LOCAL ELECTIONS / L.A. MAYOR : Riordan Has Big Lead in Campaign Financing

Despite hundreds of thousands of dollars in late donations and large infusions of public campaign funds, none of the major contenders for Los Angeles mayor are coming close to matching the personally bankrolled, multimillion-dollar campaign of wealthy businessman Richard Riordan, reports filed Thursday show.

With a total of $4.2 million raised through last Saturday, Riordan is leading a field of candidates who together may spend an unprecedented $10 million--or more--on the April 20 primary election. Millions more are likely to be spent on the June runoff.

With $3 million drawn from his own fortune--and $1.2 million more in donations--Riordan has far surpassed the previous $3.2-million fund-raising record set jointly in 1985 by Mayor Tom Bradley and challenger John Ferraro, the City Council president.

Spending and contribution limits have been relaxed for Riordan’s opponents to help level the playing field, but the new reports show his closest fund-raising competitor, Councilman Michael Woo, lags far behind at about $2.6 million collected--more than $500,000 of which is in public matching funds. Assemblyman Richard Katz has collected about $1.8 million, Councilman Joel Wachs about $1 million, and others trailing behind.

A Republican relatively unknown to the electorate six months ago, Riordan has surged to top contender status with a prodigious name-building effort that has cost $2.8 million so far--more than twice the total spent by Woo’s campaign, records show.

Riordan has sought to deflect criticism of his heavy personal spending by touting it as a badge of political independence. “While his opponents have been at cocktail parties with special interests,” said his campaign chairman, Bill Wardlaw, “(Riordan) has been walking this city from Sylmar to San Pedro, meeting with real voters.”

But Thursday’s reports brought new charges that Riordan is attempting to buy the election and that his personal spending reflects a lack of grass-roots support.

“This guy without his $3 million would have been down (in the polls) with ‘Melrose’ Larry Green,” said Woo’s campaign spokesman, Garry South, referring to an especially colorful, minor candidate. “It’s very clear money has made Richard Riordan what he is in this race.”

Riordan’s carefully orchestrated media campaign has included mass mailings of high-quality brochures and a full-color 64-page booklet, saturation sign posting across the city, and a steady feed of television commercials.

In the past month, records show, he has spent nearly $1.6 million to put out a closely honed message that he will battle crime, use his business expertise to boost the local economy, and slash the City Hall bureaucracy.

Much of Riordan’s campaign effort has appeared aimed at more conservative San Fernando Valley, Westside and Harbor-area voters, who make up a disproportionately large share of the city’s electorate.

Just as Riordan appears to be courting a relatively narrow band of voters--one that critics say does not reflect a largely Democratic and minority city--his foundation of financial support remains relatively small.

Of the $1.2 million he has collected from others, most appears to have come from $1,000 maximum contributors, largely fellow business executives, well-heeled Republicans and entrepreneurs. Though complete reports were not available, Riordan appears to have fewer than 2,000 donors thus far.

By contrast, Woo has assembled a base of more than 4,000 contributors--with many giving less than $500. They include Anglo liberals, Asian-Americans, gays, entertainment industry executives, lobbyists and environmentalists.

Katz has about 3,500 donors--2,500 of them giving less than $250--and he has heavily tapped lawyers, unions and their members, Hollywood executives and mass transit interests, as well as smaller donors among Westside and Valley suburbanites.

Riordan’s failure to build a broad fund-raising base “tells us something about the depth and breadth of his support,” said South, Woo’s spokesman.

Noting that Riordan has raised only $173,470 from others in the past month--compared with $764,000 by Woo--South said “he had a burst of (early) fund raising where he got the fat cats” and then wrote himself million-dollar checks for the rest.

Wardlaw acknowledged that most of Riordan’s money has come from large donors, but he said it nonetheless included a cross-section of ethnic groups and geographic areas.

“I think on April 20, we’ll know who has a band of support in this city and who doesn’t,” Wardlaw said. He said Riordan has had to spend heavily to even the odds with the likes of Woo, Katz and Wachs, who, as elected officials, “have spent millions and millions of dollars of taxpayer money over the years raising their name identification so they could run for higher office.”

Political consultant Richard Lichtenstein, who is not working for any candidate in the race, said: “The problem with taking large money contributions is you can be perceived as not having a grass-roots component to your campaign, in terms of having a lot of people participating.”

The reports filed Thursday also show that Riordan has the most money on hand--$1.4 million--as the campaign entered its final two weeks, when voters will be barraged with mailers, commercials and get-out-the-vote phone calls.

Woo was close behind with $1.35 million on hand. Katz, having outspent Woo in recent weeks with a large block purchase of television and radio air time, had $115,700 in cash remaining as of Saturday.

Records show that among Katz’s largest donors in recent weeks have been executives of Tutor-Saliba, Los Angeles’ largest subway tunneling contractor. The firm’s president, Ron Tutor, gave Katz $6,000, while other employees and their relatives donated about $10,000 more. Earlier, Tutor held a $100,000 Katz fund-raiser at his Hidden Hills home, and company executives and their relatives kicked in nearly $20,000 to Katz’s campaign.

Questions arose about the firm’s fund raising in February when it was reported that Katz switched positions on a San Fernando Valley monorail proposal, saying he supported a subway. Katz said he was swayed by homeowner and business protests, not the subway builder’s fund-raising help.

Wachs had spent most of the $1 million he collected, with $25,313 remaining. But his campaign is hoping to win a court suit today that could free up $140,000 in city matching funds. The city’s Ethics Commission has withheld that money, saying that the funds had been improperly collected by offering donors limited edition artwork by famous artists.

The reports also showed that candidate Linda Griego’s recent television advertising blitz relied heavily on contributions from women, after a plea for support by EMILY’s List, the national feminist political fund-raising organization.

Griego has put the bulk of her $505,000 in campaign funds into television ads that seek to set her apart as the only prominent woman in the race. She showed $7,100 left in her campaign account.