Latinos Are Missing Chance to Prep for Mayoral Race

The smoke had barely cleared from last week’s local elections when political observers began prognosticating the issues and personalities likely to be debated the next time around, when Los Angeles chooses its mayor in 1989.

There is good cause for early speculation on the mayoral race. Despite Mayor Tom Bradley’s personal popularity, two of his political allies were defeated in running for the City Council last week. This was seen as evidence of his growing vulnerability to a serious challenger--most likely Westside Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky--if he seeks a fifth term, as he said he would before last week’s setback.

On the Eastside, too, there is talk about an open field for mayor, but precious little action about running a Latino candidate. That’s too bad, because if the city’s Latino activists expect to be taken seriously come 1989, they should be planning their mayoral campaign strategy now.

Part of the problem is that no viable Latino candidate has expressed interest in becoming mayor, at least not as publicly as Yaroslavsky has. So the first step is to find a Latino with public visibility, experience at fund-raising and a record of public service--preferably someone with expertise on a broad range of issues that affect more than just Latinos.

The Latinos on the City Council, Richard Alatorre and Gloria Molina, are obvious choices. But Alatorre is still hampered by the aftereffects of a fund-raising scandal during his first council campaign two years ago, and Molina is just too new to city government (she was elected only two months ago) to start running for mayor.

State Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) is in a good position to run. He is young, articulate and knowledgeable on environmental issues like the controversial Lancer trash-burning project in South-Central Los Angeles, which he opposes. But he has said that he wants to run for a statewide office.

Many other respected and highly visible Latinos in town have long, close ties to Bradley. They include Deputy Mayor Grace Montanez Davis, Public Works Commissioner Edward Avila and City Planning Commission President Dan Garcia.

Garcia is an interesting case. An attorney, he has become the mayor’s principal spokesman on the increasingly sensitive issue of growth. Now, “growth” has become a political buzzword covering a multitude of sins, but there is little doubt that it carries negative overtones for many city voters. When local residents complain about growth these days, they are expressing unease over not just high-rise construction and the proliferation of mini-malls but also growing traffic congestion and rising crime--not just in the Central City but all over town as well.

While public concern over uncontrolled growth is valid, Garcia has warned that the issue could easily take on class and even racial overtones if it became a political football, with affluent homeowners voting for no-growth candidates while a largely minority working class backs candidates who favor continued development and jobs. No other city political leader, not even Bradley, has made the case for a reasoned and moderate discussion of growth issues as articulately as Garcia has.

But if potential candidates like Torres and Garcia don’t run, where can Latinos look for a leader who would be taken seriously? How about Washington, where Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles) is serving his 12th term in Congress since leaving the City Council in 1962?

Roybal has expressed no interest in running for mayor. But conditions for his candidacy are so ideal that he might find it hard to resist a serious campaign to draft him.

The senior member of the city’s Latino Establishment, Roybal has lots of experience as a fund-raiser, as he proved again recently when he helped his daughter, Lucille Roybal Allard, win election to the California Assembly in a special election on relatively short notice. It is worth noting that Allard won despite being an unknown political newcomer. The Roybal name is that revered on the Eastside, and well known elsewhere.

So Roybal would have automatic credibility with the news media--a key component in a citywide campaign.

Roybal also has a track record on issues that reach beyond the Eastside. As chairman of the House Select Committee on Aging, he is a leading spokesman for the elderly on issues like Social Security and Medicare. And the elderly are one segment of the electorate growing as rapidly as the Latino population--giving Roybal, 71 but still sprightly, a broad constituent base.

But the clincher has to be the fact that in 1989 Roybal will not be up for reelection. He would have what political pros call a “free run” for mayor because he would not have to surrender his seat in Congress.

In fact, the more one ponders the prospect of Roybal running for mayor in 1989, it seems that he would face only one potential problem: If Bradley and Yaroslavsky become locked in a tight race and divided the support of the city’s Jewish and black voters, Roybal might win. Then he would have to give up his seat in Congress.