HAHN FOR MAYOR
18553 Ventura Blvd.
Tarzana, CA 91356

Not an off year in Los Angeles

JANUARY 28, 2001
SACRAMENTO BEE

LOS ANGELES -- This may be an odd-numbered year, when political campaigning is supposed to take a holiday, but as with so many other htmects of life and culture, Los Angeles is the great exception.

The city -- and some of its suburbs as well -- are deeply engaged in keenly competitive political duels whose outcome will affect the region's power structure for years, perhaps decades, to come.

A six-way battle for mayor of Los Angeles is the most prominent of the races leading up to April 10 balloting. A flock of termed-out state legislators are seeking seats on the Los Angeles City Council, thereby changing the ambience of city politics, and there are two special elections with strong ethnic overtones.

The contests are playing against a background of fundamental cultural and economic change. The old Los Angeles, a largely white city whose economy was rooted in manufacturing, is gone. The new Los Angeles, with a non-white, mostly Latino, majority and a post-industrial economy, is still in formation.

When businessman-philanthropist Richard Riordan won the mayor's office eight years ago, it represented, albeit indirectly, the ascendancy of a new dominating coalition -- Latinos and suburban whites -- to succeed the previously dominant bloc of white liberals from the city's affluent west side and south-central African Americans. Implicitly, Riordan would be a transitional figure whose successor would come from the city's surging Latino population.

The 2001 mayoral election represents a test of that assumption, complicated by one of the feuds that periodically fragment local Latino politics. Former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa thought he would be the only Latino candidate, but Congressman Xavier Becerra jumped in and, despite intensive private negotiations, neither is willing to drop out. And that could adversely affect Latinos' hopes of claiming an office they last held in the 1870s.

Political handicappers generally believe that Los Angeles City Attorney James Hahn, who is white but has strong African American support, as well as a liberal base, is likely to top the field April 10; thus the real race may be for second place and a runoff spot. That's where the Latino division could come into play. Businessman Steve Soboroff, Riordan's choice as his successor, and City Councilman Joel Wachs will likely divide the white-moderate vote. Among insiders, Villaraigosa and state Controller Kathleen Connell, the only woman in the field, are seen as having the best chances of making the cut.

While mayoral candidates position themselves to build coalitions among the city's many cultural communities, the appearance of four present and former state legislators -- ex-Sens. Tom Hayden and Richard Polanco most prominently -- in City Council races has changed their tone markedly. Hayden's hopes of continuing to lead the environmental left in Southern California and Polanco's ambitions of retaining his position as a Latino leader hinge on the outcome, while Assemblyman Carl Washington and ex-Assemblyman Scott Wildman are just trying to continue their lower-profile careers.

And then there are the two special elections, one for the San Gabriel Valley state Senate seat abandoned by Hilda Solis after she was elected to Congress and the other for the south-central congressional seat long held by the late Julian Dixon. The former pits two Latino politicians, Assemblywoman Gloria Romero and ex-Assemblyman Martin Gallegos, against each other in another version of the Latino power struggle. The latter, meanwhile, represents one of the few political opportunities for the city's shrinking African American population and is attracting a growing list of black politicians who crave the security of a congressional seat.