AREA TRIO VOTE ALONG PARTY LINES.

Byline: Douglas Haberman Daily News Staff Writer

Three members of Congress from the San Fernando Valley and nearby areas, mirroring the House Judiciary Committee's partisan vote to open an impeachment inquiry for President Clinton, emerged from the hearing Monday tired but firm in their opinions.

Rep. Howard Berman, D-Mission Hills, voted against the inquiry and said he fought unsuccessfully to limit its scope to matters raised in Independent Prosecutor Kenneth Starr's report, which alleges obstruction of justice and abuse of power.

``The basis of launching the inquiry was his referral,'' so the committee should have limited its inquiry to those allegations, Berman said.

Reps. James Rogan, R-Pasadena, and Elton Gallegly, R-Oxnard, praised the outcome of the vote, which came after a hearing that lasted nearly 11 hours.

``Everyone agrees this is absolutely a constitutional issue,'' said Gallegly. Serious allegations have been raised and compelling evidence requires the House to move forward, he said.

``It would be unconscionable for us not to live up to that constitutional responsibility,'' he said.

Rogan pointed out that, contrary to popular belief, impeachment is not the same as removing the president from office. If the House actually ends up impeaching Clinton, the matter would go to the Senate for a full trial, he said.

Monday's vote merely started a process that may or may not lead to impeachment and that assures the president the right to defend himself, Rogan said. The full House should vote on the matter by the end of the week.

``We're a long way from contemplating removing the president from office,'' said Rogan.

Gallegly said it's open to debate whether Clinton's actions as portrayed in the Starr report are impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors. ``You put three constitutional scholars in a room . . . and they're probably going to have different positions,'' he said.

But there's evidence Clinton committed perjury before the Lewinsky grand jury, he said, and that might be impeachable.

``The framers of the Constitution left a lot of slack in there,'' Gallegly said.

One of the key issues debated Monday was the scope of any inquiry. The Republicans rejected Berman's substitute resolution to keep the focus on the Starr report. ``They don't want any limits,'' he said.

Limits don't make sense, Rogan said, because Starr could come out during the inquiry with allegations stemming from Whitewater or the circumstances surrounding the firing of White House Travel Office employees. If that happened, the inquiry should be widened rather than conduct a separate inquiry for each matter, he said.

Rogan said the Republicans couldn't accept the Democrats' request to limit the inquiry to 17 days because the White House has a history of dragging its feet to run out the clock.

Rogan said everyone came out of the grueling discussion looking ragged, but all knew they had participated in something important.

``I'm sure that the history of the moment wasn't lost on anybody,'' he said.