Padilla Announces Run for State Senate

Four weeks into his second full term on the Los Angeles City Council, Alex Padilla announced Thursday that he plans to run next year for the state Senate.

Padilla said he would begin raising money for the race to replace Richard Alarcon, who must leave the San Fernando Valley’s 20th District seat because of term limits.

At 32, Padilla is both the youngest member of the council and the longest-serving. He recently won his third two-year term as council president, making him next in line in the city power structure to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

It’s the second time that Padilla has followed -- or tried to follow -- in Alarcon’s footsteps.

In 1999, at age 26, he replaced Alarcon on the council when Alarcon was elected to the state Senate.

“I love my job, and if I could stay here and have a 30-year career, I just might. But the reality is that I can’t,” Padilla said. “If I want to serve my community, I have to look at other opportunities.”

Council members are limited to two four-year terms, a law that several members lamented when the well-respected Cindy Miscikowski was forced to leave office July 1 after two terms.

Term limits have created an environment in which politicians who want to spend a career in public service hop from office to office, staying a step ahead of being forced out.

A stark example emerged in June when Herb Wesson, a former Assembly speaker -- as Villaraigosa is -- announced that he was running for the vacant 10th District seat on the City Council but wouldn’t commit to serve even one full term with an election for county supervisor coming up in 2008.

“This is definitely what term limits has wrought, but it’s also a sign of our times: that everybody lives life so far in the future,” Councilman Eric Garcetti said. “You’re almost asked to jump from rock to rock in the river to stay alive” as an elected official.

Garcetti said he remained a proponent of term limits, but he leans toward extending the number of allowed terms to give public officials more time to see through promises and projects.

The son of Mexican immigrants, Padilla graduated from San Fernando High School and then earned a degree in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Padilla held staff jobs in state and federal government before he won a council seat in 1999, serving the last two years of Alarcon’s unfilled term. Padilla won reelection in 2001 and ran unopposed last spring.

He vowed Thursday to quit the council presidency if his candidacy interfered with that job.

The 20th District covers much of the northeastern San Fernando Valley, including Sylmar, San Fernando, Pacoima and Sunland, and it stretches west to cover parts of Van Nuys, Northridge and Reseda, among other areas.

As a councilman, Padilla has earned a reputation in City Hall as a skilled politician when it comes to making deals.

As for legislative accomplishments, Padilla pointed to his work in crafting a state proposition last year to prevent the state from raiding local funds and, more recently, creating a council commission to study the power structure at the Los Angeles Unified School District.

In Sacramento, Padilla said, he would push issues such as healthcare, infrastructure and education. “I’ve done what I can at the local level to force the education conversation,” he said.

Coincidentally, also Thursday, Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) addressed the first meeting of Padilla’s panel on the school board.

Goldberg differed on the ability of Sacramento politicians to improve L.A. schools. “I think this top-down stuff stinks to high heavens,” she said.