Edelman Legacy: Years of Quiet Accomplishment : Politics: Conciliatory supervisor’s victories were won without fanfare. He rejects claims he has not been strong enough liberal voice.

After nearly 30 years in public office, Ed Edelman still seems ill at ease with the sort of press-the-flesh interplay expected of a successful politician.

His expressions can sometimes seem stilted and inelegant, and his words are surprisingly halting.

But as the Los Angeles County supervisor, who retired Friday, stood in his office away from the confines of the board’s hearing room one day last week, he was far more relaxed.

He skirted packed boxes, eagerly showing a guest the portrait of himself with President Jimmy Carter en route to Washington on Air Force One, a pen used by President John F. Kennedy to sign key labor legislation and the telegram inviting him and his wife, Mari, to Washington for the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

“Look, here’s Pete Wilson bowing down to me,” he says, laughing at a snapshot of the governor stretching out his arm for a handshake.

Edelman is animated and engaging, a far cry from his cautious, scholarly, hardly-like-a-politician-at-all public persona.

Indeed, while he is considered politically astute, Edelman’s perceived lack of fire in the belly is the biggest rap against him. His critics, and even some friends, say he is too lawyerly, too much of a compromiser and too unwilling to get fired up to fight for the liberal vision of Los Angeles County he has long espoused.

But as he departs the office he held for 20 years, he is betting that a record of good works, accomplished quietly and with little flair, will dominate future examinations of the Edelman legacy.

Though many times overshadowed by more colorful colleagues such as folksy Kenneth Hahn and fiery Gloria Molina, Edelman has often been ahead of the curve in championing such things as protections for abused children, consumers, AIDS patients and others who lack political clout. But to the chagrin of many fellow liberals, he has done so without really shaking up the entrenched system in which he has worked.

*

He is perhaps most tormented by the nasty redistricting battle of 1990, in which he was cast as a civil rights foe. A federal judge ruled that Edelman and his colleagues intentionally discriminated against Latinos in drawing district boundaries in order to protect their own seats.

Edelman’s Westside supervisorial district was redrawn and the final map spared him from a potential Latino challenge that he had feared. Even so, some accused him of fighting to save his own political hide at the expense of enfranchising the county’s Latino residents.

Edelman calls criticism of his position “political hype” and a “superficial analysis of the issue.”

Even some of his critics agree that he was in a difficult spot.

“There were moments during the litigation that we were angry with him, but we understood why he did some of the things he did, and toward the end he became a friend,” says Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

And concerning his failure to change the system?

“Ed was in a very difficult position. . . . Even if he had tried more, I don’t think he could have accomplished much,” she says. “He probably did as much as he could given the (conservative) composition of the board.”

*

But some contend that Edelman settled far too easily into a go-along-to-get-along style common on the board.

The persistent joke around the Hall of Administration is that his greatest legacy to the county is Pasqua’s, an upscale sandwich shop he lobbied for.

After liberals grabbed a majority on the five-member board two years ago, critics say, Edelman failed to provide much leadership. And as he leaves office, the county is still grappling with an increasing homeless problem, welfare benefits have been slashed to the bone and cuts continue to be made in other social programs.

Just where Edelman, 64, will fit in the firmament of Los Angeles’ political notables is unclear.

But many are already bemoaning his departure, seeing him as one of the last vestiges of a certain style of decorum in government.

“Ed represents . . . a civil approach to public policy that is getting more and more scarce,” says Larry Berg, a professor of political science and director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC.

Edelman is well aware of both the negative and positive aspects of his public image.

“I’ve been accused of being a mediator and conciliator, and I accept that,” he says. “But I think people have underestimated my willingness to be the single vote on an issue. I have raised my voice on behalf of causes that needed to be heard.”

*

He also feels that his style has worked well within the restrained confines of county government, where he has often been on the wrong side of a conservative majority.

“I wouldn’t have stayed here for all of these years had I not thought I was being effective,” he says. “I haven’t won them all, but I’ve raised the issues, I’ve worked the system.”

First elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1965, Edelman has frequently championed liberal causes that ran counter to public opinion, for example opposing the popular tax-cutting Proposition 13 and advocating increased taxes to support health and welfare programs.

And although he has lost his share of battles, he has won many, including an anti-AIDS-discrimination law, establishment of the county Commission for Women and funding for the Hollywood Bowl and other arts programs. He was instrumental in creation of a special court in Monterey Park to handle cases of child abuse, and in pushing for formation of the Kolts Commission, which led to reforms in the Sheriff’s Department after allegations of brutality were reviewed.

But those achievements have been won in relative anonymity. If they were asked to name a prominent local politician, it is not likely Edelman would spring to the minds of most county residents.

Bob Ballenger, onetime press deputy to the retiring supervisor, sees two opposing impulses in his former boss.

“He doesn’t want to be viewed as the typical politician,” says Ballenger, an executive assistant with the county’s Department of Animal Care and Control.

“He hates to grandstand, but at the same time he wants the credit and recognition for accomplishments. I think he is one of the most underappreciated politicians in Los Angeles, but I think he will be respected more in retrospect.”

*

Ballenger believes that Edelman suffers in comparison to someone like former Supervisor Hahn, whose affable style ensured popularity and a ready spotlight.

“Kenny’s style was: If something happened, bring a motion in at the next board meeting,” Ballenger says. “He was a fast, reactive politician. Ed didn’t work that way. He was much more behind the scenes: What are the problems and what is the best way to solve this.”

Hahn is effusive in his praise for his colleague and those very same behind-the-scenes skills.

“He has a very judicial mind, and every time the board was in a conflict of decision he would go into executive session and come up with the right solution,” says the 74-year-old Hahn, who retired two years ago.

It was Edelman who urged Hahn to return to work after a serious stroke in 1987. “I said, ‘Ed, don’t you know my left side is paralyzed and I can’t walk,’ and he told me if FDR could run a country and win a war in a wheelchair I could come back to the county and help run it,” remembers Hahn. “It was like a command, and I did it. I really looked to Ed for leadership and to be the point man on issues.”

Edelman was fair almost to a fault, says Hahn. “One time we had a particularly difficult case of zoning. . . . Ed had got three of us to vote with him, but he wanted to continue the case. I said, ‘Ed, what’s wrong with you? You’ve got the votes.’ But he wanted to hear all sides on the issue.”

Betty Fisher served for four years on the county Regional Planning Commission as an Edelman appointee and says he never second-guessed her, even if their views on an issue did not entirely mesh.

“We were pretty much of the same mind, but still, he was willing to take guidance from my insights and to understand what I was trying to do when I was there,” says Fisher, who is now chief deputy to Councilwoman Ruth Galanter.

One hallmark of Edelman’s tenure seems to be that he was able to get along with anyone.

“Ed is a reasonably liberal Democrat and I could be described as a terrible conservative, probably as philosophically as far apart as anyone. Yet there was never an occasion where I dealt with Ed that was not completely comfortable,” says Richard Dixon, the county’s former chief administrative officer, who resigned under a cloud of criticism for his financial dealings.

*

“The only time I ever saw him unhappy with someone was when they wouldn’t tell him (their) honest opinion. He and I never had any friction, because I do speak my mind and he appreciated that. He never personally attacked me and treated me the same way when I had a good solid, board majority as when I didn’t have any majority at all.”

In retirement, Edelman will return to his roots, working part-time as a professional mediator and joining the RAND Corp. as a fellow on public policy issues. He clearly wants to maintain a role in county politics and could become the closest thing Los Angeles has to Jimmy Carter, a distinguished elder sought after to resolve seemingly intractable disputes.

“I have a love of public policy issues and in seeing improvements,” says Edelman. “I’m not just going to walk out and say goodby. I want to be a voice.”