WASHINGTON — In a story that has circulated around Capitol Hill for years, California's famously fractured delegation gathered for a rare bipartisan meeting and decided to send for pizza -- only to get into a fight over what toppings to order.
The tale, true or not, illustrates the difficulty of bringing together Democrats and Republicans from the largest state delegation in the House. In fact, the last time they formally met was two years ago, when stockbrokers still were recommending investors buy General Motors.
Now the full delegation has scheduled a meeting for this week. But like everything else involving the politically diverse 53-member group, there is dissension -- over whether such get-togethers would even make a difference in advancing California's interests.
"We really could be the 900-pound gorilla in the House if we acted in unison," Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) said.
Others, however, think that about the only time the California delegation can come together is after a natural disaster. Expecting relations between state Democrats and Republicans to improve as a result of regular meetings, said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), is like "asking people to join hands and sing 'Kumbaya' and expect the world is going to be better."
The Texas and Illinois delegations meet monthly. Asked whether Texas' meetings make a difference in efforts to promote the state's interests, Republican Rep. Joe L. Barton said, "It can't hurt."
At a time when President Obama has called for a new spirit of bipartisanship in the Capitol and when California is competing with other states for scarce federal funds, lawmakers' inability to come together "does hurt us," said Rep. Bob Filner (D-Chula Vista).
Even so, said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), "California is a huge state. . . . It's always going to have a lot of influence."
It is precisely because California is so big, its population so diverse and its congressional districts so intricately drawn that the delegation ranges from conservative Republican Rep. Wally Herger of rural Chico to liberal Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters from Los Angeles.
"In politics as in geology, California is a state full of fault lines," said John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College, noting that state lawmakers "not only represent different ideologies, but different Californias."
