Foes Scramble to Kill L.A. Secession Bill

Opponents of a Los Angeles city breakup bill approved by the state Assembly scrambled Friday to organize a strategy to block the unprecedented legislation, already laying the groundwork to kill it in the Democrat-dominated state Senate.

But as a first line of defense, opponents--including some Los Angeles city officials and Democratic legislators--said they are mounting an uphill drive to reverse the vote on Monday in the Republican-controlled lower house, which approved the bill Thursday 41 to 21 making it easier for the San Fernando Valley to secede and form its own city.

Under current law, city councils can veto any secession requests inside their boundaries. The bill by Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills) would delete that provision for Los Angeles.

If secession were to succeed--an intricate process even if the Boland measure becomes law--it could split in two the nation’s second-largest city, and the Valley could become the sixth-largest city in the country. Moreover, it could ignite breakup movements elsewhere in the city and, some lawmakers say, the state.

Thursday’s vote highlighted how political ambitions, a divided and hostile Legislature, and the general lack of support statewide for Los Angeles combined with cityhood issues to produce a jarring result.

Boland’s bill, considered by the Assembly for about two minutes, is triggering a legislative discussion that will probably last for months, if not longer.

The debate is also likely to influence local Los Angeles politics, especially Mayor Richard Riordan’s bid for reelection in 1997. And it is certain to be factor in Boland’s bid for an open state Senate seat this fall.

Riordan, who drew much of his election support from the Valley, has consistently said he thinks secession is a bad idea. But on Friday he made conflicting statements about his views on the Boland bill.

In the morning, in answer to a reporter’s question about his position on the bill, Riordan said voters citywide, not just in the Valley, should have a say in the decision, but he stopped short of saying he wanted the bill amended.

In the afternoon, however, when asked about the bill by a television news reporter, he replied on camera, “I support the bill,” because it would allow people the right to “self-determination” through the ballot box. A few minutes later he said he had “no position” on the bill. He also disputed his press office’s statement about a citywide vote. “I do not support the whole city voting” on secession, he said.

Riordan then reiterated his strong opposition to secession, saying that if it ever comes to a vote, he will campaign hard against it.

Later, Riordan’s press office issued another statement aimed at clarifying things. Approved by Riordan before it was issued, it read as follows:

“One of the fundamental principles of democracy is that everyone has the right to participate in major decisions affecting their community.

“I am supportive of the right of Los Angeles residents to choose their own destiny.

“However, I am personally opposed to the splintering of our great city.”

Still later in the day, Riordan, reached on his car phone, said, “No, I don’t mean the city as a whole” should get to vote. “I mean the Valley.” Riordan sighed. “I think they have that right.

“But I’m not going to oppose the bill or support it. I’m not going to lobby for it or against it. Frankly, I wish it wasn’t there.”

But Assembly Democratic Leader Richard Katz, a resident of the Valley community of Sylmar, said any strategy for defeating the Boland bill in the Senate must involve Riordan. “The mayor has to show leadership. He is the mayor of the entire city of L.A.”

Discussion on the Boland bill also will be fueled by antipathy on the part of some legislators, especially in Northern California, toward Los Angeles, which many like to blame for the state’s ills.

“Los Angeles is a balkanized community and always has been in this century,” said Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento), who opposes the Boland bill. “It is a center of geographical and economic tensions . . . and periodically one way to satisfy them is to say let’s have our own city or county . . . and this happens to be one of the waves of that approach.”

Isenberg also suggested that disdain for the state’s largest city is fueling support for the measure. “Everybody hates Los Angeles. That’s the current state of California,” Isenberg said. “You go around the state and whether it is the question of air pollution, congestion, crime, bad education and kids that sass you back, everyone says . . . that we don’t want to be another Los Angeles.”

Boland’s proposal strikes at the heart of what kind of city Los Angeles will become in the next century--whether various communities will spin off or whether its varied parts, from San Pedro to Woodland Hills, stay together.

Assemblyman Steven Kuykendall (R-Rancho Palos Verdes) said he voted for the measure in part for “purely provincial reasons.” His district includes San Pedro, where “there is a lot of interest in secession,” he said.

“Look what’s happening in Europe,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson. “People want the right to be self-determined. It’s no different here.”

That view was echoed by Boland, who said her bill reflects the spirit of democracy.

Boland said Friday that she decided to move ahead with the measure Thursday over the protests of her staff as soon as she got commitments from enough Democrats to know it would pass. Her staff cautioned her that she had pledged not to bring it up this week.

The Assembly members “were only supposed to meet until 11 o’clock, and we decided we would stay and work the whole [agenda]. I had heard that a Valley legislator had made a snide remark that the only reason I didn’t bring the bill up was that I didn’t have the votes. That was totally untrue. I wasn’t bringing it up by design on that day.”

Realizing that all the Republicans were present as well as several Democratic supporters, Boland decided to go ahead. “I called my staff and said, ‘I’m going with the bill.’ They said, ‘You can’t. Everybody wants to be there when you bring it up.’

“I said, ‘You know, I don’t care about the press, I care about the bill. I’m just going to bring it up. I’ve got the votes.’ ”

Katz said that Assembly Democrats are working together to kill the bill. He said he hopes the Assembly will vote Monday to reconsider the measure and kill it. But he doubts that will succeed. Boland probably will keep the votes of most if not all of her fellow Republicans, who have a majority in the lower house, he said.

“This is a campaign mailer approach,” Katz continued. “It gives her name I.D. It gives her more exposure than she has had since her bill to break up L.A. Unified [School District]. It gives her political visibility, which her [state Senate] campaign desperately needs.”

Leslie McFadden, a lobbyist for the city, said she and another advocate for the City Council were busy Friday trying to persuade Assembly members to oppose the Boland measure when it comes up again for a vote.

“I’m going to every office I can find a warm body in to talk about it,” McFadden said. “We’re working on trying to get Republicans” to withdraw support.

Some legislators were taking a second look.

Assemblywoman Debra Bowen of Marina del Rey, one of three Democrats who voted for the Boland bill on Thursday, said Friday she would nevertheless vote to have the measure re-debated.

Bowen said she was off the floor when the house voted, and added her vote later because the bill appeared to remedy problems that arose for those who at one time sought separate cityhood for Venice in her district.

But the key fight for Boland appears to be in the Senate.

“She was lucky” in the Assembly, said Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles). Passage of the bill “was a fluke and nothing more,” he said, maintaining that opponents in the lower house were “asleep at the switch.”

One Democratic senator, who asked not to be identified, suggested that politics would underlie Democratic opposition in the Senate. He said one reason he will line up against the measure is that the Democratic majority in the Senate doesn’t want to do anything that would tend to make Boland a hero in her race to succeed Newton Russell (R-Glendale) in the Senate in this year’s legislative elections.

If the bill reaches the Senate, it will probably go to the Local Government Committee, where Russell is likely to be a key vote on whether the measure reaches the Senate floor. On Friday, his office announced that Russell will undergo open-heart surgery today at a Sacramento hospital.

Another influential voice may come from Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), a potential candidate for Los Angeles mayor.

Hayden collaborated with Boland on the law approved last year that would make it easier to break up the massive Los Angeles Unified School District. Hayden was reported to be busy at meetings Friday and unavailable for comment. Rocky Rushing, an aide, said the senator “hasn’t formulated a position on this bill yet. He is still studying it. He wants to get more information on the impacts of secession.”

Times staff writers Carl Ingram, Dan Morain, Max Vanzi, Doug Smith, Jodi Wilgoren, Jeff Rabin and Kenneth Reich contributed to this story.