Power and How to Keep It

Last week, the Christopher Commission reformers learned how clever the Los Angeles City Council can be when protecting its power.

Not that the council is out to kill the recommendations of the commission, which investigated the Los Angeles Police Department after the Rodney King beating. Few in city government would propose that.

The public respect given the Christopher Commission report has reached almost biblical proportions in City Hall.

But the Christopher reformers are becoming aware of the difficulties of enacting recommendations that cut the City Council’s authority over the Police Department and the Police Commission.

This game of power protection isn’t being played in a simple manner. Crafty best describes the process.

Attorney Ray Fisher, a Christopher Commission staff member, encountered the process last Wednesday when he appeared before the special council committee studying the Christopher recommendations.

Fisher wanted approval of a commission proposal bolstering the independence of the Police Commission, which, in the past, has proved too weak to effectively supervise the Police Department.

It would exempt the commission from a new City Charter provision giving the council authority to overturn commission decisions.

But that would take power away from the City Council. So, after a brief discussion, the five committee members voted unanimously to “receive and file” the recommendation--parliamentary jargon for shelving it.

The final decision will be made by the full council. However, the fact that such an important provision was defeated in a committee without much debate showed how council leaders have hit upon a way of revising the Christopher Commission recommendations in a quiet, fairly non-controversial manner.

The president of the City Council, John Ferraro, stocked the committee with members who know how to maintain council authority without looking like they are trying to kill the popular Christopher report, an action that would stir public protest.

For example, Ferraro did not include on the committee the council extremists on the police issue. Absent were the outspoken defender of the LAPD, Hal Bernson, and its strongest critic, Michael Woo. Without them, the debate was less controversial and more open to compromise.

“I think it’s a balanced committee,” Ferraro said.

For chairman, he picked council veteran Marvin Braude. Despite grouchiness and a brusque manner that verges on the anti-social, Braude is a leader in the council “club.”

Braude, whose Westside district is one of the city’s most liberal, has not been a strong defender of the Police Department, but he hasn’t been much of a critic, either.

Joy Picus and Ernani Bernardi are strong LAPD defenders. So is Richard Alatorre, although he occasionally turns critic when some of his poor Latino constituents in East L.A. complain of beatings at the hands of the cops.

Finally, there is the freshman, Mark Ridley-Thomas.

He’s become known as a rebel, ready to wage unceasing war with his colleagues and the city bureaucracy on behalf of his poor African-American and Latino constituency. Public arguments with two of his colleagues tended to reinforce the view that Ridley-Thomas was not a team member.

Furthermore, Ridley-Thomas had opposed the Charter amendment giving the council more authority over the commissions.

But the veteran Ferraro saw another side of Ridley-Thomas--someone who, in the legislative tradition, will go along and get along. And Ridley-Thomas said he wants power over the Police Commission in case he disagrees with it.

A few days after the commission’s setback, I talked to Ray Fisher, a calm man who measures his words carefully in the manner typical of lawyers who work in downtown high-rises. He accepted the committee decision but noted that bigger decisions await the council. The Christopher Commission recommended, for example, that the mayor appoint the new police chief, with council approval. At present, the Police Commission appoints the chief.

That would give the mayor a dominant role in picking the chief, the same as the president’s when he appoints cabinet members and Supreme Court justices. The commission said the mayor “is expected to lead the city as a whole and is accountable for doing so.”

Fisher said this suggestion is at the very heart of the Christopher Commission recommendations. But as he learned last week in dealing with the City Council, this isn’t a body willing to part with any of its power.