Lawmakers Accused of Rigging Endorsement

Four candidates for the San Fernando Valley-based 39th Assembly District seat have accused Latino state lawmakers of rigging the state Democratic Party’s endorsement of fellow candidate Tony Cardenas.

Hopefuls Jim Dantona, Michael Del Rio, Jose Galvan and Valerie Salkin said Latino senators and Assembly members “stacked” the endorsement by appointing 12 pro-Cardenas delegates to the state Central Committee just days before the panel voted Sunday to make an endorsement.

One of the delegates appointed was Cardenas’ sister.

“We have seen this meeting stacked, packed, wired and rigged with ringers,” said Dantona, a former legislative aide.

Latino lawmakers and Cardenas rejected the charges, saying the appointments of new delegates violated no party bylaws.

Cardenas, Dantona, Del Rio, Galvan and Salkin are among the candidates vying to replace Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), who will leave office later this year due to term limits.

The state Democratic Party throws its support behind office seekers who win the support of at least 60% of the delegates in their district. Delegates are either elected or appointed by current senators and Assembly members, who also hold the power to dismiss them.

Salkin and Dantona said the Latino lawmakers dismissed 12 delegates from East Los Angeles, Fresno and other parts of the state, replacing them with pro-Cardenas delegates from within the 39th Assembly District.

Cardenas won the support of 17 of the 23 voting members. The endorsement is expected to be confirmed by the party’s executive board Feb. 1.

The support of the party is considered vital in the race, particularly for Cardenas, a young, untested candidate in a strongly Democratic district.

But veteran political consultants say stacking the caucus is not considered an unusual maneuver.

“It’s just part of the process,” said longtime political consultant Rick Taylor, who has worked on several state campaigns.

Still, Salkin and Dantona decried the move as typical “back-room politics.”

They claim the new appointments were made by state Sens. Richard Polanco and Charles Calderon and Assembly members Cruz Bustamante, Martha Escutia and Martin Gallegos to get Cardenas the endorsement, thus boasting his chances of becoming the Valley’s first Latino Assembly member.

“Stacking the deck in favor of one candidate is neither fair nor ethical,” Salkin said.

Del Rio, a former legislative aide, said if elected, Cardenas would simply be a “puppet” of Polanco and the other lawmakers.

Cardenas’ campaign rejected the accusations that the endorsement had been rigged.

Alejandro Padilla, a Cardenas spokesman, said the new delegates were activists from the district who were appointed because they were interested in being involved in the Democratic Party.

He said several activists approached Cardenas’ office about becoming involved and were told to contact state lawmakers on being appointed as delegates to the Central Committee. But Padilla said Cardenas’ office was not involved in getting them appointed.

“We didn’t give [the lawmakers] advice on what to do,” he said.

One of the delegates chosen is Maria Sanchez, Cardenas’ sister. She said there was nothing improper on being appointed a delegate just four days before voting to give her brother the party’s endorsement.

When asked how she was appointed, Sanchez initially said she was approached by Calderon’s people but later said she had written letters to the area’s state lawmakers seeking appointment to the Central Committee.

Sanchez shrugs off the complaints of Salkin and Dantona, saying, “They can’t handle the fact that Tony won.”

Kelly Jensen, a spokesman for Calderon, agreed, saying, “If nothing in the rules prevents that, it doesn’t seem like a problem to me.”

Bill Mabie, chief aide for Polanco, said there was nothing unseemly about the appointment and he calls the complaints of Salkin and Dantona “sour grapes.”

“The bottom line is that it was all by the rules,” Mabie said.