NEWS ANALYSIS : Ethics Bill: How a Compromise Unraveled : City Hall: The reforms that seemed so urgent last year lost their allure when council members realized how they would be affected.

Last fall, Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo offered a simple assessment of the council’s political dynamics: “It’s like trying to lead a herd of cats.”

Four months later, Woo has demonstrated how difficult the job of cat-herder can be.

Despite weeks of negotiating, compromising, arm-twisting and pleading, Woo was unable to keep enough of his 14 colleagues headed in the right direction at the right time to push through the broad ethics-in-government package advocated by a citizens’ commission and Woo himself.

The reforms that had been so imperative last year at the height of revelations about Mayor Tom Bradley’s financial dealings did not seem quite so urgent last week as council members realized how the measures would hit home.

“You come in here with your tail between your legs like we’re . . . criminals,” Councilman Hal Bernson howled Friday as Councilman Joel Wachs pushed a campaign reform amendment. “We are not criminals.”

In the end, which came at a tumultuous session on Friday, the council stripped the package of its key element--public financing of political campaigns--and took a Swiss-cheese approach to proposals that would have banned all outside income and honorariums and most gifts.

With a frenzy of amendments--more than 50 were offered--the council undid a fragile compromise worked out by Woo and the citizens’ commission two weeks ago. Even Council President John Ferraro, who had embraced the compromise at a press conference with Woo, faded in the confusion on Friday afternoon and voted against the plan.

But there was little uncertainty when the matter of a pay raise came up. It caused a virtual stampede. Within minutes, council members achieved near-unanimous support for placing on the June ballot a proposed 40% pay hike for themselves and substantial raises for the mayor, city attorney and controller.

For Woo, the outcome was a “very disappointing” finish to three days of special council meetings that began with declarations by several members that Los Angeles is “the cleanest city in the world.”

Woo himself pointed out that Los Angeles “is not Chicago or New York.”

He was referring to the unsavory reputation of politicians in those cities. But there is a more fundamental difference that may help explain why the 15 members of the Los Angeles City Council found it so difficult to reach a consensus on the ethics issue.

There is no clear political leadership in Los Angeles.

New York and Chicago have political leadership, either through strong mayors or dominant political parties. But California’s independent local politics and Bradley’s uncertain influence with the council--especially on the ethics issue--have made for unpredictable and shifting coalitions among council members.

In the case of ethics reform, Woo took on the leadership role, heading an ad hoc council committee that held interminable hearings on the matter. A genial and articulate politician, Woo spent hours lobbying his fellow council members and working out compromises palatable to them and Geoffrey Cowan, the head of the ethics-in-government commission appointed by Bradley after his narrow reelection victory last spring.

Councilman Marvin Braude stuck with Woo to the end on Friday, but most of his other colleagues turned skittish. They drifted away, conversing in small clutches in the council chambers and consulting with lobbyists and others who hovered near the front pews of the visitors’ section.

Outside, beleaguered city workers set up a table to write up and sort out the amendments that came in a steady flow as council members thought aloud.

An amendment that would permit small gifts of “calendars, ballpoint pens and candy” was rewritten after some discussion on the council floor to include “all types of nuts.” Its author, Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, was then loudly denounced by colleague Nate Holden, who saw it as opening the door to corruption.

Minutes earlier, Holden had argued eloquently--and successfully--on behalf of his own amendment that would permit council members to accept “mementos,” which, presumably, would not open the door to corruption.

In the end, the legislative staff took to running off the amendments on different-colored paper so that the council could keep track of what was current and what had become obsolete.

It was an open question how many of the council members understood what was happening at any given time. Ferraro, who presides over the sessions, asked repeatedly, “Does everyone understand what they’re voting on?”

Some, apparently, did not. Even Ferraro said he had misunderstood the key vote--an amendment to an amendment--that killed the public financing proposal. The upshot--he voted against public financing, even though he had been saying for weeks the proposal should go on the June ballot so voters could decide whether they want it.

“It was a mistake,” Ferraro said. If so, it was a costly one, because public financing died on an 8-5 vote, the bare majority needed to kill it.

But Ferraro did little to correct the mistake, which put enormous pressure on 88-year-old Gilbert Lindsay, who was among the eight who voted to kill public financing. In order for the proposal to get another chance, someone who voted with the majority had to request that the debate be reopened.

Lindsay was the likely candidate. A feeble man who is weak and forgetful, Lindsay became the subject of an intense lobbying effort Friday afternoon.

Council members on both sides of the issue hovered around him and coaxed. When the din reached a crescendo, Lindsay’s top aide, Bob Gay, led him off to a quiet corner and spoke with him gently while the councilman ate cookies.

Finally, Bradley’s help was enlisted and the mayor called Lindsay in the council chambers to prompt him to request reconsideration of public financing.

Lindsay was led back to his seat, but it was still touch and go. An aide to Woo handed Lindsay a sheet of yellow legal paper with words printed in big red letters. Lindsay studied it, then rose and read haltingly: “I move reconsideration of amendment 45.”

Later, Linsday could not remember why the mayor had called him.

The spectacle left everyone feeling a little uneasy and, in the end, the maneuver failed. There was no second vote on public financing.

Councilwoman Joy Picus summed it up: “We got ourselves into a parliamentary tangle so that instead of being able to do what we wanted to do, we ended up doing something where we’re not sure what we’re doing and certainly not all of us are happy.”

Braude rose for a final exhortation on behalf of public financing. “The people in Poland, the people of Czechoslovakia, do you think they would be concerned about spending a few dollars to protect their democratic system of government? Certainly not. We are at the time in the development of our democracy. . . .”

But the cats had wandered off.