Katz to Stress Jobs as He Joins Race for Mayor

Leaning heavily on a legislative record that stresses job creation and business incentives, veteran state Assemblyman Richard Katz formally joins the Los Angeles mayor’s race today, portraying himself as the common sense candidate best qualified to revive the local economy.

“I’m running because I believe this city needs a mayor willing to actively fight for L.A. and get our economy moving again,” Katz said. “I’m running because I believe there are some common-sense ideas that city government should have put in place years ago, and that will be put in place if I’m mayor.”

Although polls show he is not well known in many parts of the city, Katz is expected to mount a formidable campaign with strong support from labor, business and the vote-rich San Fernando Valley, where his legislative district is located.

Labor union activist William Luddy, a Katz supporter, expects the lawmaker to pick up the official backing of the county federation of unions.

“He’s like one of the family,” Luddy said. In part that is so because Katz is a vocal advocate of billion-dollar transportation projects that generate lots of jobs.

The Valley, with 40% of the city’s voters, makes an excellent springboard for the Katz campaign. Only one other candidate, Councilman Joel Wachs, has roots as deep as Katz in the Valley.

Citing those advantages, Katz’s supporters discount the early polls.

“These early polls are misleading,” said land-use attorney Benjamin Reznik, who sees Katz as potentially formidable in part because he enters the election with a relatively clean slate.

Katz will be “a new name to a lot of voters”--and that’s good during a time when incumbency and familiarity are viewed as political millstones, Reznik said.

On the other hand, Katz’s 12-year legislative tenure and his close ties with controversial Assembly Speaker Willie Brown could provide fodder for opponents hoping to exploit voters’ alienation from career politicians.

Katz gave his opponents in the mayor’s race a jolt early on when he announced that to run his campaign he had retained political consultant James Carville, who made a national reputation as a key strategist for President-elect Bill Clinton.

With his roots in Jewish Westside labor politics, his feet in cowboy boots and home for the past five years in the far suburbs of rural Sylmar, Katz has mixed political metaphors without confusing voters. He has championed gay rights, opposed former California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and gone to bat for the transportation industry while fighting for stricter standards for air and ground water pollution.

“He can’t be viewed as liberal or conservative--and that’s perfect for him,” Reznik said.

A quick student of a variety of complicated issues, from transit technology to municipal finance, Katz has occasionally tripped over his own glibness. The best example of that was his novel proposal for building a freeway down much of the Los Angeles River bed. While the idea received some support, it got him briefly in trouble with local environmentalists and was lampooned by political pundits from Los Angeles to Wall Street.

To hold on to a politically and racially diverse district, Katz has appealed to rival constituencies, placing his opponents in the mayor’s race on guard. On Monday, before Katz had announced, a top aide to Councilman Michael Woo was already taking shots, arguing that the Westside, where Woo hopes to fare well, will find Katz too conservative.

“I think he has a voting record quite conservative on issues important to a lot of people, including voters on the Westside he is likely to appeal to,” said Vicky Rideout of Woo’s staff.

“Besides being for the death penalty, he has been against rent control, the regulation of pesticides, and pay equity and family leave,” Rideout said.

In response, Peter Taylor, Katz’s campaign manager, said Rideout was wrong and that her comments were “the most palpable evidence, so far, that the Woo people are scared to death.”

According to Taylor, Rideout’s comments about Katz’s record are wrong on just about all counts.

“In 1984 Richard wrote the toughest ground water protection law in the country, one the petroleum industry went bonkers about, that was hailed by the Sierra Club, that took on the issue before it became groovy and trendy,” Taylor said.

“Richard has one of the highest ratings by NOW (the National Organization for Women) of any legislator. He supported a worker’s right to use sick leave to care for an ill child. He supported a bill to allow employees four months of unpaid time to deal with family health needs. On three occasions, he supported legislation to create commissions on pay equity.”

And, according to Taylor, Katz last year voted in favor of rent control legislation for mobile homes statewide, and has “consistently received 90%-plus ratings from the California Homeless and Housing Coalition.”

After Woo, who is 41, Katz at 42 is the youngest of the major contenders in the mayor’s race, and his comparative youth is reflected in the sense of optimism he brings to the campaign.

In his announcement speech to be delivered in Van Nuys, he speaks of making Los Angeles “the Silicon Valley of transportation” by promoting the research, development and manufacture of electric cars, clean-fuel buses and high-speed trains. Katz would accomplish this in part by providing companies with tax credits to locate or expand their operations in California.

“Job creation is my top priority,” Katz says, “because one more job means that someone on welfare can begin to support their family. One more job means revenue for the city without raising taxes. One more job means that a young man who might join a gang can go to work to begin a productive life instead of a destructive one.”

Sounding at times like many of the candidates, Katz says that inertia at City Hall and crime have helped make Los Angeles a “dying city,” but he insists there are ways of arresting the condition. And no one in the race is more facile at ticking off remedies.

Katz says he will soon unveil a 21-point plan for rescuing the city. He says the plan recommends giving bidding preferences to companies that hire local workers and placing city bank deposits only in those institutions that lend money in all neighborhoods.

Katz’s potential liability as a Sacramento insider was raised during a recent radio talk show in which the moderator poked at one of the candidate’s soft spots--his association with Speaker Brown, the quintessential back-room politician.

Katz replied that his alliance with Brown made him extremely effective in obtaining legislative help for his district.

But, more to the point, Katz maintained he has a record of being his own man, citing his success in fighting Brown’s attempt to reduce state financial aid for Los Angeles during last summer’s legislative session.