The Race for L.A. City Attorney : Money Is Ready to Flow in Hotly Fought Election

Joe Trippi, campaign manager for front-runner James K. Hahn, likens the Los Angeles city attorney’s race to a high-stakes poker game in which all the players are holding aces.

“Everybody’s got a hand, but nobody’s playing it,” said Trippi last week as an amused expression spread across his face.

Trippi’s waiting is over. This week, the campaign that showed several early signs of developing into this year’s most hotly contested race, is expected to move into high gear after weeks of relative calm.

For the first time since the campaign began in early January, three heavily financed candidates--Hahn, Community Redevelopment Agency lawyer Murray Kane and Westside attorney Lisa Specht--will be running campaign commercials on television and radio. Numerous joint appearances or debates are scheduled. Campaign mail targeted to various voter groups is being readied.

$2 Million to Spend

By April 9, the three leading candidates expect to spend nearly $2 million in their efforts to succeed Ira Reiner as city attorney in the increasingly visible and politically important municipal office. A June 4 runoff between the two top vote-getters is likely, which could make this the most expensive city attorney campaign in history.

Guided by veteran and high-priced political consultants, Hahn, Kane and Specht will try to outshine each other’s self-styled law-and-order images while pointing out their foes’ shortcomings.

Also in the fray are two low-budget efforts by veteran deputy city attorneys, Charles Zinger and Betsy Mogul. Zinger, a 22-year veteran of the office, ran for city attorney in 1981, placing third with nearly 18% of the primary vote. Mogul, a deputy city attorney for 11 years, is making her first bid for elective office.

Specht and Kane ultimately could spend more than $1 million between them, to merely place second in the April primary. But they also know that placing second will be a hollow victory if Hahn avoids a June 4 runoff by winning a clear majority of the vote.

Aware of Importance

No one knows better than Hahn the importance of a primary election victory. Hahn, 34, gambled away certain reelection as controller to run for city attorney, an office he first coveted in 1981 only to bow out when Reiner changed his mind about running for mayor.

Hahn is aided by a name recognition advantage fostered by his father, County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, and currently leads his lesser-known opponents by large margins in several polls. But Hahn’s strategists are not relying on name identification alone to ward off the expensive media onslaughts that Kane and Specht will wage in the campaign’s final three weeks.

Two weeks ago, Hahn launched a television and radio campaign stressing the one-term city controller’s prosecution and administrative experience. In all, strategist Trippi said, Hahn could spend up to two-thirds of a hoped-for campaign treasury of $750,000 on electronic media time purchases.

So far, Hahn has avoided directly acknowledging his opposition, choosing instead to focus attention on his own four years as a city prosecutor and remaining upbeat while Specht and Kane have occasionally tangled on the issues. How long Hahn can maintain that high-road style is uncertain, but he already has hinted that he is prepared to exchange attacks if forced into a runoff.

Poll Has Hahn Ahead

A recent Steve Teichner survey conducted for KABC-TV showed Hahn far ahead of all four of his opponents, but the poll also places the controller significantly below the majority-plus-one victory margin. Trippi, meanwhile, said that Hahn’s own polling shows him running well ahead throughout the city, but with majority support only in the South-Central Los Angeles area represented by Supervisor Hahn for more than three decades.

Although acknowledging Hahn’s strength in the South-Central area, Specht and Kane are not conceding those votes to the supervisor’s son. Specht’s campaign has hired Willard Murray, who specializes in South-Central political mail advertising. Kane, meanwhile, is stressing his role--as lawyer for Los Angeles’ redevelopment agency--in the development of the first shopping center in Watts. It opened last December.

Kane has been the most visible and aggressive of the three major candidates. Since he formally announced in October--the first to do so--he has held more than a dozen news conferences or press briefings and has filed two lawsuits in an effort to show that he would be a vigorous city attorney.

Under the tutelage of political consultant Ron Smith, Kane has attacked both Specht and Hahn in personal appearances and in one of his television commercials. Kane has focused on what he says is Specht’s lack of prosecutorial experience and what he claims is Hahn’s use of the city attorney’s office as a political stepping stone. Kane also has scored some points with anti-oil-drilling activists by vowing to stop the controversial Occidental Petroleum Corp. project in Pacific Palisades, while criticizing Hahn and Specht for giving “lip service” to the issue.

‘Two-Person Race’

“I see the race as a two-person race,” said Smith, who has built a reputation for hard-hitting campaigns that have thrust dark-horse candidates into upset victories. “Lisa has not emerged at all. As of now, Jimmy is clearly in first place, Murray’s in second place and there’s going to be a runoff.”

Specht’s campaign views the contest in a slightly different vein, particularly after landing last week what they consider the prize endorsement, that of Dist. Atty. Reiner.

In sharp contrast to Kane’s early-out-of-the-gate strategy, Specht has concentrated most of her time since last July raising money for an expensive television and radio campaign that will be launched this week and continue until the election.

A well-connected choice of the Westside’s powerful Waxman-Berman political organization, Specht has lined up the endorsement of nearly two dozen Democratic officeholders either closely aligned with or indebted to Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) and Howard L. Berman (D-Studio City). And, the organization pressured Reiner for months to back Specht before the popular district attorney finally agreed to last Wednesday.

Reiner in Commercial

At least one Specht television commercial will feature Reiner, who is supporting his one-time campaign volunteer and personal friend to succeed him as city attorney despite her total lack of prosecution background. Other possible ads are expected to promote Specht’s seven years as a legal affairs commentator/anchorwoman on KABC-TV.

Specht has been highly successful in her fund-raising efforts since she first began preparing to run for the office last July, shortly after Reiner was elected as district attorney. Seeded by an early $40,000 contribution from Women’s Political Committee, a group she co-founded, Specht’s campaign treasury has amassed more than $300,000 through Feb. 23, according to the latest campaign contribution reports. Of that amount, more than a third has come from four principal sources: members of her law firm, Waxman-Berman-allied officeholders, her family and various campaign funds established to get women elected to offices.

In addition to television and radio spots, Specht will be taking advantage of the highly specialized slate-mailing apparatus of her two campaign consultants, Michael Berman and Carl D’Agostino.

By comparison, Hahn raised nearly $400,000. He has spent half of that, according to campaign reports for the period ended Feb. 23. Hahn’s campaign funds are largely from both business and labor interests reflecting his father’s longtime political ties. Trippi expects Hahn to raise between $600,000 and $750,000--a range that Kane and Specht also say they hope to attain.

Dark-Horse Candidate

Kane has been the biggest spender so far, pouring most of the $250,000 that he said he has raised through last month into television and radio ads that began airing in late February. The dark-horse candidate hopes to raise another $300,000 for additional television spots during the last two weeks of the campaign.

An unknown factor in the city attorney’s race is Deputy City Atty. Zinger. Despite a 1981 campaign budget of only $2,500, Zinger finished third behind Reiner and former City Councilman Bob Ronka in the contest to succeed City Atty. Burt Pines. It was widely viewed at the time that Zinger benefited from a voter backlash against the bitter campaigning conducted by his two better-financed opponents.

A Republican, Zinger said that this time, with loans and pledges totaling more than $120,000, he could surprise everyone and slip past both Kane and Specht by winning at least 60% of the city’s GOP vote. But many of the city’s well-known Republicans are endorsing the Democrats in the nonpartisan contest because, they said, they consider their candidacies more viable.

Strategists for the three leading candidates said, however, that given Zinger’s 1981 showing, he could at the very least become a spoiler, attracting enough votes to further ensure that Kane or Specht force Hahn into a runoff.

Deputy City Atty. Mogul, the least-known candidate, lacks both the campaign organization or money to finance much of a campaign, but she hopes to gain public attention by detailing flaws in her opponents’ proposals. Mogul, a Republican, has the most prosecution experience of the five office seekers, but is not seen as a real threat to the major candidates.