Gonzalez Has Some Women Backers Too

School board member Larry Gonzalez, trying to show that he can attract women’s votes against a woman front-runner, on Tuesday announced endorsements from two well-known elected women officials in his race for a new Los Angeles City Council seat.

The endorsements of Los Angeles Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores and Los Angeles school board member Roberta Weintraub at a press conference follow the recent release of campaign spending reports that show Gonzalez’s rival, Assemblywoman Gloria Molina, far ahead in attracting financial support from women’s political groups.

Molina and Gonzalez are considered the best bets to win the four-candidate special election on Feb. 3 in the newly drawn 1st Council District in a heavily Latino section of the Eastside and the Northeast area aimed at giving Latinos added political clout in city government.

Molina is supported by several women’s groups, including the local National Organization for Women Political Action Committee and the National Women’s Political Caucus.

Gonzalez denied, however, that he held his press conference outside City Hall in hopes of blunting Molina’s advantage with female voters.

“I’m not worried at all about the perception of support she has,” Gonzalez said. “I know I have local women, local elected officials, working on behalf of my campaign.”

Molina, Gonzalez said, attracts “statewide support, special interests in terms of Sacramento that (do) not focus on the needs of women of the local level.”

As an example of Gonzalez’s positions taken on behalf of women, Weintraub and Gonzalez cited his support as a school board member for health clinics at selected Los Angeles high schools. The clinics will offer, among other services, birth control and sex education information.

Leticia Quezada, a member of the community college board, praised Gonzalez for his part in promoting women into school board management positions.

Sandy Serrano Sewell, a Latina activist and former Molina supporter now backing Gonzalez, charged that Molina had demonstrated “a lack of financial support” for other women and Latina candidates.

In a telephone interview, Molina countered that she is proud of her record of supporting women and women’s issues “locally and all over the state.”

“The key support I have received from other women’s groups, including local groups like Mothers of East L.A., is evidence of that. It’s very obvious that Larry must feel weak in this area, and this is a reaction to that,” she said.