Special Interests Give Early, Often in L.A. Mayoral Race : Politics: With no front-runner, lobbyists and others are spreading thousands of dollars among top contenders.

Confronted with a volatile and crowded Los Angeles mayoral campaign, City Hall lobbyists and other special interests have been hedging their bets and spreading thousands of dollars in contributions among top contenders.

In the first election under new laws intended to dilute special interest influence, most major candidates continue to rely on old networks of city-related business interests to help fill their campaign accounts, records and interviews show.

Special interests have frequently given money to the top candidates in the mayoral race. But at no time in modern history--not since well before retiring Mayor Tom Bradley took office 20 years ago--has the so-called “smart money” of city politics been faced with such an array of powerful and potentially viable contenders.

Indeed, special interests have been giving early and often. For example:

* Maureen Kindel, Bradley’s former fund-raising chief and now a top-paid City Hall lobbyist, has given the maximum $1,000 contribution to at least six mayoral candidates, as well as organized gatherings of other prospective donors for council members Michael Woo, Nate Holden and Joel Wachs, as well as Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Panorama City).

* Latham & Watkins, a downtown law firm that represents developers and other major interests at City Hall, has issued $1,000 checks to several leading candidates, and is hosting a series of receptions for potential donors. One such event helped generate nearly $9,000 in contributions for Katz.

* Contractors and consultants on the multibillion-dollar city-county mass transit program, where the mayor wields considerable clout, have been arranging fund-raisers and buying batches of tickets to candidates’ events. In one case, executives at Parsons Brinkerhoff Quade Douglas, a firm with an $80-million transit design contract and a bid pending on a Los Angeles International Airport people mover, have scattered thousands of dollars among top candidates, including purchasing $10,000 worth of tickets to a Woo fund-raiser.

Voters may be looking to the next mayor to tackle issues of crime, jobs and race relations.

But lobbyists, government contractors and developers know that the third-floor mayor’s suite at City Hall is the gearbox of local decision making that can directly affect their business interests.

“Clearly, the mayor’s position is a focal point,” said former RTD General Manager John Dyer, now an executive with ICF Kaiser Engineers, a large subway consulting firm. Dyer is part of a loose network of political players who are helping hunt down mayoral contributions. Thus far, reports show that executives at Dyer’s firm have contributed several thousand dollars to Woo, Katz and Nick Patsaouras, a Metropolitan Transit Authority board member.

Mayoral candidates note that it is legal to raise funds from special interests, and they insist that such contributors gain no special treatment.

But some representatives of special interests, who are being inundated with requests for contributions, say privately that they are donating in part to protect lines of communication with candidates who are likely to remain forces in business or politics after the April 20 primary.

They point out that the prominent candidates include four City Council members, a state Assembly leader, a Metropolitan Transit Authority board member and a leading civic and business figure.

Turning down a fund-raising request, or appearing to show favoritism in donations, is a risk not worth taking, they say. “It’s very hard for any lobbyist to not help,” said Steve Afriat, who represents developers at City Hall and has made contributions to several contenders. “The threat is denying access . . . dinging you.”

Unlike more detached donors, who may view a contribution as a philosophical commitment to a candidacy, special interest contributors and fund-raisers dole out money as a kind of insurance policy, said USC Prof. Herbert Alexander, who has studied campaign finance in Los Angeles and other large cities.

“They don’t want to take a chance that one of these will be the winner without them having been on board early.”

“It’s not really choosing a candidate,” said Norman Ross, a Parsons Brinkerhoff vice president who has been coordinating contributions to candidates by company executives. Rather, he said, the widespread giving this year is being driven by a still-muddled candidate lineup--with 11 top-tier contenders among the 31 running--and a voracious demand for funds in a race that is expected to set city spending records.

“As much as we can give, we will give,” Ross said.

Such base-covering often means that special interests do more than make the $1,000 donation permitted by city law.

Their actions come against the backdrop of new voter-approved election reforms, which are pushing candidates to collect more individual donations, which can be matched with hundreds of thousands of dollars in public campaign funds. Contributions by corporations, political action committees and labor unions cannot be matched.

Campaign reform advocates hope that the public financing incentive will curb special interest influence in city politics, and there are signs that some candidates, at least initially, have been scouting for more small donors.

But well-connected mayoral candidates also are using special interests to help recruit individual donors among their friends, clients and business associates.

Lawyer-lobbyist George Mihlstein, whose firm represents such diverse city interests as a large downtown developer and a port scrap metal processor, coordinated the reception that helped generate nearly $9,000 for Katz--all of it matchable donations made individually by the firm’s attorneys.

Woo, whose has touted his authorship of the new campaign laws, has been among the most successful at tapping special interest contributors, records and interviews show.

“Mike (Woo) called me and asked for help,” said Afriat, the city lobbyist, who later organized a fund-raiser that netted a “few thousand dollars” for the councilman.

Although it is impossible to trace all--or even most--donations brought in by special interests, Woo has collected at least $55,000 from real estate and development companies and executives, records show. An additional $43,000 has come directly from lobbyists, people with City Hall business interests and mass transit contractors.

Woo, who leads in fund-raising with $887,000 collected at last report, said there is no inconsistency in taking credit for ethics reform and then recruiting city lobbyists as fund-raisers.

“I haven’t said that I wouldn’t accept money from those sources,” he said. “I don’t think there is any implication of improper dealing.”

By accepting public matching funds and agreeing to a $2-million spending limit, he argued, “I am living up to the concept that I fought for.”

Katz, who lags well behind Woo, with $457,000 collected at last report, has complained that he “can’t squeeze City Hall lobbyists the way (council members) have been squeezing.”

However, campaign records and interviews show that he has collected close to $10,000--roughly the same as Woo--directly from attorneys and lobbyists with clients at City Hall.

His top campaign fund-raiser, attorney Peter D. Kelly, represents city-related interests and is part of a consortium bidding on a multibillion-dollar rail project that Katz could significantly influence if elected mayor.

In addition, one of Katz’s largest fund-raisers was an approximately $100,000 event at the Hidden Hills home of Ronald Tutor, owner of Tutor-Saliba, the largest subway contractor on the city’s new subway. Tutor-Saliba executives and their wives gave nearly $20,000 to Katz, records show.

Though he denied that there was any link, Katz several weeks later reversed an earlier stand and endorsed a subway extension, in lieu of a monorail, for the San Fernando Valley.

Also at Tutor’s event were carpenters union leaders, who have collected dozens of individual contributions for Katz totaling more than $27,000.

Tutor and Doug McCarron, a carpenters union official, are supporting him, Katz said, partly because he authored Proposition 111, a 1990 state gasoline tax increase that is providing hundreds of millions of dollars for transit projects, including the Los Angeles subway.

“They like the fact that I have a program that creates jobs. That I am going out and solving problems,” Katz said.

Tutor, complaining of recent Times stories on alleged overbilling on the subway project by his firm, refused to discuss the fund-raiser.

Special interest contributions are a more complex and personal matter when it comes to the other top fund-raiser in the race, lawyer-businessman Richard Riordan.

A wealthy venture capitalist, Riordan has collected more than $680,000, much of it from a new set of contributors--absent many of the familiar faces of the city’s Democratic power circles. His donors include well-heeled Republican friends, and a long list of businesses and associates he has dealt with over the years.

Playing up comparisons to Ross Perot, Riordan has portrayed himself as an independent outsider and agent of change--one who will use millions of his own dollars, if need be, to finance his campaign.

But opponents argue that Riordan is a major league insider, enmeshed in a vast web of his own special interests.

His law firm, Riordan & McKinzie, has done hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal work for the city-county transit agency, including negotiating a use agreement for downtown’s Union Station. The station’s owner, Catellus Development, is pushing a massive commercial development at the site and planning to house transit agency offices there.

As an example of the unusual tangle of personal and public interests involving Riordan and his contributors, attorneys in his law firm gave a total of $25,000 and Catellus Development gave him--and several other candidates--$1,000.

In another case, Comarco Inc., which is supplying new freeway call boxes to the prime contractor on a $15-million transit agency contract, gave Riordan a $1,000 contribution. Until recently, Riordan had been a director and stockholder in Comarco.

Bill Wardlaw, Riordan’s campaign chairman, said that contributions from Riordan’s law firm and close business associates are not special interest funds. “That’s love money. That’s his family,” he said.

Riordan will resign from his law firm if elected and take whatever steps are necessary to comply with all conflict-of-interest laws, Wardlaw said.

He maintained that Riordan’s extensive personal business ventures, which have amassed him an estimated $100-million fortune, reduces concerns about special interest influence.

“A thousand bucks here and a thousand bucks there doesn’t even come close.”