Mayor Names UCLA Law Professor to Head Ethics Panel

In an appointment that won wide applause, Mayor Richard Riordan on Monday named Raquelle de la Rocha, a UCLA law professor and member of the state Fair Political Practices Commission, as new president of the city Ethics Commission.

The mayor is a Republican, de la Rocha is a Democrat, and the appointment apparently meets the criteria proposed last month by the outgoing commission president, Dennis Curtis, when he expressed hope that Riordan would choose “a person who’s independent and doesn’t have any connections to people who are in power in city government.”

Curtis, a USC law professor who could not succeed himself, declared, “I really do think this is a very good appointment. It’s a plus for the commission that she already knows state law extremely well. Having a lawyer is also a plus, and I believe she will be able to be independent.”

De la Rocha, 37, an appointee of former Mayor Tom Bradley to the Los Angeles Civil Service Commission before Riordan became mayor, was also an appointee last year of another Democrat, Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, to the Fair Political Practices Commission. She said Monday that she had not contributed to Riordan’s campaign or been associated with his political career.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to serve our city again,” she said in an interview. “My plan now is to learn before I set any goals. I need to take time to assess, so at this time I’m going to go slow on the commission.”

With a full-time staff of 16 and an annual budget of $1.1 million, the Ethics Commission has had a powerful impact on city government since its inception in 1991, uncovering wide-ranging laundering of campaign funds in local elections, fining one firm a record $895,000 for arranging secret contributions, and advising officials, including the mayor, on how to avoid conflicts of interest.

The commission also wrote a strong law regulating lobbying activities and successfully fought for its adoption by the City Council and approval by the mayor. And it has smoothly implemented the city’s new public financing law during election campaigns.

But it has been at loggerheads with the often less aggressive Fair Political Practices Commission, whose leaders broke angrily with the city panel’s executive director, Benjamin Bycel, over what they termed his spilling of secrets to the press in joint investigations.

Karen Rotschafer, chief counsel to Riordan, said one of Riordan’s motives in appointing de la Rocha was to try to heal this breach.

De la Rocha, according to law, will have to resign from the state commission to serve on the city one. But it was immediately clear that both sides in the feud were pleased with her appointment.

Bycel said, “This appointment shows that the mayor is absolutely committed to a strong Ethics Commission. There couldn’t be a better person in the entire city of Los Angeles to be appointed.”

The immediate past chairman of the FPPC, Sacramento attorney Ben Davidian, observed, “One would assume that because I was a [Pete] Wilson appointee and she was a Gray Davis appointee that I would not have a lot of good things to say about her.

“But I believe that she has proved herself to be one of the finest appointments ever to be made to that commission. She has a very clear legal mind and an ability to synthesize the various arguments to cogent, realistic and rational decisions. It’s a huge loss for the FPPC . . . but I don’t think the L.A. commission could have done better.”

Davis called de la Rocha “an excellent choice. She is decent, honest as the day is long and does understand the practical implications of political campaigns. She’s not in an ivory tower, she knows the rough and tumble of politics, but no one will doubt her integrity and honesty when she completes this assignment.”

De la Rocha, who must be confirmed by the City Council, is in many respects a self-made person.

Growing up in Pacoima and south Los Angeles, she worked for years as a legal secretary before she was able to afford to attend UCLA Law School. She graduated at 30 and later became a deputy city attorney and an attorney at the prestigious Downtown law firm of O’Melveny & Myers.

She has been a professor at UCLA Law School since 1991 and is a member of the boards of the Mexican American Bar Assn. of Los Angeles and the UCLA Law Alumni Assn., as well as serving as a judge pro tem for the East Los Angeles Municipal Court.