Campaign Principles Aimed at Avoiding Tensions

Less than a week before the California primary, Los Angeles officials and organizations joined forces Wednesday hoping to head off ethnic tensions like those that surfaced in the New York primary and disrupted student elections recently at UCLA.

Groups including the NAACP and American Jewish Congress and officials including Mayor Tom Bradly and Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky--Bradley’s likely rival in 1989 mayor’s race--endorsed a statement of campaign principles emphasizing the pluralism of American society.

‘Proud’ of Diversity

“We in Los Angeles are proud of our ethnic and cultural diversity, but we recognize that the political process often aggravates real tensions that do exist among groups,” said Mary D. Nichols, executive director of People for the American Way, a constitutional liberties group that organized the joint statement and City Hall press conference.

“California is unique, a pacesetter. . . . Through California we can right the wrongs,” said Jose De Sosa, statewide president of the NAACP.

Tensions between Jews and blacks were exacerbated in New York, which presidential candidate Jesse Jackson described as “Hymietown” four years ago and where Mayor Ed Koch this year said a Jew would “have to be crazy to vote for Jackson.”

Last week, student balloting on the UCLA campus was disrupted when complaints of unfair treatment of minority candidates erupted into a melee in which voting booths were overturned and blows exchanged.

“There is not a campaign anywhere where there ought to be anything more than issues that propel the campaign,” Yaroslavsky said. Race and religion, he said, are “irrelevant factors.”

‘Very Constructive’

The statement of principles, Yaroslavsky said, is “very constructive. . . . Not that we think we needed them, but it doesn’t hurt.”

Yaroslavsky, who is Jewish, said he does not expect racial problems to surface in his expected campaign against Bradley, who is black. Bradley endorsed the statement but did not appear at the press conference.

Nichols said her group, besides wanting to ensure ethnic peace for the California primary Tuesday, is “mindful of the need to monitor future elections as well.”

The alliance is also monitoring efforts to mend relations on the UCLA campus.

“We feel strongly that you don’t try to sweep those incidents under the rug,” Nichols said. “There is a tendency for those things to fester and get worse.”

Other sponsors included City Councilmen Richard Alatorre and Michael Woo and City Controller Rick Tuttle, as well as representatives of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and an array of black and Jewish organizations.