Houston to Win Race of TV Ads

Hammering at the one theme that has animated his campaign, Los Angeles mayoral candidate Tom Houston today is expected to unveil the first television commercial of the mayor’s race, focusing on his controversial plan to round up illegal immigrant gang members.

With the 30-second commercial, scheduled to begin airing this morning, Houston beats all of the other 51 other mayoral candidates to the airwaves, where much of the war is expected to be waged. Although he faces daunting competition from better-known and better-financed contenders, Houston’s aggressive stance on the immigration issue and his early start on television are likely to pay off in enhanced name recognition.

However, several contentions in his commercial are unverified or exaggerated.

In the ad, he stands near a graffiti-splattered wall and says that, as mayor, he will “do something about gangs, starting with the two gangs of illegal aliens who murdered 100 of our citizens last year.”

“I’ll have them picked up and deported,” he says. Houston blames the City Council and a city policy--Special Order No. 40--for tying the hands of the police by ordering them not to help immigration officials arrest and deport gang members who are in the country illegally.

“As mayor,” Houston says, “I’ll override the City Council and get these gangs off our streets.”

However, in reality, it is not that simple. The City Council has the authority to override virtually any action taken by the mayor.

Off camera, Houston also acknowledged that police have yet to confirm a statistic in his commercial--the number of murders by the two illegal immigrant gangs he talks about. Houston puts the number at 100 in his ad and said off the air the numbers were provided “unofficially” by a variety of city and federal law enforcement authorities.

Houston said Monday that the commercial is slated to air on several cable sports, news and entertainment channels for the next two weeks and on NBC and ABC channels during early morning and late evening news shows.

Houston, who has been accused of trying to foment a campaign of hatred against immigrants, said Monday that his target is gangs in general, and that he has focused on illegal immigrant gang members because deportation offers a quick and effective way of dealing with them.

Deportation avoids the uncertainties of criminal prosecutions which, he said, are often thwarted by the reluctance of frightened witnesses.

“It focuses on illegal aliens because there is a procedure (deportation) that is much more straightforward and direct than going after other gangs, where the No. 1 thing is you have to protect witnesses and conduct full trials,” Houston said.

Moreover, Houston said he was trying to “carve out an exception to Order No. 40” that would not gut a policy designed to protect immigrant communities from indiscriminate sweeps.

Times staff writer Marc Lacey contributed to this story.