Seymour Caught in Whirlwind of Change : Politics: Senator takes on a new city, a new staff, plus the Gulf War, in his first few weeks on the job.

WASHINGTON —  John Seymour was lost in thought as he flew west from Washington toward California not long ago. A few minutes away from a Chicago layover, Seymour glanced at his watch. The date read Jan. 16.

“I started to think back: ‘My God, three weeks ago I had no idea I’d be a United States senator,” Seymour recalled. “And then I thought, ‘What has happened to your life? You’re picking your family up . . . you’ve got an election in two years.’ It seemed as if there had been 10 years of experiences and decisions thrust into one three-week period.”

But California’s newest senator was in for one more jolt. After the plane touched down in Chicago, a surprised Seymour was met by airline officials who hustled him to a telephone. When he called his office, the Republican lawmaker was told the nation had gone to war.

In the two weeks since Seymour, a state legislator and real estate investor from Anaheim, was sworn in to take the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Gov. Pete Wilson, the war in the gulf has complicated what even in peacetime would be a daunting task--setting up shop in Washington.

In addition to attending daily briefings on the progress of the war, Seymour has met with a half-dozen cabinet secretaries, considered recommendations for judicial appointments, started assembling a staff and begun plotting a legislative strategy. To the surprise of some liberals, the generally conservative lawmaker said that one of the items high on his legislative agenda is working out a compromise on a California desert protection bill sponsored by his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Alan Cranston. The bill languished in Congress for more than four years, largely because of an impasse between Cranston and then-Sen. Wilson.

While Seymour was working in Washington, his wife, Judy, also a veteran of the real estate business, moved her family out of their Anaheim home, rented a house in suburban Virginia, and tied up the loose ends at Seymour’s rented home in Sacramento.

In the midst of the whirlwind, Seymour resumed the interrupted visit to California on Friday, stopping off in Orange County at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro to visit the families of Marines serving in the Persian Gulf.

“Emotionally, it’s been a roller coaster,” the 53-year-old senator said last week as he sat in his temporary headquarters--Wilson’s old office on the seventh floor of the Hart Senate Office Building, a block from the Capitol.

“Here’s this tremendous honor that was bestowed on me . . . and really a mood of celebration,” he said, “And all of a sudden, that’s gone. It’s over. Because you have this Persian Gulf (War) right before you.”

A short man with the beginnings of a paunch, Seymour speaks with the energy and confidence of a wealthy entrepreneur, which he was before he sold his real estate business in 1981.

At the moment, Seymour’s office is best described as Spartan. When Wilson left for California, the new governor took everything with him. The towering bookcases are empty. The beige walls are pockmarked with holes and nails where Wilson’s pictures once hung. It seems an appropriate metaphor for wartime Washington.

Often, the object of a senator’s first vote is inauspicious--a change in Senate rules or a resolution expressing outrage over an affront to democracy. The first vote Seymour cast was to allow President Bush to commit U.S. troops to attack Iraq. Despite Seymour’s four years as a Marine, the decision was not an easy one, he said, especially because his mail and telephone calls were running 10 to 1 against the President.

“On the one hand, your Marine Corps instincts come back,” he said. “Then the other emotion? I’ve got a son, Jeffrey, who graduated from Cal State Long Beach in June, single, prime bait for a draft. . . . It’s a push-pull.”

In the end, Seymour said he decided that giving the President the authority to conduct a war was simply the best thing for the country.

Despite the war, Seymour has a few other things on his mind.

As he spoke, a deliveryman rolled in a dolly carrying the first of 12 cardboard boxes shipped from his old office in Sacramento. Seymour cautioned his staff not to unpack them. He will be vacating Wilson’s office soon, making room for a senator with more seniority. He will get a permanent office assignment only after every other senator who wants to move has been accommodated.

The temporary nature of his assignment is not lost on Seymour, who knows he must run for election in two years, in the first general election after his appointment to fill out Wilson’s six-year term. Because Wilson’s term expires in January, 1995, Seymour would have to run for election again in 1994.

Already, conservatives upset over Seymour’s switch to support of abortion rights are planning a challenge in the 1992 Republican primary. Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) will reportedly announce his candidacy sometime before the state Republican convention next month. And Democrats, encouraged by Seymour’s lack of name recognition and his defeat last year in the Republican primary for the lieutenant governorship, think he can be defeated. Former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat who lost narrowly to Wilson in November, is expected to challenge Seymour.

“He’s got two challenges,” said one California lobbyist, who asked not to be named. “He’s got the Washington challenge, establishing an effective senatorial office, and he’s got the political challenge--doing all the things necessary to make himself known and reelectable.”

If Seymour is worried about his political future, he doesn’t show it.

“I know how to hold onto the seat,” he said. “I’ll give you the magic formula. Serve the people of California and begin making a difference right away.”

Seymour said that one of his top priorities will be Cranston’s desert protection legislation. Wilson effectively bottled up the bill for years, believing that it went too far in its environmental objectives.

Which is not to say that Seymour will roll over.

“I don’t think the ball is all in my court,” Seymour said. “I think it’s also in Alan’s court.

The latest version of the desert legislation, introduced earlier this month, would create a 1.5-million-acre Mojave National Park. As a result, it would largely restrict the use of off-road vehicles in those areas, to the chagrin of off-road enthusiasts. Wilson and Cranston were unable to agree on the scope of the proposed park. Cranston’s latest bill somewhat reduces the amount of land that would be granted protected status.

“If I can be successful in negotiating that,” Seymour said, “I think that says, ‘Maybe this guy Seymour can perform.’ ”