UC Lobbyist Actively Pursued Aid Requests

Eager to please political figures with direct power over the University of California, the system’s Capitol lobbyist and his staff made exhaustive efforts to give special consideration to well-connected students applying to UC campuses throughout the state, according to internal documents released late Wednesday.

For years, UC lobbyist Stephen A. Arditti and his aides aggressively pursued requests by lawmakers and other political figures, records show. They made numerous telephone calls, worked out compromises on admissions and kept detailed narratives of their behind-the-scenes involvement.

In one case, documents show that at the request of then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, Arditti personally intervened with UCLA officials to help a student who was deemed “not competitive” and earmarked for denial. Records indicate that the student was admitted to UCLA’s graduate business school.

Arditti has characterized his office as a “one-stop clearinghouse” for lawmakers and other Sacramento officials seeking admissions and housing help for UC applicants. In a recent interview, the lobbyist said he played no part in appealing campus decisions.

But Arditti acknowledged in a statement Wednesday that his office sometimes did much more.

“In a few isolated cases . . . we advocated for a particular request,” he said. “I take full responsibility for this, and I regret any appearance of impropriety this may have created.”

The issue of back-door admissions at the University of California erupted earlier this month after a Times investigation revealed that several UC regents who voted to repeal affirmative action admissions had privately used their influence to get relatives, friends and the children of business partners into UCLA, in some cases ahead of better qualified applicants.

The documents--disclosed Wednesday in response to a Public Records Act request by The Times--are detailed logs that cover about 125 admissions and housing inquiries from legislators since late 1994. Some are still pending.

They represent the most recent requests made by at least 114 legislators and numerous other public officials who have used the Capitol lobbyist to funnel more than 1,000 requests for admissions, housing and other assistance to campuses from San Diego to Davis in the past 10 years.

Leading the group were former Speaker Brown, now San Francisco mayor; former Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy, and Ralph Ochoa, a Sacramento lobbyist under consideration for appointment as a regent.

The logs and accompanying narratives and correspondence show that UC’s Capitol lobbyist and his staff employed a system to actively assist applicants who had the support of VIP sponsors. It also affords a rare view of the advantages enjoyed by political figures with the power to tap into a system that is unavailable to the general public.

Arditti’s staff logged each telephone call and conversation on prepared forms that identified the politician making the request, the student’s academic records and the “importance to them/us.”

Sometimes his office contacted several of the nine UC campuses on behalf of a single student to explore admission prospects. The efforts were unsuccessful in many cases, and students recommended by political figures were denied admission to their preferred campus.

In other cases, his office provided information about university policies and arranged for academic counseling that would give students alternatives or enhance their future chances for admission.

But records indicate that the intervention may have made a difference in some cases.

Last March, Brown put in a request for help with the admission of a student to UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management. Notations indicated that a denial letter had already been printed when Arditti stepped in. “SAA [Arditti’s initials] wants letter held,” the records say.

In April, Arditti contacted Chancellor Charles E. Young and the student was given an interview with the school’s admissions director, the logs show. And a month later, there was more high-level consultation.

“Someone went to Chancellor who went to Dean and asked to take second look: Taking second look at application,” Arditti’s files say. The conclusion: “SAA said [the student was] admitted.”

Brown, who as speaker served as a regent for many years, failed to return several phone calls about more than 100 requests that records show were made through Arditti’s office in the past decade.

However, Michael Galizio, Brown’s former chief of staff, said that as a regent, Brown would get admissions requests from constituents and other lawmakers that routinely would be forwarded to UC’s Sacramento office.

In another case, Arditti and his office intervened on behalf of a former legislative intern to Assemblywoman Jackie Speier (D-Burlingame), according to confidential records obtained earlier by The Times.

She contacted Arditti on behalf of one of her former staff members, a longtime family friend from England, who had been accepted at UC Santa Barbara and then decided to apply to UCLA.

“I was inquiring to see whether or not she was qualified to transfer to UCLA,” Speier said in an interview. “I certainly wasn’t asking for any special favors. . . . I’m on their [UC’s] tail most of the time.”

Speier’s request was relayed by Arditti’s office six months past the application deadline and weeks after UCLA had sent out admission and denial letters to the incoming freshman class, memos show.

“Now, Sacramento [Arditti’s office] is asking if we would accept a late application for Fall, 1995,” a UCLA official wrote to the admissions office in an electronic message in May. “Assemblywoman Jackie Speier is requesting the favor of Steve Arditti.”

At first, the admissions office was reluctant to take the student’s late application, because officials considered her qualifications “way out of the ballpark.” Records show that her Scholastic Assessment Test score was 970, low by UCLA standards.

Yet Arditti persisted. As one aide later would put it, “This is URGENT to Steve.”

“Steve would like UCLA to review her application,” according to another e-mail message between campus officials. “If there is any way to admit her even provisionally or have her retake the SATs for a second look, he would appreciate it because Assembly member Speier is asking.”

At Arditti’s request, the admissions office kept the matter open until mid-August, when the student faxed additional academic scores. Documents show that UCLA admitted her for winter 1996 and arranged for housing as well.

“This should make everyone happy,” UCLA officials concluded.

So organized was Arditti’s system for dealing with political appeals that each inquiry was logged on a special form that included a category for comment on the “importance to them/us” of a particular request.

On one form detailing a 1995 request by state Sen. Jack O’Connell, it was noted that the Carpinteria Democrat is a “member Senate Budget subcommittee . . . priority for Steve.”

The log sheets suggested that O’Connell, who wanted help for a student desiring a transfer to Berkeley, should encourage the young woman to send an unofficial transcript especially if she had a good grade “in a field [in which] she hasn’t done well or in her major.”

“This info won’t become an official part of her record,” the memo said, “but if she’s borderline, it might sway them.”

Early this year, Arditti’s office sprang into action to help place a young woman who had recommendations from Democratic Rep. Esteban Torres of Pico Rivera, state Sen. Bill Leonard (R-San Bernardino) and Assemblyman Fred Aguiar (R-Chino).

However, a handwritten memorandum indicates that she was “not UC eligible,” because of a lackluster 2.88, or B-, grade-point average, including a D in trigonometry.

The student’s main booster, according to the documents, was Robert M. Levy, a former Republican legislative aide, now a West Covina businessman.

Levy said Wednesday that he has often helped gather letters of recommendation for UC applicants, and in this case, he knew the student’s parents. “We never asked for special favors,” Levy said.

The documents describe how Arditti and the staff focused on gaining her admission to UC Irvine, one of her second choices. But by early March, UC Irvine had rejected her. Scrawled across one internal memo was the advice, “Don’t panic.” That decision could still be appealed and “she could take trigonometry again.”

The following day, Arditti’s staff found out that UCLA had turned her down as well. According to a memo, it “would have to be a chancellor’s edict” to admit her.

The student was finally admitted to UC Davis, but the documents leave open the possibility of reconsideration at other campuses, including UCLA. According to one memo, one of her boosters, his named deleted, “seems to have a dean lined up to use his one chit to get her in through the review process.”

Often Arditti’s office coached lawmakers on how to make sure students would have the best shot at getting into the campus of their choice.

In 1995, when the office of Sen. Nicholas C. Petris (D-Oakland) sought help for a student who wanted to transfer from UC San Diego to UC Berkeley, Arditti’s staff gave detailed instructions and strategy that filled one page of an interoffice memo.

The student should write a letter, the memo advised, playing up the fact that she wanted to transfer to Berkeley because she suffered from severe allergies and needed to be nearer home.

“Her letter should explain why the disease requires her to live at home. . . . ,” the memo said. “[And] she should get a letter from her doctor about her condition . . . it would be good if the doctor could address why she needs to be home.”

Times staff writers Virginia Ellis and Paul Jacobs contributed to this article.