LOCAL ELECTIONS / L.A. MAYOR : National Democratic Party Pays for Woo Flyers

In a legally controversial boost to Michael Woo’s campaign for mayor of Los Angeles, the Democratic National Committee has weighed in with more than $100,000 for mailers supporting the councilman, campaign spending records show.

The action came just days after a state judge, citing a California constitutional ban on political party spending in nonpartisan municipal campaigns, blocked a promised $200,000 in expenditures for Woo by the state Democratic Party.

State GOP Chairman Tirso del Junco called the Democratic National Committee’s action “total contempt for the law” and said Republican Party lawyers are looking into the possibility of going back to court.

Joe Scott, communications director for Woo’s rival, Richard Riordan, said: “Only time will tell whether the DNC conspired with the state Democratic Party. If so, there was a violation of the Superior Court injunction.”

An appellate court upheld the injunction Thursday.

Joe Sandler, legal counsel to the Democratic National Party, said the new tactic to aid Woo was legal because the state ban only applies to state-chartered political parties.

He said the national party decision to help Woo came after the state court ruling against the California party.

“It doesn’t violate the spirit of the (ruling) because . . . the state court decision only applies to the California Democratic Party and the Los Angeles County Central Committee.”

Sandler acknowledged that his interpretation had never been legally challenged, but he insisted that the national party’s involvement is on sound footing.

“We made a decision . . . with the President’s support of Michael Woo and the poll we’ve done (that) Michael Woo is a strong and solid candidate for the citizens of Los Angeles,” said Catherine Moore, a Washington spokeswoman for the national party.

Moore said she had no specific information on how many mailers had been sent or the extent of any additional expenditures that may be made before Tuesday’s election.

“I don’t think we’re sitting around with another $300,000 in a committee or anything,” she said. “But anything’s possible.”

One campaign expert, who asked not to be identified, noted that the state constitutional ban prohibits any political party from endorsing or making expenditures in nonpartisan races.

But the ban may apply only to state parties, the expert acknowledged.

Cecilia Gallardo of California Common Cause, a political watchdog group, said: “I guess my understanding of the judges’ ruling was that because this is a nonpartisan race, partisan organizations cannot get involved. And clearly, the Democratic National Committee is a partisan organization.”

The last-minute assist from the national Democratic Party gives Woo another chance to get his message out to voters in the crucial final days of the campaign. But for many voters, the last-minute mailers will be irrelevant.

Despite the nasty tone of the campaign, a record number of absentee ballots is piling up for Tuesday’s election.

An unprecedented 174,070 voters have requested absentee ballots, according to election officials. Of those, 77,803 ballots have been cast--more than double the number cast for the same period before the April primary.

With voters able to cast absentee ballots until the polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday, the number of ballots is certain to easily exceed the record of 92,339 cast in the primary, city elections chief Kris Heffron said.

Clint Reilly, Riordan’s campaign strategist, said he expects the number of absentee ballots to climb to between 120,000 and 130,000 by Election Day and predicted that his candidate will win absentee votes “by a huge percentage.”

Riordan won 46% of the absentee ballots in the primary--10% more than his overall total and nearly 30% more than Woo collected. His campaign began soliciting absentee votes for the general election the next day, Reilly said. “Absentee balloting has been a big part of our strategy from the start,” Reilly said.

Many of the 350,000 households targeted as sympathetic voters by the Riordan campaign have been sent absentee ballot materials in a series of mass mailings, Reilly said, although he declined to give a figure.

Rick Ruiz, Woo’s press secretary, said: “It’s difficult to predict what absentee turnout means for turnout on Election Day.”

Ruiz said the Woo campaign has mounted a “significant, full-service absentee voter campaign,” although he declined to say what that entailed.

“It is extremely important for Riordan to do well in the absentee vote,” which is traditionally cast by more conservative voters, Ruiz said. “It’s not the same life and death issue for us.”

Ruiz said it is difficult to predict whether Woo will be able to whittle away at Riordan’s significant margin in absentee votes in the primary, but said “we will be competitive.”

In recent days, the competition between the candidates has grown increasingly nasty. And, as the historic race heads into its final days, it seems likely that more of the same is ahead--despite statements by both sides that they want to elevate the rhetoric.

On Thursday, Woo and surrogates for Riordan--who was in New York arranging for the funeral of his mother--repeated their call for each other to stop the name calling. They then went on the attack.

Standing in for Riordan at a news conference to attack Woo’s anti-crime record, City Council President John Ferraro said: “Mike Woo is like the Energizer Bunny. He keeps lying and lying and lying.

“If criminals in this city voted,” he added, “Mike Woo would probably win.”

Ferraro and former Los Angeles Police Chief Tom Reddin, another Riordan backer, appeared in front of Parker Center police headquarters alongside a waist-high chart that they said detailed 27 votes by Woo against police measures.

For his part, Woo held a sidewalk news conference in Sherman Oaks and posted on a podium a “Renters’ Rights Report Card” giving himself an “A” and Riordan an “F” on tenant issues. As Woo spoke, tenants held up signs supporting rent control. “You’ve got to hold the sign that way,” Woo directed one of the tenants, pointing to the TV cameras.

The report card was a copy of a mailer sent to tenants by the Coalition for Economic Survival. The same group rated the candidates during the April primary, but Woo at that time received an “A-.” Larry Gross, the group’s executive director, said there was such a contrast between Woo and Riordan on renters issues that the group improved Woo’s rating.

Gross said the report card was based on Woo’s voting record, Riordan’s actions as a real estate investor, the candidates’ campaign contributions and their responses to a questionnaire sent by the tenants group. Riordan did not return the questionnaire, Gross said.

Woo repeated his accusation from the primary campaign that in 1981 Riordan evicted more than 100 families from three downtown apartment buildings, razed the buildings and sold the lots for large profits. But Riordan has said that he and his partners paid at least $18,000 in relocation funds to the tenants. Riordan has said: “All tenants received relocation payments even though there was no law requiring such payments at the time.”

Woo also defended his new TV ad calling attention to Riordan’s alcohol-related arrests from 1964 to 1975.

“Even though Mr. Riordan may be out of town, his TV ads are still on the air,” Woo said. “I think Mr. Riordan is now whining about the campaign when he was the first one to launch negative TV advertising.”

In one of the stranger events of the campaign, surrogates for the candidates also duked it out Thursday on a New York City radio call-in show moderated by an occasionally addled host who referred repeatedly to “Republican candidate Michael Riordan” and seemed briefly to mistake the Democratic spokesman for the candidate.

Scott, media director for Riordan, politely corrected the host, Brian Lehrer of WNYC-AM, when he misstated the year that Mayor Tom Bradley took office. And although Lehrer labored mightily to make the race relevant to New Yorkers, it was unclear whether anyone cared--or was listening.

No one called in.

Meanwhile, the battle of endorsements continued Thursday, with Woo picking up the support of the Los Angeles Times.

Riordan received the backing of KNX radio and several of the minor mayoral candidates, including engineer-songwriter Philip Ashamallah, investor Frank Teran, businessman John Borunda, nurse Michael Leptuch, physician Oscar Valdes and taxi driver Randy Pavelko.

Most of the group praised Riordan’s business savvy and said he was a proven leader. Ashamallah was less enthusiastic. “I am supporting Richard Riordan because he is the lesser of two evils,” he said. “That is the standard the American people have been using for the last 200 years, 95% of the time.”

The Rev. Jesse Jackson is scheduled to endorse Woo today, according to a Jackson adviser and the California coordinator for the National Rainbow Coalition.