Despite Snide Remarks, Holden Expected to Survive Trial

As a teen-aged boxer in New Jersey, Nate Holden took his share of hits, but says he won every bout.

During a quarter-century of public life in Los Angeles, Holden has lost twice as many elections as he has won. That never kept him from running again.

But regardless of the outcome of Holden’s latest battle--the first of two sexual harassment lawsuits against him and the city--a string of embarrassing headlines and off-color jokes from the high-profile trial will doubtless follow him back to the City Council chamber where the large leather chair bearing his name has sat empty for more than a month.

Holden’s accuser, former receptionist Marlee M. Beyda, claims he tried to force her into oral sex and intercourse, and masturbated against her body. He denies those allegations, but admits inviting Beyda--a woman half his age whom he hired over the protests of his chief of staff even though she couldn’t type--to his Marina del Rey apartment for a midnight massage to soothe a migraine. He also admits entertaining the young woman at his home several other times.

And the 66-year-old lawmaker spent much of last week discussing whether he is circumcised--first in front of a battery of television cameras, then in a crowded courtroom.

“If there’s anyone who could survive something like this, it’s Holden. He’s used to disdain. He’s used to being laughed at, and he’s used to surviving,” said Cal State Fullerton political scientist Raphael Sonenshein. “It’s not quite like the unmasking of someone who has an otherwise perfect reputation. He’s always been sort of a wide open target.”

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According to political consultant Felicia Bragg, who handled the campaign for the latest failed challenger for Holden’s 10th District seat, “Nate is one of those people who’s sort of impervious to criticism.”

“Nate just bounces back,” she explained. “Here’s a man who has been repeatedly rejected by voters, and moved on unfazed. There’s something of a Jack in the Box about him.”

Holden was just reelected to a third term in June, and does not plan to run again, so he is impervious to voter outrage generated by the sleazy allegations made by Beyda on the stand. The main challenge, experts said, will be maintaining his reputation and effectiveness at City Hall.

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Feminist activists have promised to keep the issue alive after the trial ends, probably early this week, suggesting that the City Council hold hearings on sexual harassment, conduct an independent investigation into allegations by other women against the councilman, and consider legislation to improve the process for reporting complaints.

Others are outraged at the near $1-million legal tab Holden has run up for taxpayers, and hope to pass laws preventing the city from having to provide a defense in similar cases.

But City Hall insiders said a backlash is unlikely.

Though many on the council--particularly the four female members and some others--have been disgusted by what they have heard from trial witnesses, censure or even a cold shoulder is too big a risk when Holden continues to chair the Transportation Committee, sit on other panels and, of course, has one of 15 votes on each of the 100 items that come before the council in a typical week.

“When I come back they’re going to ask me to vote for them, and I’m going to ask them if they’ll vote for me,” said Holden, who was born in the segregated South and was elected to the state Senate in 1974 after stints in the military and aerospace industry. “They’re not going to say, ‘I’m not asking Nate Holden to vote for me because he was accused of something.’ Especially if they have seven votes and need eight.”

Indeed, City Council members refused to speak on the record about their colleague’s woes. But privately, several members and their top aides said they doubt that the harassment cases will affect Holden’s welcome at City Hall. In part, that is because there is little surprise.

“The Nate you’re seeing here isn’t any different than the Nate you see in council,” one insider said. “I don’t think people have a lot of respect for Nate Holden anyway,” said another top staffer. “Dignity and Nate Holden are not two concepts I think of together.”

Moreover, it is a matter of political reality.

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“There’s no way to avoid relying on each other in one way or the other on the City Council,” sighed one source who insisted on anonymity. “There’ll be a lot of gritting of teeth . . . but it’s impossible to have no dealings with someone or even to treat someone with disrespect.”

“The council is such a weird thing,” said another high-ranking official. “In Congress you have 400 people. Here, it’s set up so everyone has a committee that’s important to you in some way. Everyone needs each other.”

Some who know Holden well, or have watched him a long time, believe that the true impact may not be political, but personal. Though his name has been dragged through the mud before, this is the first trip for the private parts of his body.

Political consultant Rick Taylor said that as he has watched the television coverage of the trial unfold, “I really see it taking a toll on him.

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“I saw a guy who’s really been a smooth politician, I saw him being a little out of control. He seems to have gotten caught up in the emotion of it all,” Taylor said. “He wants to be the new Kenny Hahn, the guy who came through for his community. Instead, everybody’s going to remember [that he’s not circumcised], and remember where his hand might have been every day. His legacy isn’t going to be the legacy I’m sure he wishes it would have been.”

Some more cynical observers contend that Holden--long known as a media hound--is loving the attention.

One day when he emerged from the courtroom and there were no bright lights flashed in his face, he wondered, “Where are the tubes? Where are the tubes?” Asked about City Hall rumors that Holden had chastised his staff for not getting him enough publicity out of the trial, press secretary Roger Galloway shrugged: “There’s never enough.”

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Holden admits that the trial has been traumatic, but insists that it was worth the fight to protest what he calls fabricated allegations.

“Let the embarrassment come,” he said. “I don’t give a s--- at this point. You just got to take a stand.”

Long a political maverick, Holden has lost campaigns for Congress, the state Assembly, the State Board of Equalization, the mayoralty and even the council he sits on now. He cannot control whether he wins this lawsuit, but he won’t be losing any more elections. He’s not running again.

“I’m tired of these people,” he said Thursday night, breaking into sobs. “How much can you take? I’m not steel.”