Liberal Money Man Gains Access, if Not Influence : Politics: Stanley Hirsh funds Democratic candidates and Jewish and charitable causes. But critics find the role played by such big donors disturbing.

It all began, Stanley Hirsh recalls, with an adolescent preparing for his bar mitzvah, a religious rite celebrating entry into manhood. His rabbi asked him to collect money for the National Jewish Fund to help develop land for settlers in what was then Palestine.

“I took one of these little blue cans and walked around in the Bronx,” Hirsh says. “It was my first taste of going out and raising money--nickels and dimes and pennies. . . . They just asked that you bring the box back full.”

Little did Hirsh’s rabbi know he was setting the young man on a path that--five decades and millions of dollars later--would see him grow into one of Los Angeles’ preeminent fund-raisers and contributors to political, Jewish and charitable causes. Many residents would dearly love to make what Stanley Hirsh gives away.

Hirsh is a smart, imposing, blunt-spoken 65-year-old garment manufacturer and real estate investor who owns both a home and a six-acre ranch in Studio City’s Laurel Canyon. He is a past president of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, an umbrella group of more than 150 organizations. Above all, he is involved.

In the past five years, Hirsh and his wife, Anita, have contributed more than $300,000 to Democratic political candidates, the party and political action committees, records show. The lion’s share--$216,850--went to congressional candidates, the national Democratic Party and pro-Israel political committees.

The Hirshes’ giving is motivated primarily by a desire to elect like-minded liberal Democrats who support abortion rights, environmental protection and the state of Israel, according to Hirsh and his friends and beneficiaries. In this sense, the couple is representative of wealthy Los Angeles activists who make the city’s Westside and San Fernando Valley one of the mother lodes of campaign contributions nationwide.

Nonetheless, advocates for campaign reform find the role played by such big donors troubling.

“While some people do give primarily out of ideological concerns, if they . . . happen to have a problem the federal government can deal with, you can be sure they will make their voices heard to those to whom they’ve given money, and those to whom they’ve given money will tend to listen,” says Lisa Foster, executive director of California Common Cause.

And, Foster adds: “On foreign policy issues, or Israel, to the extent there are views different than those Mr. Hirsh holds, you have to wonder whether as much attention is being paid to those views.”

For his part, Hirsh acknowledges that his giving brings him access but maintains that only once has he lobbied on an issue that could have a bearing on his own business--and then without discernible effect. He is, however, able to arrange meetings with senators and House members and mayors or get them on the phone--whether to push for money for parks or to invite them to events that he’s organizing.

But Hirsh’s generosity goes well beyond politics. Although he won’t disclose the sums he has contributed, or raised, for various causes, Hirsh is renowned in philanthropic circles.

“When there is a particular crisis in the world, especially as it relates to the Jewish community, the first person I would call is Stanley Hirsh,” says Robert L. Burkett, himself one of Los Angeles’ leading political fund-raisers and a close friend of Hirsh’s.

“When Ethiopian Jews had to flee Ethiopia, Stanley organized the Jewish community and helped raise lifesaving money almost overnight. . . . When they came to town to raise money for the Holocaust Memorial Museum, Stanley put that together behind the scenes. He has his own foundation that gives money quietly to fight homelessness and poverty in downtown Los Angeles.”

The unpretentious Hirsh traces his political leanings to his upbringing as the only son of a gas station attendant in Depression-era New York City. His parents were Democrats, though not terribly political.

“I am a product of the ‘30s,” says Hirsh, a Brooklyn native. “No one was rich. Everyone worked hard to be upwardly mobile. We were not poverty-stricken, but I came across lots of people who were underprivileged and I could relate to that very easily.” The Democrats, he felt, cared the most about such people.

Hirsh’s family moved to California when he was 14. He graduated from high school following a stint in the Navy and went to work for a clothing manufacturer as an assistant store manager. Eight years later, he started his own company.

Hirsh’s business expanded rapidly in the 1970s. In 1981, he and his wife purchased the landmark Cooper Building in downtown Los Angeles and gradually converted it from general merchandising and garment manufacturing to a discount retail garment center. Hirsh’s bustling 9th-floor office--where he can often be found juggling several conversations at once--is chockablock with mementos, clothing, floor plans and art work.

Today, he is a very wealthy man. He has a 50% interest in Alex Coleman, Elizabeth Stewart and California Girl, all women’s apparel manufacturing companies. And he and his wife own five other commercial buildings in the city’s garment district.

Stanley and Anita Hirsh, who was then a clothing designer, were wed in 1961, both for the second time. Friends describe the 55-year-old Anita as attractive, feisty, and not one to suffer fools gladly. The couple has four children and a toddling granddaughter.

Hirsh says the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors was a catalyst for his involvement on the pro-Israel front.

“That really got me off my butt,” he says with characteristic bluffness . “It was a critical time to know how fragile the state of Israel is. It’s still in a fragile situation.”

Since then, Hirsh has visited the Jewish state about 15 times. He and his wife gave a total of $50,000 to the pro-Israel National PAC in the past five years--the legal maximum. And Anita Hirsh has been extremely active in trying to help Jews emigrate from the former Soviet Union.

In the mid-1980s, the mayor of Tel Aviv took Hirsh to an impoverished Arab neighborhood. He said that this community, called Ajami, was “not getting much attention because it was an Arab neighborhood” and asked for help. Hirsh brought the request to the Jewish Federation Council. So far, it has raised more than $3 million for a park and a community center.

Political involvement followed. In 1971, unhappy with the governance of Los Angeles following a stint as president of the Studio City Residents Assn., Hirsh ran for City Council. He finished third in a crowded field with a mere 900 votes as Joel Wachs was elected.

Hirsh’s entry into big-bucks political giving, however, began in 1976 when a friend asked him to host a fund-raiser for Howard M. Metzenbaum, then a Democratic Senate candidate from Ohio. Hirsh says he brought in $30,000 to $40,000 at the event at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Metzenbaum was elected and has become one of the Senate’s most liberal members and a champion of Israel’s interests.

“I made the phone calls to a lot of people I knew and they showed up,” Hirsh says. “It’s like winning. It’s like going to Las Vegas and shooting craps and you get on a roll.”

Hirsh has been hot ever since. Among the bigger events he’s sponsored was a 1988 fund-raiser with Democratic vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen for the party’s presidential ticket. About 200 attended the event at his secluded ranch. He also put together events for Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) for their 1990 reelection campaigns.

Hirsh is unabashed about discussing his personal relationship with many of his political beneficiaries. He’s met 20 to 30 members of the U.S. Senate, some many times. He joined a group of Jewish activists at a session with then-Vice President Bush during the 1988 presidential campaign.

But Hirsh says that only once has he lobbied recipients of his campaign largess on a matter related to his business interests. Last year, Hirsh strongly opposed a proposed zoning variance that would have created a new garment center in downtown Los Angeles.

Well-connected proponents said the project would help rejuvenate the city’s central business district; opponents maintained that it would lure tenants from the nearby garment district and change the character of a section of downtown zoned for commercial and residential use.

Hirsh says he went to newly elected City Councilwoman Rita Walters, for whom he had raised money, but she supported the project. He says he met with Mayor Tom Bradley--to whom he has contributed for years--but Bradley told him he already opposed the project, though he was not yet ready to do so publicly. The City Council narrowly approved the variance; Bradley vetoed it.

Reached Saturday, Bill Chandler, Bradley’s press secretary, said he did not have immediate access to specifics about Hirsh’s meeting with Bradley. But Chandler said “the mayor decided early on about his position” regarding the proposal.

“I don’t think it gained me influence at all,” Hirsh says of his campaign giving. “It gained me, in some cases, someone picking up the phone and talking to me. . . . It was a rude awakening because it was the very first time I’ve gone downtown and lobbied for anything.”

Anita Hirsh has successfully lobbied lawmakers on behalf of individual Jews trapped in the former Soviet Union. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), who has represented the Hirshes since he was a state assemblyman and is high on their list of favored candidates, once took the unusual step of handling a case for Anita Hirsh personally.

“He got into it because she was involved,” recalls Gene Smith, Berman’s chief aide. “It was not because they are contributors but because Howard is really fond of Anita.”

Nonetheless, critics of the current campaign financing system find the Hirshes’ giving--and these kind of stories--disturbing, even if the contributions are not tied to personal self-interest.

“Givers like Hirsh raise the larger question, which is, what is the impact on a democratic electoral system which can be dominated by people who apparently have limitless amounts of money to give?” says Ellen Miller, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. “What is the influence when there is this incredible disparity between those who can give and those who can’t give at all?”

Hirsh says, though, that having an effect is what it’s all about. Asked how he would like to be remembered, he replies: “Participant.”

Just participant?

“Some people never participate in their whole lives,” he explains. “They read the paper and go to work and go to the movies and take a vacation and start all over again. I want to participate--in a small way.”

* GOLD RUSH: Los Angeles has a mother lode of affluent activist campaign contributors. A1

Sample of Hirsh Campaign Contributions

Recipient: National PAC Race: 1987-1991 Amount: $50,000 Stanley Hirsh’s Reasons For Giving: Pro-Israel political action committee Recipient: Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Race: 1988 & 1990 races Amount: $26,000 Stanley Hirsh’s Reasons For Giving: Support for Democratic candidates Recipient: Dianne Feinstein Race: 1990 Calif. Gov. General Election Amount: $22,000 Stanley Hirsh’s Reasons For Giving: Democratic nominee in key, competitive statewide race Recipient: John Van de Kamp Race: 1990 Calif. Gov. Primary Election Amount: $4,585 Stanley Hirsh’s Reasons For Giving: Principled, capable, experienced liberal Recipient: Gloria Molina Race: 1991 Los Angeles County Supervisor Amount: $15,000 Stanley Hirsh’s Reasons For Giving: Bright, progressive, maverick Latino candidate he had previously supported Recipient: Proposition 1 Race: 1991 bond measure of $298.8 million Amount: $10,000 Stanley Hirsh’s Reasons For Giving: Supported proposition to expand parks and recreational facilities Recipient: Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) Race: 1988 & 1990 House reelection races Amount: $5,750 Stanley Hirsh’s Reasons For Giving: Respected, responsive congressman; liberal, pro-Israel & pro-environment Recipient: Carl Levin (D-Mich.) Race: 1990 Senate reelection campaign Amount: $4,000 Stanley Hirsh’s Reasons For Giving: Strong advocate for Soviet Jews, highly competent senator Recipient: Harris Wofford (D-Pa.) Race: 1991 Senate special election Amount: $3,000 Stanley Hirsh’s Reasons For Giving: Request by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) to back liberal Dem. in high-profile race Recipient: Wayne Dowdy (D-Miss.) Race: 1988 House challenger Amount: $1,000 Stanley Hirsh’s Reasons For Giving: Request by someone to contribute but, can’t recall who; “courtesy gift.” Source: Public election records and interviews with Stanley Hirsh.