Potential Challengers to Hahn Getting in Position

Los Angeles Controller Laura Chick has raised her public profile in recent months, issuing scathing audits of contracting at the city’s harbor and airports departments and wasteful spending at the Department of Water and Power.

The heightened level of activity has some people at City Hall wondering whether Chick is positioning herself for higher office, possibly a run against Mayor James K. Hahn in the 2005 election.

Chick said last week she is getting a lot of calls from supporters urging her to run for mayor. The controller said she is not ruling out a campaign but is not actively considering it, either.

“If drafted, I will accept,” Chick said. “But at this time, I am focusing on this office.”

One potential “problem,” she admits, is that she has endorsed Hahn for reelection. But her audits in recent months have been highly critical of Hahn’s commissioners, and she said of the calls from supporters: “Maybe it represents a desire on the part of some to have a different style of leadership.”

Meanwhile, Assemblyman Keith Richman (R-Northridge) still is not ruling out his own run for mayor, a top advisor says, but plans to open a campaign committee next month to begin fundraising for the state treasurer’s seat in the 2006 election.

“The possibility of running for mayor is still there, but it’s not on the front burner,” said Dan Pellissier, Richman’s chief of staff.

City Councilman Bernard C. Parks also is weighing a possible challenge to Hahn, and former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg has been sounding out people, including political advisor John Shallman, about whether he should run. “He is evaluating it,” Shallman said.

Hahn’s Top 10 List

Hahn has been hammered with criticism in recent months about his $9-billion plan to modernize Los Angeles International Airport, but he still has a sense of humor on the subject.

At a holiday reception for the media, Hahn borrowed a page from late-night talk-show host David Letterman and provided his own “Top 10 reasons we need a major overhaul at LAX.” The list included friendly jabs at Airport Commission President Ted Stein, former City Councilman Nate Holden and Valley secessionists.

The No. 10 reason Hahn offered for updating LAX: “I am a glutton for punishment.”

No. 9: “Bigger airport equals room for more Cinnabons.”

8: “When I was elected mayor, I said I would improve the quality of life for all Angelenos -- that includes Hare Krishnas and those guys dressed like priests.”

7: “The new Central Terminal Area could double as a football stadium.”

6: “This is what the airlines get for that crappy food they always serve.”

5: “I just like to keep El Segundo on their toes.”

4: “Ellen Stein asked me to give Ted [Stein] a project that would keep him busy.”

3: “I wanted to give the L.A. Times something new to criticize me about.”

2: “I needed to find another thing to spend money on besides the San Fernando Valley.”

And the No. 1 reason we need a major overhaul at LAX?

“The current airport is not worthy of my proposed new name -- Nate Holden International Airport.”

Race Heats Up

The contest pitting Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer against a field of high-profile challengers will not be pretty, judging from the fact that it already has spawned one lawsuit and the threat of another.

The legal wrangling began when former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin threatened a lawsuit alleging the secretary of state should not have extended a deadline for former Secretary of State Bill Jones and other candidates to file a ballot statement.

“We thought basically that was unfair and arbitrary,” said Kevin Spillane, a spokesman for Marin.

Marin’s attorney was still considering litigation when her campaign was served last week with a lawsuit by supporters of Boxer. The suit challenges Marin’s “businesswoman” ballot designation as not being an accurate description as required by state law.

“We think it’s misleading,” said Lance Olson, who is general counsel of the California Democratic Party but filed the lawsuit on behalf of a union activist. “When she announced she was running, she said she was resigning as treasurer and would devote full-time to campaigning.”

Spillane cited Marin’s record of years in the baking business before she became treasurer, and the fact that in addition to being a candidate, Marin has a professional contract with a speaker’s bureau, which he said is a business venture.

Crackdown on Cussing

To, er, heck with the Federal Communications Commission.

Rep. Doug Ose (R-Sacramento) has introduced legislation that would crack down on the use of cuss words on TV.

“I rise today to protect our children from existing rules and regulations that leave them vulnerable to obscene, indecent and profane speech through broadcast communication,” he said earlier this month in introducing the Clean Airwaves Act.

Ose cited as a “notorious example” of a profane broadcast the January Golden Globe Awards program, in which performer Bono “uttered a phrase that may not be repeated at this time and qualified as indeed profane and indecent by a rational and normal standard.”

An Ose aide said the congressman introduced the bill after receiving 500 calls, letters and e-mails complaining about the broadcast and a subsequent ruling by the FCC’s enforcement bureau that the word uttered by Bono “may be crude and offensive” but did not violate the agency’s indecency standards.

Points Taken:

* Voters just recalled a governor, so why stop there? An initiative filed with the secretary of state’s office would retire the current Legislature’s 120 members, about 200 committees and more than 1,000 staff members. The constitutional amendment calls for creation of a single-house Legislature with members from 100 newly drawn districts who would sit for one six-month session a year. Estimated cost savings is $300 million, according to James Bouskos, former vice chairman of the watchdog Little Hoover Commission.

* Who is the hippest Democrat running for president? Though Howard Dean shared the stage with the Bangles at the House of Blues in West Hollywood for a fundraiser last week, former Gen. Wesley Clark was declared by RocktheVote.com to be the winner of its online primary for the best video broadcast from its Boston debate, and he also won the endorsement of pop singer Madonna. “He’s a cool cat keeping it real,” riffed Clark spokesman Luis Vizcaino.

* The Coalition for Clean Air brought Santa Claus in last week to stage a protest at the offices of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power over its polluting practices. Protesters sang holiday songs modified by lyricist Clifford J. Tasner. A new version of the song “Silver Bells” was given the following chorus: “Noxious fumes, brownish plumes, fouling the air of our city. Acrid smoke makes us choke, thanks to the DWP.”

You Can Quote Me

“The speaker spanked me. He can put me in a cardboard box in the hall if he wants to but he can’t un-elect me.”

Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia (R-Cathedral City), a frequent critic of Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, commenting after Wesson first signaled he planned to move her into the tiniest office in the Capitol but later gave her another office that is smaller than her current digs but not the “broom closet” she had expected.

Times staff writers Jean Pasco and Richard Simon contributed to this column. Regular columnist Patt Morrison is on vacation.