James Hahn’s Support Gives Galanter a Share of Inner-Circle Clout

In an 11th-hour endorsement of City Council candidate Ruth Galanter, Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn brings a share of the influence of one of the city’s most prominent political families to the side of a candidate who has been running against most of the City Hall establishment, including Mayor Tom Bradley.

“I think it’s time for a change,” Hahn said Sunday. “Ruth Galanter is more in touch and in tune with the communities of the 6th District. I know because it is the community where I grew up and lived until recently.”

Regarding Galanter’s opponent, City Council President Pat Russell, Hahn said he believes she has come to ignore the sensitivities of a majority of residents who oppose a spate of commercial development that Russell shepherded through the council.

“Pat Russell started out in touch with the community, but, somewhere along the line, she changed,” Hahn said.

Although the patriarch of the Hahn family, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, is backing Russell, his son’s presence on the other side still could provide Galanter with help where she needs it most, in Crenshaw, where the Hahn family name is well known among black voters.

Russell received virtually unanimous support from Crenshaw precincts in the primary. She is counting on a similar show of solidarity Tuesday to counter Galanter’s expected strength in white areas of the 6th District, where voters are most angry about Russell’s approval of commercial development.

“I would say I have done very well in Crenshaw, and my endorsement will help Ruth there, but, by how much, I don’t know,” Hahn said.

Hahn said his endorsement will be carried in Galanter campaign literature which he expects will be circulated in Crenshaw neighborhoods.

Russell, meanwhile, finished a busy weekend of campaigning with a rally for her supporters at her Westchester campaign headquarters, where a spokesman made light of Hahn’s endorsement of Galanter.

“I would take the endorsement of Kenny Hahn over any son or daughter,” said Kam Kuwata, Russell’s press secretary. “Kenny is No. 1 in that family. He is the one that people think of when the name Hahn is mentioned.”

Kuwata said Russell expected James Hahn to do what he did, characterizing the endorsement as a “pay back” for Russell’s endorsement of Lisa Specht, Hahn’s opponent in the 1985 race for city attorney.

“What Jimmy did is just politics as usual and no big thing,” Kuwata said.

Hahn rejected the argument of some Russell supporters that the development issue is ethnically divisive, with Galanter favoring a slow-growth policy that would enhance the quality of life in well-to-do white neighborhoods while limiting housing and job opportunities for minorities and poor people.

“It doesn’t matter whether people are black or white, or whether they live in $60,000 houses or $260,000, they care about the quality of their neighborhoods,” Hahn said. “Their concern may take different forms. Mini-malls may be objectionable in one neighborhood, and liquor stores in another, but the concern is citywide.”

Hahn’s decision to get involved in what appears to be a very close race between Galanter and Russell is the second time in the last few days that the ambitious city attorney has parted company with the mayor on a sensitive issue.

On Friday, Hahn said he would refuse to prosecute any homeless people arrested in a police crackdown on Skid Row homeless camps planned for next week and approved by Bradley.

However, Hahn said that no ulterior political motive should be read into his decision to endorse Galanter.

“I’ve always been a supporter of the mayor politically. But I’m also my own man. I’m supporting Nate Holden, and he’s running against the mayor’s candidate (Homer Broome Jr.) in the 10th District. But that doesn’t mean I don’t support the mayor,” Hahn said.

Unity of Notables

Hahn said the main thing that swayed him to Galanter’s side was watching a City Hall press conference last week where Russell had assembled a phalanx of government notables to speak her praises.

Present at the press conference were the mayor, 10 City Council members, two Los Angeles County supervisors, the city controller, the president of the city planning commission and the president of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency.

“It was kind of a united front on the City Hall steps. It was as if they were ganging up on Galanter, and it made me want to root for the underdog,” he said.

Hahn also said that Galanter’s personal ordeal--the brutal knife attack by an intruder in her Venice home May 6--had an impact on his feelings about her. Since the assault, Galanter has been in a hospital recovering from wounds in her neck.

Two weeks after Galanter was attacked, Hahn’s cousin, 40-year-old Ramona Gayton, was stabbed to death in an apparent burglary of her home in La Habra Heights.

Hahn said that the loss of his cousin made him dwell more on Galanter’s ordeal.

“I think it probably brought my mind back to Ruth because I felt that she had gone through the same kind of vicious attack.”