HAHN FOR MAYOR
18553 Ventura Blvd.
Tarzana, CA 91356

Staying the Course

MARCH 16, 2001
FRONTIERSWEB MAGAZINE

By Karen Ocamb

Feb. 22 was an important day in the life of Los Angeles City Attorney James K. Hahn, the moderate liberal who would be mayor. On behalf of Los Angeles and other cities, Hahn filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to stop new Commerce Secretary Donald Evans from using numbers gathered during last year s census instead of considering an adjusted count based on "scientific sampling." Hahn believes the sampling method better represents historically undercounted minority populations, a matter that impacts political redistricting and the dispersal of federal funds.

Politically, the lawsuit will no doubt strengthen the candidate's already solid African-American base, though it will have little effect on the city's largely invisible LGBT population. Nonetheless, Hahn, a front-runner in the April 10 mayoral race, broke away from the day's machinations to talk with Frontiers. Most Angelenos know Hahn as the son of the late, legendary Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who was elected 10 times by his predominately African-American district. But most LGBT people know Hahn as the tall, thin amiable-looking elected official who attends gay and AIDS benefits, or as the city's chief prosecutor ultimately responsible for dealing with lewd conduct prosecutions. What is less well-known is Hahn's record over four terms as city attorney on behalf of gays and people with HIV/AIDS.

Born July 3, 1950, and raised in South Los Angeles, Hahn and his sister, Janice, learned about the importance of public service from their beloved father, Hahn said when announcing his candidacy last January. After graduating magna cum laude from Pepperdine University, where he majored in English and minored in journalism (Stephen Bennett, former executive director of AIDS Project Los Angeles was his roommate), Hahn earned his law degree from Pepperdine Law School. He joined the Los Angeles city attorney's office in the heady post-Gay Liberation days of 1975 where he worked for four years as a prosecutor under very pro-gay City Attorney Bert Pines, who actively recruited openly gay attorneys to the office. It was there that Hahn learned about gay rights from his co-worker and friend, Rand Schrader, who eventually became the state's second openly gay judge.

"I was aware of discrimination [against gays] on a peripheral basis growing up. And I had acquaintances in high school and college who were gay," Hahn says. "But I think the best thing that ever happened to me was having an openly gay city attorney Rand Schrader in the office. Rand was such a wonderful human being to know. He took it upon himself to educate the rest of us. It was a heavy burden for him being the first [out gay in the city attorney's office], but he was very open and he really saw it as his job to open the eyes of people like me, people who hadnt really understood the discrimination and hurt before. He explained what it was all about and how important it was as a civil-rights issue and why ethically we really needed to understand it."

When elected city attorney in 1985, after a four-year stint as city controller, that education helped Hahn to become "a champion for civil rights and on issues of importance to the gay community." Indeed, in his first year in office Hahn dealt with the AIDS crisis head-on, creating the AIDS/HIV Discrimination Unit to enforce the city's landmark AIDS anti-discrimination ordinance.

"People were very scared then and those fears caused people to do all kinds of bizarre things. So it was extremely important for us to be there. The City Council and Joel Wachs [a current mayoral opponent] provided the leadership. We were the field troops. The law is only as good as its enforcement," says Hahn. His prosecution of Western Dental for refusing to serve a gay, HIV-positive client in 1989 resulted in dentists nationwide developing "universal precautions" as a standard practice.

More recently, Hahn's plea arrangement last year with a television actor who committed an anti-gay hate crime resulted in a $10,000 donation to the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center's Safe Haven Project. Hahn has also been a staunch supporter of gay teen programs such as Project 10.

But most of Hahn's pro-gay accomplishments have been behind the scenes. For instance, in 1989 he convened the Family Diversity Task Force to address issues such as health benefits and hospital visitation discrimination against unmarried couples. The Task Force's recommendations, Hahn believes, led to the city's domestic-partners ordinance, a strong municipal law that he first drafted.

"It was a very valuable experience," says Hahn, who's married to Monica Ann Hahn and has two children. "We held hearings around the city that helped redefine what it meant to be a family and how the city needed to understand how to provide public services to those families and children. We wanted to make sure that the concept of family diversity applied to all policies and programs." Later, Hahn made sure same-sex couples were covered by his Domestic Violence Unit.

Hahn also recruited and promoted openly gay attorneys in his office of over 430 prosecutors, including Stephanie Sautner, now a municipal judge, who gained a statewide reputation fighting slumlords as part of Hahn's Housing Enforcement Unit. Hahn also advises the mayor, City Council, and city departments and commissions on gay and HIV/AIDS legal issues. He has filed numerous amicus briefs in support of gays, and recently participated in a brief submitted by a coalition of cities that argued that the Boy Scouts' anti-gay policy is incompatible with local anti-discrimination laws. He notes that during one recent mayoral forum where the Boy Scouts issue was raised, only he and former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa unequivocally spoke out against the Scouts' discriminatory policy.

But while his boosters tout his long record of support, Hahn's critics complain that he has not been effective enough. For instance, one civil-rights attorney, John Duran, notes that Hahn's practice of giving his regional offices the leeway to determine policy implementation results in arrests and prosecutions being handled differently throughout the city. Hahn has also been shellacked by the broad brushstroke of complaints about prosecutors pursuing cases involving police entrapment of gay men. Such complaints carry with them the taint of "gay profiling" and the selective enforcement of lewd conduct laws.

Hahn is aware of the complaints and notes that cases have been dismissed where the defendant had a "reasonable right to the expectation of privacy." He also says he's been working with people in the community "to encourage the LAPD to use more uniform officers to patrol in bathrooms and to de-emphasize undercover operations in the gay community where problems of entrapment might arise." Additionally, he says he's been working with gay attorneys to make a diversionary program for first-time offenders more effective.

Given technological advances and in the aftermath of the Rampart scandal, Hahn says he has "strongly recommended" to the LAPD that they consider using recording devices in cases where a crime such as prostitution or lewd conduct would be proven by the officer's recounting of a conversation. Right now, he says, a jury might question a police officer's credibility.

As to gay profiling, "there is a possibility that occurs," says Hahn. He notes that one htmect of the consent decree designed to reform the LAPD is the directive that every officer document who they stop and why to determine if a pattern or practice of racial profiling exists. "Perhaps we can focus the same attention on this gay profiling issue," Hahn says without elaboration. He adds, though, that it is incorrect to assume that heterosexuals are not also prosecuted for lewd conduct.

Hahn, who was involved in negotiating the consent decree, says he has spoken with U.S. Justice Department officials involved with the consent decree and they basically assured him that they expect no interference or change in direction from new Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Hahn bristles at the suggestion that the voters might blame him, as they apparently did former District Attorney Gil Garcetti, for not quelling the Rampart scandal. "If I was not running, no one would be trying to make Rampart an issue in the mayor's race," he says, adding that most people recognize that the city attorney was not the lead prosecutor in the cases tainted by admittedly corrupt LAPD officer Raphael Perez. Nonetheless, gang injunction cases where Perez was involved were suspended and efforts to reinstate the injunctions are currently underway. The concept for gang injunctions, Hahn notes, was created by a lesbian in his office.

"My record is clear and no one in City Hall reacted more strongly or more forcefully than Jim Hahn," says Hahn, who sometimes refers to himself in the third person. "I stepped in and took a leadership position once I was made aware" of the Rampart situation.

"We wear a lot of hats" as prosecutors who rely on the police to provide truthful testimony, as well as attorneys who defend the city against lawsuits from civilians and fired police officers, says Hahn, who is known for settling cases. "So we've seen all sides of the issue. We've felt that we've done our job ethically and professionally. Nobody was madder than me about Rampart. Bad cops let everybody down. Maybe we should have, but we didn't know. The Police Department didn't know about it. And once they did know, they instituted procedures to make sure it never happens again. We also revised our procedures so that if our department feels that an officer is being less than truthful or may have committed perjury, we refer the matter to Internal Affairs, not just the division supervisor" for investigation.

Hahn seemed to back away slightly from his previously stated support for LAPD Chief Bernard Parks, whose contract will be reviewed by the new mayor. If Parks asks to be reappointed, he will be judged at that time on three criteria: how well he implements the consent decree; the state of public safety and community policing; and the morale of his officers, Hahn says. If there is improvement in those areas, "he'll be rehired. If not, then he won't be. It's up to him."

As to the mayoral race, Hahn says he hopes gays will consider his "whole record on issues of importance to the gay and lesbian community," issues such as safe and good schools and transportation. And while he's proud that gays within his office "have sung my praises, I know that's a very limited audience. My goal is to reach out more." But, he says, gays "should never worry about my commitment to the gay and lesbian community. I have a long history of actively supporting the community, and I'm proud to carry the endorsement of several prominent gay and lesbian individuals [including his old college roommate Steve Bennett]. This is a commitment Jim Hahn has had for 16 years. This is something I believe in. I'm not going to change my stripes. And if I'm not the gay community's first choice, I'd sure be glad to be your second. I think my record shows I've earned it."