Negotiating a New Playing Field : Reps. Torres and Horn See Fortunes Reversed as GOP Grasps Power

For 12 years, Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-La Puente) climbed the ladder in the House of Representatives, capturing seats on plum committees and securing millions in funding for his working-class district.

Rep. Steve Horn (R-Long Beach), on the other hand, is a newcomer who faced uphill battles during his first term, seeing some pet proposals die in a House dominated by Democrats.

Now, with the GOP winning control of both sides of Congress for the first time in four decades, the tables are about to turn for these two representatives.

Both lawmakers are waiting to see exactly how they will fare in the new political landscape that emerges when Congress reconvenes in January. For now, Torres and Horn are taking time to reflect on how their lives will change as Republicans grasp power, saddling Democrats with a new, weaker role as the minority party.

Torres readily acknowledges his imminent loss of power and says he will have a harder time bringing home funds for programs in his district. For his part, Horn plans to take advantage of the new GOP House majority and reintroduce proposed spending cuts rejected by Democrats last year.

The coalition of liberal Democrats that helped bring Torres to power is crumbling. Although the veteran lawmaker should remain a powerful voice among his party in the House, his ability to craft legislation will be marginal, political observers say.

Torres is expected to retain his seat on the coveted Appropriations Committee, which controls billions of dollars in spending, but his clout there is expected to diminish as Republicans assert control and set the agenda.

Political observers, meanwhile, predict that one of Torres’ beloved projects--a multimillion-dollar consortium designed to help fund environmental cleanup--could be in jeopardy at the hands of Republicans seeking to cut domestic spending.

Torres recognizes the coming changes and speaks of a more activist role, taking to the House floor to argue for votes that in years past he counted on without flexing a political muscle.

“I will be an underdog,” said Torres, 64, who was reelected to a seventh term this fall. “I will probably be more vociferous.”

The highly regarded Torres is known in the House for his willingness to cooperate with colleagues of both parties, political experts say. Torres also enjoys the role of elder statesman among Latino representatives. To his staff, he is a sort of grandfather figure, and aides often refer to their boss by his initials, E.T.

Torres was elected to the House in 1982 in a heavily Latino and Democratic district newly drawn after the 1980 Census. He has not faced a serious challenge since then. The former assembly-line worker had spent most of the previous three decades involved in the United Auto Workers union, where he rose from a rank-and-file member to become a top official crafting the union’s foreign-affairs program.

While in the House, Torres spent a decade on the Small Business and Banking committees. On Banking, the more powerful of the two, he wrote legislation to change credit reporting practices to protect a consumer’s privacy and pushed another bill requiring banks to disclose information, such as interest rates for deposit accounts.

Two years ago, Torres won a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee and was named one of 14 deputy majority whips, a position he has used to deliver Democratic votes on key issues.

Torres has succeeded in bringing home millions of dollars for projects to his 34th Congressional District, which stretches from East Los Angeles to Hacienda Heights, and includes Pico Rivera and Norwalk. The funds have paid for waste water treatment programs, financial counseling for low-income home buyers and job-training programs.

“I had a very good streak of delivering for my community because of the position I was in,” Torres said. “It’s going to be different (now). I’ll be in a minority position. You don’t have the benefit of dealing with a (committee) chairman from your own party.”

Indeed, Democrats across the board may find themselves fighting to retain their gains, as Republicans make good on campaign pledges to slash domestic spending. Political observers already have identified one of Torres’ pet projects--the North American Development Bank--as an item that could wind up on the Republican chopping block.

The bank was established this year to help finance environmental cleanup projects--such as sewage treatment--along the U.S.-Mexico border and job programs for communities affected by the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico. The two countries each have pledged $225 million for the bank.

Torres won the Clinton Administration’s backing for the bank in exchange for his support of NAFTA, which was widely condemned by labor unions in this country. Torres, as a House whip, is credited with delivering key Democratic votes--including several Latino representatives--for NAFTA.

“NADBank is on tenuous ground,” said Fernando Guerra, an associate professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University. “They (Republicans) don’t see any of their constituents benefiting by it.”

Torres’ NAFTA vote hurt his relationship with labor leaders, but he says the development bank will provide funding for programs to retrain U.S. workers who lose their jobs as a result of the agreement.

Torres said he believes the bank enjoys support among Republicans who voted for NAFTA. “I think it would be ludicrous for business-minded Republicans to break it up because they say Esteban Torres is the father of NADBank,” he said.

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Torres stands to suffer under the new House makeup, but Horn expects to benefit.

He will remain on two House committees--Government Operations, and Public Works and Transportation--and he plans to take a more active role now that the panels will be run by Republicans.

He hopes to use his seat on Government Operations, for example, to launch investigations into the efficiency of public agencies, such as federal customs operations charged with intercepting drugs at border sites.

Horn also plans to reintroduce proposals to cut domestic spending and to reform campaign financing that he says were blocked by unyielding Democrats in the last Congress.

“I’ve got a long list of priorities,” said Horn, 63. “Democrats ran a very rigid system. It was a dictatorship.”

Horn displays a vast knowledge of national politics, the result of service in Washington since the late 1950s. He served first as a staffer to the secretary of labor in the Eisenhower Administration and later as a Senate aide. He has has written books on the Senate Appropriations Committee and on congressional ethics, and his conversations are peppered with detailed references to obscure government officials and laws.

The former political science professor, who spent 17 1/2 years as president of Cal State Long Beach, said he was not surprised by the recent GOP landslide. Democratic leaders, he said, had grown “arrogant” as the dominant party.

“I hope if (Democrats) are ever in the majority again, they will be a little more humble,” said Horn, whose 38th Congressional District stretches from Long Beach to Downey. “They treated Republicans like dirt.”

During his first term, Horn experienced the frustrations that scores of House Republicans faced over the decades. He said that proposals he offered last year to cut federal spending were killed by the Democratic-controlled House Rules Committee, denying the measures a fair hearing on the House floor.

But Horn, a moderate who was recently reelected to a second term from a district dominated by Democratic voters, also sounded a note of conciliation. He said he looks forward to mounting the types of bipartisan coalitions that helped keep the Long Beach Naval shipyard off a federal closure list last year. The coalition brought together liberal and conservative members of California’s congressional delegation.

“I don’t think we’ll have any problems with our colleagues from California,” Horn said of relations in the next Congress.

The shipyard could be a major issue in Horn’s second term. The facility is once again being considered by Navy officials for closure. The Navy will make its recommendations in January to a federal base closure commission, which will make a decision later in the year.

Political observers say Horn’s district, home to defense contractors hit hard by military cutbacks, could benefit from the Republican shift in Washington.

“There will be more money in the military pipeline,” said Paul Schmidt, a political science professor at Cal State Long Beach. “The shipyard is in better hands now that Republicans control the Congress and now that a Republican is in the district. It can only help.”

Although GOP congressional leaders are vowing to pursue a conservative agenda, Horn said he does not plan to follow the party line exclusively. Horn, who calls himself a “realist Republican,” has in the past stressed his support for abortion rights and his disapproval of the military’s ban on homosexuals.

Steve Horn

Age: 63.

Party: Republican.

House terms: 1.

Committees: Public Works and Transportation, Government Operations.

District: 38th--Long Beach, Lakewood, Bellflower, Paramount, Downey, Signal Hill, parts of San Pedro and Wilmington.

Career: president, Cal State Long Beach, 17 1/2 years; dean of graduate studies and research, American University, 18 months; member of U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 13 years; administrative assistant to the secretary of labor in the Eisenhower Administration; Senate aide.

Esteban E. Torres

Age: 64

Party: Democrat

House terms: 6.

Committees: Appropriations. House deputy majority whip. Formerly on House Banking, Small Business committees.

District: 34th--Norwalk, Pico Rivera, Santa Fe Springs, Whittier, Montebello, Hacienda Heights, La Puente, Bassett, City of Industry, Valinda, East Los Angeles.

Career: U.S. ambassador to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); special assistant to President Jimmy Carter, in charge of Office of Hispanic Affairs; United Auto Workers official, including director of the Inter-American Bureau for Caribbean and Latin American Affairs, assistant director of the UAW’s International Affairs Department.