WHO WANTS TO BE A MAYOR?
If a current scandal wounds Hahn, a handful of players are waiting to jump into the race
Wanted: Seasoned public servant with name recognition, strong leadership, and a Teflon demeanor to take a high-profile position as mayor of the nation's second-largest city. Must work well in back rooms and have strong relationships with labor unions. Fund-raising ability required.
That's the pitch. So far, only one qualified candidate for the job, Democratic State Sen. Richard Alarcon, has applied. That doesn't mean that others, including council members Antonio Villaraigosa and Bernard Parks, former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg and City Controller Laura Chick, aren't eyeing the gig. They're just doing so quietly, perhaps waiting, hoping that frozen Mayor Jim Hahn will melt under pressure from criminal investigations about alleged political favoritism in big-money city contracts. The Los Angeles Times recently ruminated that this "pay to play" scandal has left the mayor "increasingly vulnerable." But many experts say otherwise. The scandal at City Hall will have to stick. Otherwise, it looks like Hahn, with a reported $1.3 million campaign war chest already amassed, will cruise to a second term in 2005.
"Hahn may be acceptable to a wider range of people than any other candidate," says Raphael Sonenshein, a Cal State Fullerton political science professor and former executive director of the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission. "He's the incumbent. L.A. mayor's races tend to be low-key unless it's an open seat. He has a lot of campaign money in the bank, and no one else seems to have much at all. The ethics ["pay to play"] scandal also hurts his challengers, because there will be a lot more attention to where they get their money from. A lot of the interests in the city are not going to bet on someone who is not currently the mayor."
The mayor is unbeatable on the city's favorite issue - crime. His hiring of former New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has sent crime on a downward slide even as the number of officers in Los Angeles also continues to sink toward the perilously low level of 9,000. "That's the mayor's biggest accomplishment," says Robert M. Stern, president of the nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles.
Even Hahn's strongest potential challengers - Hertzberg, Chick, and Parks, perhaps - would only chip away at slices of Hahn's constituency. Hertzberg and Chick could challenge Hahn from their home base of the San Fernando Valley. Hertzberg could also reap the benefits of the gubernatorial recall, as he was a member of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign team. Chick, now the city controller and formerly a councilwoman representing the West Valley, discovered the current scandal - her audit of the city's Department of Airports sparked the "pay to play" investigations at City Hall, and more department audits could continue to bode ill for the mayor.
Parks has an axe to grind, and some of the city's African American community might be with him. Hahn's father, county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, depended on the black vote for decades, and Mayor Hahn did the same in 2001, only to later be perceived as a betrayer when he dropped then-police Chief Parks in favor of Bratton. Parks went on to win a seat on the council and has made no secret of his desire to avenge the slight. (His communications director, son Bernard Parks, Jr., told CityBeat his father would make his decision whether or not to run for mayor by next week.) But, according to City Hall watchers, none of the above has the kind of citywide base of support to challenge Hahn unless the mayor is truly wounded by the "pay to play" ethics investigations.
"They are just pieces of the pie, but those were key pieces to Hahn's election three years ago," says USC law professor Irwin Chemerinsky, a longtime City Hall watcher.
The only heavyweight that could give Hahn a good fight, some say, is Villaraigosa, who has the labor support necessary to win. But the councilman and former state assembly speaker might have his eyes on a larger prize. As state and national co-chair of Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign, he could be picked for a White House cabinet position. In any case, Villaraigosa gave Hahn his best shot in the last go-round, earning 46 percent of the runoff vote but losing to the former city attorney in a racially tinged campaign that painted Villaraigosa as soft on street crime. Hahn has never lost a citywide campaign.
"If Herzberg and Villaraigosa get into the race, it's a strong indication the mayor's not doing well," says Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies. "If they stay out, it means they think he's unbeatable."Published: 03/25/2004
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