been drawn into this.

Someone must have told Watts that Stark referred to four children, and Watts told Stark the number was wrong. Stark, a witness said, retorted, “Then how many were there?” It was then that other congressmen led Watts away.

Stark’s tongue has stirred up trouble before. He ragged on California’s conservative former state welfare director Eloise Anderson, saying she would “kill children if she had her way,” and lately opened fire on the Bush administration’s spending plan--released during Easter week--as “the embodiment of the Antichrist. . . . It turns its back on the poor, it turns its back on education and health care for young children. The holiest week of the year, to release this budget that flies in the face of all Christ’s teachings is infamy.”

Stark’s office said he was merely noting “that Republican leaders have not always practiced what they preach,” and regarding Watts, “if he overstated the number of children involved, he apologizes.”

Of Watts’ five children, the eldest was born out of wedlock. Stark, age 69, is the father of five, including a 5-year-old child.

Eat as I Say, Not as . . .

That measure regulating the sale of junk food at school made it through the state Senate, but when it looked as if it would come up two votes short, Senate President Pro Tem John Burton pressed Jim Brulte on how he voted. Brulte, a Rancho Cucamonga Republican and not a petite fellow, said nothing.

Fast forward to the Senate lounge, the backstage quarters of the folks who were appalled that junk food is sold in 95% of public high schools, and that more than half of such schools have contracts with fast-food companies. On a tour of the lounge guided by svelte Sen. Tom McClintock, a Thousand Oaks Republican, heaps of chocolate chip cookies, sweet rolls and the like were clearly visible.

Sen. Jackie Speier protested hastily that the healthy stuff--carrots, grapes, yogurt--was in the fridge. Peacemaker Sen. Byron Sher, another lean, mean legislating machine, chimed in, “It’s all about choice.”

Trying to Bear Up in a Time of Loss

Scarcely was the body cold when Orange County went shopping to replace Sampson the hot-tub bear, who died at the Orange County Zoo last month.

Sampson was one of a kind, a black bear captured in 1994 as he lolled in a hot tub in Monrovia, where he had also been pilfering avocados to keep up his strength. Only a pardon from Gov. Pete Wilson saved him from death. Samson captured the Southern California imagination, which is why the Orange County Zoo built a faux-granite hot tub with funds raised by children, and fed him avocados, courtesy of a growers’ group.

Thus, Samson’s ursine appeal is too good to let a trifle like death interfere. Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer has zapped out press releases about his labors to find a new bear to fill Samson’s lair, sending the zoo director at public expense to Sacramento to audition a captured bear--even one without a respectable Republican cloth coat.

See Dick Run; Run, Dick, Run

Some among the GOP elect are trying to nudge outgoing Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan off his Hamlet-like hemming and hawing and into the governor’s race.

From Riverside (Assemblyman Rod Pacheco) to Bakersfield (Assemblyman Roy Ashburn) to Escondido (Assemblyman Mark Wyland) and Fullerton (Assemblyman Dick Ackerman), GOP legislators are circulating a draft-Dick petition that would classify Riordan as 1A prime governor material.

Republican political consultant Kevin Spillane says that 15 state legislators--”a half-dozen of them very conservative”--have signed on to the letter.

In the meantime, Republican William Simon Jr.--son of the onetime treasury secretary--is still sending out dithery press releases with phrases like “Simon Campaign Exceeds Exploratory Benchmarks,” about his possible run for California governor, something Riordan encouraged him to do.

Wake us when somebody decides something . . .

Quick Hits

So many newly elected politicians were gathered in the green room of Los Angeles TV station KCET last week that pundit Sherry Bebitch Jeffe joked that if one more showed up, “we’d be in violation of the Brown Act.” . . . Rep. Diane Watson, just elected to the 32nd District, is the 32nd member of the state’s Democratic congressional delegation, and its 16th woman, giving the delegation gender parity. . . . State Fish and Game wardens, who just used DNA to nail a hunter for felony elk poaching, are negotiating for pay raises, saying the “thin green line” is so poorly paid that some of them qualify for food stamps. . . . After 18 months on the job, Carpinteria City Manager Browning Allen has quit, saying the cost of living in Santa Barbara County is too high.

Word Perfect

“This thing looks tougher than the Israelis and the Palestinians.”

Rep. Brad Sherman, a Woodland Hills Democrat, about the head-to-head battle of open-spacers and environmentalists against the proposed Ahmanson Ranch development. Sherman himself is against it.

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Columnist Patt Morrison’s e-mail is patt.morrison@latimes.com. This week’s contributors are Mark Z. Barabak, Faye Fiore, Dan Morain, Jean O. Pasco, and Margaret Talev.