NEWS ANALYSIS : Affirmative Action Backers Angry at Riordan’s Silence

As a hot-button measure to wipe out most affirmative action programs in California nears its deadline to qualify for the state ballot, nobody is taking more heat over the proposal than Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

That’s not because he has chosen one side or the other in the battle over an initiative so controversial that even the name its backers picked--the California Civil Rights Initiative--sparked protest. No, the pressure building on Riordan, the white political leader of one of the nation’s biggest, most racially diverse cities, stems from his insistence on taking no position at all.

“It’s too divisive,” Riordan says whenever pressed to air his views on the proposed ballot measure, which would end preferences for historically disadvantaged groups in education, hiring and contracting practices throughout California. Backed by Gov. Pete Wilson and other of Riordan’s fellow Republican officials, the initiative is a key battleground in the rapidly escalating nationwide fight over affirmative action.

Riordan insists that his refusal to take a stand is a valid position for the mayor of Los Angeles, one that he would only consider ending if the measure qualifies for the ballot. His silence stems from his desire to be “a leader of all the people in this city,” he says, and from his determination not to add to the city’s racial, economic and ideological divisions by choosing sides on this one. That is essentially the same reason he offered for staying neutral on the last emotionally charged state ballot measure, the anti-illegal immigration Proposition 187 in 1994.

That argument only aggravates the already strained relations between the mayor and much of the city’s African American political leadership.

And it has heightened the tensions between Riordan and the liberal-leaning City Council, which is scheduled Wednesday to take its first official vote on the measure.

His silence also has put Riordan on the defensive about his own commitment to the city’s affirmative action policies, in place for more than two decades. Questions persist, despite two executive orders to continue city policies and his efforts to improve minority opportunities and access to city business.

“Judge me on what I do” is the mayor’s frequent rejoinder to those who would pin him down on the affirmative action initiative.

Riordan’s first executive order upholding city affirmative action programs came the day he took office, blanketed in a sweeping directive aimed at ensuring a smooth transition by continuing all the executive orders of his predecessor, Tom Bradley, the city’s only black mayor. The second, issued Feb. 4, 1994, reaffirmed the city’s anti-discrimination employment policies and continued the city task force charged with reviewing the progress of the city’s affirmative action programs.

Last week, the mayor’s office told a council committee hearing on the initiative that he intends to issue a new executive order. Riordan’s aides insist there will be no substantive changes and that the document will be released once it clears a review by the city attorney’s office. However, two members of the city Affirmative Action Task Force said they had been told by the mayor’s representative on the board that the new order would be “more neutral” and added that they were worried it might water down the mayor’s previous commitment.

Riordan also has strengthened efforts to ensure that minority- and female-owned businesses get a better shot at city contract work. He has often said that too many city contracts go to “the usual suspects,” meaning those who are already affluent and well-connected politically, whether minorities or not. (His view is not based on mere hunch. A 1990 City Administrative Office audit found that a group of then-mayor Bradley’s influential minority and female supporters had earned thousands for little or no work by signing on as partners with airport concession contractors who had recruited them to satisfy city affirmative action rules.)

On Thursday, Riordan addressed a large two-day gathering of minority business owners at the Los Angeles Convention Center, telling them that “minority and female-owned firms are the key” to the city’s economic future, that they “help identify new customer and employee markets, . . . foster healthy competition and, most importantly, create quality jobs for Angelenos.”

Many participants in the Southern California Regional Purchasing Councils’ annual trade fair to help minority- and female-owned firms welcome Riordan’s efforts to improve the city’s business climate. And at least some can attest to Riordan’s longtime efforts to increase opportunities for the disadvantaged as a philanthropist for struggling inner-city schools and as a private attorney and venture capitalist investing in minority firms.

After Watts exploded in the flames of racial unrest in 1965, Riordan invested in G/O Furniture, one of several minority-run companies founded during efforts to rebuild the shattered community that was once the heart of a vibrant African American community in Los Angeles.

Riordan sat on G/O’s board for many years and helped guide it through a difficult restructuring period on its way to becoming a successful office furniture manufacturing venture with large corporate clients across the country, recalls John D. Ketch. He was a partner and executive vice president of the firm before selling it to other minority owners last year.

“There was no limit to what he was willing to do” to help the company succeed, Ketch said, noting that he has firsthand knowledge that Riordan “has been a strong supporter of making things happen” in disadvantaged communities.

Yet many trade fair participants who warmly applauded the mayor said they were disappointed he won’t speak up about the initiative.

“I think it’s a cop-out; it’s a wimp position to take no position, and I think he’s doing a disservice to voters,” said advertising executive Lynne Choy Uyeda, who founded the Asian Business Assn. in 1977.

That is a view echoing with increasing frequency around City Hall.

“Part of being an elected official is to be a leader on important policy decisions,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, who has denounced the initiative. “It’s difficult to be seen as a leader when you stay silent and avoid taking positions on matters that will clearly affect the city.”

Councilman Joel Wachs, a political who shares some of Riordan’s philosophical goals about efficiency in government, last week pushed through a committee recommendation urging the council to oppose the initiative, even though the city attorney’s office has not completed its analysis of the measure.

“It’s pretty clear” that the measure would hamper the city’s ability to keep its carefully honed, widely agreed-on affirmative action policies, Wachs said, eager for the council to act before the Feb. 21 signature-gathering deadline passes.

Initiative backers said they are not upset that Riordan hasn’t taken a stand. Neither have the elected officials of many California cities, said Renee Ramsey, initiative campaign manager. Indeed, the mayors of the state’s second and third largest cities, San Diego and San Jose, have not taken a position. The League of California Cities will have its first board meeting to discuss the measure Feb. 23, two days after the qualifying deadline.

“A lot of people are waiting to see if it qualifies, and we certainly understand that,” Ramsey said.

Closer to home, Riordan is certain to continue to take heat, no matter what else he does.

At a breakfast for female and minority business owners last month in a downtown restaurant, Riordan demonstrated his philosophy for ensuring better diversity and inclusiveness: giving hard-working, talented members of underrepresented groups access, training and information is the best way to level the playing field and ensure broader representation.

“We have come together today to talk about resources and opportunities: resources available through my minority business office . . . and opportunities available throughout the city of Los Angeles,” Riordan said in launching a seminar by the Los Angeles Minority Business Opportunity Committee.

But the breakfast occurred on the same morning that African American Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, the mayor’s leading council critic, organized a City Hall rally to show support for city affirmative action policies--and to try to smoke the mayor out on the initiative. Flanked by about 50 of the city’s religious leaders, several council members and City Atty. James Hahn, Ridley-Thomas denounced the measure while TV cameras and reporters recorded his challenge to the mayor to take a stand.

Reporters pressed the mayor about affirmative action and the initiative as he helped open a Police Department “stop-in center” in Studio City that afternoon. And his silence was a prominent part of that day’s segment of “Which Way LA” on radio station KCRW-FM (89.9), which examined the mayor’s relations with the black community.

The segment had been sparked by state Sen. Diane Watson’s stunning attack on the mayor the previous week, as they shared the platform at kickoff ceremonies for weeklong celebrations honoring slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. One of the African American Democrat’s strongest barbs was aimed at the mayor’s silence on the initiative.

Indeed, the initiative has brought the mayor political headaches ever since the September 1994 day that its backers--including an outspoken Riordan appointee to the city Civil Service Commission--launched their campaign to get it before voters.

After months of mounting criticism of Commissioner Joe Gelman’s activities, including a letter from seven council members and another from the Los Angeles chapter of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters, Riordan stood by his man. He defended Gelman’s constitutional rights of expression and accepted Gelman’s insistence that his views posed no threat to his commission duties in enforcing city policies.

Gelman finally went too far last fall, stepping into a council fray with another commissioner, Michelle Park-Steele, by claiming that she had endorsed the initiative just as she was going through confirmation hearings on another appointment. Park-Steele withdrew, and the mayor angrily obtained Gelman’s resignation.

Yet the damage to Riordan’s already difficult council relations was done, and the initiative has clung tenaciously to City Hall’s front burner ever since.