Reform Fight Is No Game of One-on-One

On the surface, the June election on overhauling the Los Angeles Police Department looks like a man-to-man fight between Mayor Tom Bradley and Chief Daryl F. Gates.

The mayor created the Christopher Commission, which proposed the changes after investigating the LAPD’s beating of Rodney G. King last March. Bradley is backing the plan as it moves through the City Council to the ballot.

The amendments would give the mayor and the City Council more authority over hiring and firing the police chief and set a limit on the chief’s tenure in office.

Gates has opposed the Christopher Commission recommendations from the beginning. Furthermore, he and the mayor are longtime enemies who may be up against each other for mayor in 1993.

But as the proposed City Charter amendments near final council approval, and strategists for each side begin planning the campaign , it’s clear there’ll be more to the fight than Bradley vs. Gates.

That is because, while there aren’t two more familiar faces in L.A. politics than Bradley and Gates, there is evidence that neither is a big favorite with the voters.

Everyone knows the tall, bland mayor. People have married, had children--and grandchildren--since Bradley first ran for mayor in 1969, even since he was elected four years later. But he’s so quiet and detached that at times--like last week when he waited a day to visit the San Fernando Valley flood--he’s counted among the missing.

The last time he faced the voters, in 1989, Bradley was almost forced into a runoff by underdog Nate Holden. The election, held as investigations were beginning into the mayor’s personal finances, was a tip-off that he’d been hurt.

The tightly-wound Gates hasn’t been prominent for nearly as long. He was appointed chief in 1978. But he’s popped off so much--with so little regard for what others might think--that in the Southland’s collective consciousness, his tanned, lean face has become a symbol of years of controversy surrounding the Police Department.

Public opinion polls reflect Gates’ popularity problems.

A Times poll taken last April, a month after the King beating, showed that just under 65% of those responding did not approve of the job he was doing. Richard Lichenstein, who is managing the pro-Charter amendment campaign, said his recent survey showed Gates’ approval rating was about as low as it was in April.

What the 1989 election result and the polling figures show is that familiarity doesn’t always bring affection. In fact, in this time-for-a-change, anti-incumbent era, when Californians voted term limits for their state legislators, it can be a serious liability.

Not wanting Bradley to become the issue, Lichtenstein said that attorney Warren Christopher, the Christopher Commission chairman, and other veterans of that body will be doing the heavy-duty campaigning on behalf of the Charter amendment. Bradley will be involved in “parts of the campaign,” said Lichenstein, “but I think his agenda has him involved in lots of (other) things.”

Gates is giving speeches against the Christopher plan. But anti-Charter amendment strategists say they don’t want the election to be a referendum on the Gates administration. Don Clinton, the campaign chairman, said “I personally highly regard the chief” but “he is not the issue.” The chief, he said, will soon retire. “I am quite sure he means what he says,” said Clinton. “He is going in June.”

Clinton is betting on the city’s traditional opposition to “political interference” in the Police Department.

It’s a tradition, interestingly, partially shaped by the Clinton family history.

In 1938, Clinton’s father, Clifford Clinton, founder of Clifton’s Cafeterias, led a recall against Mayor Frank Shaw. Shaw supporters on the corrupt Police Department bombed Clinton’s home, and the car of one of his investigators. Shaw was recalled and voters gave the new police chief City Charter job protection. Now, Clinton warned, “politicians would like to have more control of a department that is almost independent of political pressure.”

On the opposing side, Richard Lichtenstein is betting on something quite different, the demographics of the new L.A., and its reaction to the televised King beating and other, less dramatic stories of police abuse.

Key areas are Latino East Los Angeles and black and Latino South-Central, which have produced a heavy number of police brutality complaints. A number of hotly contested elections in both areas may boost turnout higher than usual.

The undecided battleground will be middle-class areas where even liberal voters tend to be highly loyal to the LAPD, such as the Fairfax district, and parts of Hollywood and the West Valley.

In such a fight, political managers understand demographics and the emotional impact of historical images. They’re not so certain about the impact of the mayor and the chief.