D.A. Reiner Plans ’90 Campaign for Attorney General

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner on Friday announced his intention to run for state attorney general in 1990, saying he would seek that statewide office only if, as expected, incumbent John K. Van de Kamp, a fellow Democrat, runs for governor.

Reiner, who won reelection to a 4-year term in 1988, said a $1,000-per-person fund-raising dinner set for February in Los Angeles already has sold about $500,000 in tickets--”at least double anything I’ve ever raised in any event.”

If Reiner were elected attorney general, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors would appoint a successor to complete Reiner’s term as district attorney.

With about 2,200 employees, including more than 800 prosecutors, the district attorney’s office is the largest local prosecutorial agency in the country, handling more than 300,000 criminal cases a year on a budget of $130 million.

Speculation Under Way

Among those said to be considering entering the race for attorney general are former U.S. Rep. Dan Lungren and state Sens. John Doolittle and Larry Stirling, all Republicans; and San Francisco County Dist. Atty. Arlo Smith, a Democrat. Lungren also is mentioned as a possible Republican candidate for governor.

Reiner said on Friday it would be presumptuous as well as premature to discuss potential rivals or successors.

He said he would not seek to influence the Board of Supervisors’ choice of a successor, should that opportunity arise. “That’s their decision to make. If they require or request any input from me, I’d be more than happy to discuss it with them.”

Reiner said he filed his intention to run for attorney general with the secretary of state on Friday so that he can begin now to raise money that is to be designated for the 1990 campaign, as required by the recently passed Proposition 73.

For now, however, Reiner said: “I’m not beginning to campaign. That is a better part of a year from now. I am a candidate. I have made a decision. But certainly a campaign is approximately a year off.”

Reiner, 52, became district attorney by defeating incumbent Robert H. Philibosian in 1983. Philibosian was appointed by the Board of Supervisors to succeed Van de Kamp after Van de Kamp was elected attorney general in 1982.

Earlier, Reiner served as city controller and city attorney of Los Angeles. He is a graduate of Southwestern University School of Law, and has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Southern California.

Reiner said his campaign will emphasize three issues that have concerned him throughout his public career, the foremost being a harsher crackdown on juvenile offenders as a way to prevent them from becoming adult habitual criminals.

“The No. 1 problem is to change the way the juvenile system works,” he said. “You’ve to get to the kids before they become habitual criminals.” The solution, Reiner said, is to clamp down on youthful offenders.

The “precursors” of criminal behavior--truancy, drug and alcohol abuse, curfew violations--should be dealt with swiftly and severely, Reiner said.

The current practice of treating youthful offenders leniently, he said, “in fact affirmatively nurtures habitual criminals.”

Says Rehabilitation Won’t Work

With a few exceptions, Reiner said, “the idea of rehabilitating adult habitual criminals is simply not in the cards. It never has been and I expect it never will be.”

The other themes of his 1990 campaign will be consumer and environmental protection, he said.

As city attorney, Reiner said, he created the first environmental strike force in the country. And now in the district attorney’s office, he added, “we have by far the largest environmental strike force in the U.S.”

In consumer protection, Reiner said, he would vigorously represent the public before the state Public Utilities Commission to fight against unjust rate increases.

Reiner said that, as city attorney, his office “did something unique in the state of California” by assigning a full-time lawyer to argue against telephone rate-increase requests before the PUC.

“As attorney general, I will replicate the type of work we did,” he said.

Reiner also said he would fight against insurance rate increases, which he called “probably the single most important issue in consumer protection in the state of California today.”