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Valley's reps look back at victories great and small!

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  • Valley's reps look back at victories great and small!

    Los Angeles Daily News
    Jan 1 2005

    Valley's reps look back at victories great and small!w off



    By Lisa Friedman
    Washington Bureau


    WASHINGTON -- Forget civics class. In the real world of Capitol Hill
    politics, only one thing can make a bill become a law: power.
    Those who have it -- generally members of the majority party and
    politicians who stick around Washington long enough -- can boast at
    the year's end about all the new laws bearing their imprint.

    Those who don't -- more junior or minority party members -- call it a
    win when they can get a few paragraphs tacked onto a larger piece of
    legislation.

    So it went for most San Fernando Valley lawmakers looking back upon
    the 108th Congress.

    Rep. Howard Berman, D-Van Nuys, described the year as one of more
    work than accomplishments -- both for Congress as a whole and him
    personally.

    "No one could say this was a productive year. I got some things done,
    but nowhere near what I wanted," he said.

    Berman described his 2004 legislative successes -- one reforming the
    mechanism through which copyright royalty rates are distributed, and
    another authorizing scholarships to American schools in Arab
    countries as "boring, but important."

    The scholarships, which will go toward helping poor and middle-class
    Muslim students attend American-sponsored schools, was included in a
    bill overhauling intelligence services but was not funded. Berman had
    asked for $15 million.

    He called the scholarships "a long-term investment in producing
    leaders of the future" and vowed to secure money for them in 2005.

    Immigration reform, perhaps Berman's top legislative priority, ran
    into election-year paralysis.

    His bill to allow about 500,000 illegal immigrants establish legal
    residency, known as AgJobs, had support from more than 60 lawmakers.
    Half were Republicans. Yet with a contentious presidential campaign
    under way, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist blocked it from coming
    to the floor.

    Berman said he will reintroduce the bill in January. He said he was
    encouraged that President Bush recently renewed his quest for a
    guest-worker plan.

    "It sounds to me that the White House is interested in seeing if they
    can try and solve this problem, and I think Democrats should be
    willing to work with them," Berman said.

    Congress also stagnated on another top Berman priority, helping the
    movie industry combat piracy. The House passed legislation he wrote
    with Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, to increase penalties, but the Senate
    did not. The issue is another Berman said he expects to tackle "real
    early" in the 109th Congress.

    Finally, legislation to restrict some law enforcement measures in the
    Patriot Act also went nowhere. But, Berman said, he intended that
    bill as more of a "marker" to lay out concerns that should be
    addressed when the House debates whether or how to continue the USA
    Patriot Act.

    Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, counts nearly a dozen elements
    of the intelligence reform bill as stemming from his office.

    They include changing the way the State Department designates foreign
    terrorist groups so that it is the responsibility of the group, and
    not the U.S. government, to prove the group is no longer engaging in
    terrorist acts.

    They also include demanding passenger inspections at more foreign
    airports and creating a unified system for transliterating names into
    the Roman alphabet to help standardize name-based "watch" lists.

    "Speaking for myself, we had an extremely productive year," Gallegly
    said.

    Gallegly found little movement, however, in his efforts to curb
    illegal immigration and particularly to block acceptance of foreign
    consular identification cards. He vowed to be on the forefront of
    that debate in 2005, as well as efforts to block illegal immigrants
    from driver's licenses.

    Another legislative disappointment came in the form of bear baiting.
    Gallegly's bill, which would have banned the practice of setting out
    large piles of food and then lying in wait, faced massive opposition
    from the hunting lobby. Gallegly said he doesn't know if he will
    re-introduce the bill but noted that some states have started to ban
    the practice.

    Finally, he hailed the little-noticed passage of the Korean Defense
    Service Medal, to be given to members of the armed forces who served
    in Korea after July 1954, when the Pentagon stopped issuing the Korea
    Service Medal.

    Two bills authored by Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Santa Clarita,
    made it into law this year.

    One places restrictions on the ownership and sales of tigers, lions
    and other big cats to anyone other than zoos, exhibitors and those
    certified to handle and care for the animals.

    Another bill offers grants to states that help individuals with
    disabilities to access "assistive technology."

    A leading member of the House Education Committee, McKeon also worked
    language into an education bill ensuring that funding increases for
    students with disabilities be passed directly to the local level.
    McKeon said the measure stemmed from reports that California was
    using the money intended for students with disabilities for unrelated
    programs, or to help mask the budget deficit.

    "That was a good victory for us," McKeon said of the provision.

    Yet with reauthorization of the higher education act and welfare
    reform still on the table, McKeon said his 2005 goals remain similar
    to the ones he had going into 2004. He blamed the Senate for much of
    Congress' inaction.

    "The Senate never even dropped a bill," he said of the education
    measure. "I think they just figured early on they weren't going to be
    able to get it done, so they didn't even address it. But I think
    we're going to be able to move early next year."

    Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, managed this year to expand DNA
    analysis, establish a U.S. trade representative for intellectual
    property rights and help hybrid-car drivers save toll money.

    He also worked some language on nuclear non-proliferation into the
    intelligence bill, including a provision defining the crime of
    assembling a radioactive dirty bomb and allowing prosecutors to use
    racketeering laws to investigate and prosecute people trading in
    nuclear technology.

    Schiff, who helped found a Democrat study group on non-proliferation,
    said he intends to make that issue one of his top priorities in 2005.

    One bill Schiff said he plans to introduce in January will deal a
    comprehensive global cleanup of nuclear material in a way he vowed
    "goes beyond anything I've seen before."

    Schiff failed to secure passage of an amendment recognizing the
    Armenian genocide. But, he called language that was approved and
    later stripped from a bill at the insistence of House Speaker Dennis
    Hastert "a symbolic victory."

    "Given that next year is the 90th anniversary (of the genocide),
    we're going to make a big push."

    Also still lingering is legislation expanding the Santa Monica
    Mountains National Recreation Area to include more of the mountains
    near La Crescenta, Santa Clarita, Simi and Conejo valleys, as well as
    the Arroyo Seco.

    "We got very close," Schiff said. "I'm hoping we'll find smoother
    passage this year."

    Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, counted among his accomplishments
    extending a $2,000 tax credit for hybrid-car owners and stopping what
    he described as "some really bad Republican ideas."

    One of those measures he worked against was a restructuring of the
    federal-state securities regulation, which Sherman argued would
    destroy state securities laws. A former certified public accountant,
    Sherman also fiercely opposed bills by Rep. David Dreier, R-Glendora,
    changing the rules for employee stock options, which Sherman said
    would deprive investors of information.

    A measure on presidential succession, which Sherman started working
    on well before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, received praise
    from constitutional scholars and other lawmakers in 2004 but saw no
    movement.

    Sherman said he plans to reintroduce the bill yet is not getting his
    hopes up about passage.

    "Just because it's important does not mean there's anybody in
    Washington that cares a whole lot about it," he said.

    Sherman also said Iran will continue to top his foreign policy
    agenda. He managed to work in language promoting democracy in Iran
    into the intelligence bill, but said he was still waiting for
    Republican leaders to hold hearings on the country's development of
    nuclear weapons.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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