Councilman Holden Enters Mayor’s Race

Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden, a combative politician who ran a strong second to Tom Bradley in the 1989 mayor’s race, announced Sunday that he is once again a candidate for mayor, running on a platform that emphasizes law enforcement and economic development.

With Bradley retiring, Holden becomes the first African-American candidate in the race, although J. Stanley Sanders, a black lawyer with close ties to the Bradley Administration, said recently that he will decide this month whether to run.

The 63-year-old Holden, who has been on the council since 1987 and was a member of the state Senate from 1974 to 1978, enters the race in the wake of widely publicized allegations that he sexually harassed two women when they were employees of his council office.

With characteristic bravado, Holden said Sunday that the charges would not hurt his chances in the mayor’s race.

“It’s really galvanized support for me,” he said. “People see this thing as political, designed specifically to slander me. But they don’t buy it. When people see me on the street, they say: ‘If you don’t run for us, who will?’ ”

Holden joins Councilmen Michael Woo and Joel Wachs, Assemblyman Richard Katz, lawyer-businessman Richard Reardon, RTD director Nick Patsaouras, former Deputy Mayor Tom Houston and former ambassador to Mexico Julian Nava as declared or probable candidates for the April election.

Holden is one of three candidates, along with Woo and Katz, who have raised at least $200,000, an indicator that their candidacies are to be taken seriously. In 1989, when Holden’s strong second-place finish helped to hold Bradley to the smallest majority vote of his political career, Holden raised just over $230,000.

Holden’s decision to run again further complicates a race that is more crowded than any mayor’s race since 1973, when Bradley was first elected. Holden, who represents the racially mixed 10th Council District, will be seen as one of several competitors for the city’s sizable black voting population, which now makes up about 21% of the electorate.

At the same time, Holden--who had been campaigning among Jewish voters in the San Fernando Valley even before his announcement Sunday--will have to overcome voter hostility, particularly among African-Americans, that was provoked by his stands regarding former Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

Shortly after the police beating of Rodney G. King in March, 1991, Holden was one of 10 council members who voted to reinstate Gates after the chief was placed on administrative leave by the Police Commission.

Holden said he received death threats because of that vote. He added that for much of the past year and a half he has lived outside the city limits, in Marina del Rey, because he feared for his life.

Holden also said that those fears prompted him not to vote on a $1.75-million settlement offer to King by the council. Holden said he skipped the vote because such a “low-ball offer” might anger “some segments of the community.”

Yet, it is Holden’s colorful record on law enforcement issues, as much as anything, that has put him in the public eye and could fuel support for his candidacy.

In 1989, he offered to pay $300 or more for every Uzi or AK-47 assault rifle surrendered to police by gang members or anyone else. Two years later, he donated a $12,000 pay raise to pay for increased police foot patrols throughout the city.

As part of his campaign for mayor, Holden said Sunday he would propose a City Charter change to allow retired police officers to be hired back for up to one year without risking loss of their pensions.

On other issues, Holden said he would set up an economic development commission to come up with strategies to create more jobs and prevent businesses from leaving Los Angeles. He said he would create an educational liaison position in the mayor’s office to work with the Los Angeles Unified School District to improve the school system. And he said he would establish a program along the lines of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps to put young people to work on public improvement projects.

During his years in office, Holden has worked to limit the increase of pawn shops and gun shops as well as the proliferation of auto body shops in his district.

But Holden has always had a flair for controversial proposals, such as his motion last year to have all restaurant waitresses, busboys and cooks in the city tested for the AIDS virus every six months. The council rejected the proposal 11 to 1, with Holden casting the only “yes” vote.

Nor has Holden fared well in recent council fights over redistricting. In a struggle for control of the site of a multimillion dollar redevelopment project, Holden lost out to Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas. A relative newcomer to the council, Ridley-Thomas was able to persuade his colleagues that the redevelopment site should be drawn out of Holden’s district and into his own.

Yet, Holden has been a battler since his days as a 16-year-old novice boxer taking on bigger, older opponents in his boyhood home of Elizabeth, N.J. After working for a number of years on the technical staffs of several Southern California aerospace companies, Holden entered politics in the 1960s, running as a Democrat, often bucking the black political Establishment, and losing many more races than he won.

His breakthrough came with his election to the state Senate and later to the council, where he won his seat in typical Holden fashion, beating the early favorite backed by Bradley.