Riordan’s Win Hints of New Alliances

Last week three events occurred that, taken together, help define the political future of Los Angeles.

* The Census Bureau reported that foreign-born residents now make up a quarter of California’s population, the highest percentage in this century. Forty-two percent of the immigrants come from Mexico, 9% from other Latin American countries.

* A panel of appeals-court judges held that Proposition 209 is constitutional, allowing the anti-affirmative-action initiative passed by voters last year to move closer to implementation.

* Incumbent Mayor Richard J. Riordan, a middle-aged, white, Republican multimillionaire, was returned to office in the first election of the New Los Angeles.

Nevertheless, Riordan is a transitional mayor. His victory reflects the emergence of a new electoral calculus based on changing demographics, pragmatic alliances and shifting political power. What form this new politics will take and who will be its new leaders are difficult to determine. But the political rise of one immigrant group at the expense of others is a phenomenon recurrent in American history. In major Northeast port-of-entry cities, like New York and Boston, the progression has been from Yankee to Irish to Italian to black and Latino today.

Anglo turnout in Tuesday’s primary was 65% of all voters, down from 68% in the wide-open 1993 primary and 72% in the runoff between Riordan and then-City Councilman Michael Woo. Turnout fell, too, among African Americans, who comprised 13% of all voters, down from 18% in the 1993 primary. Blacks were 12% of the electorate in that year’s runoff.

Latino participation, by contrast, reached an historic high--15% of the total city electorate, up from 8% in April 1993 and 10% in the June runoff. The increase is not a fluke. It mirrors a statewide and national trend. Fallout from Proposition 187, which made illegal immigrants ineligible for public health and education services, the charged debate over affirmative action and passage of 209, stringent welfare and immigration reforms--all have politicized Latinos as never before. And in Los Angeles, as exit polls suggested, a smart campaign by proponents of Proposition BB, the school-bond issue, gave Latino turnout an added push.

Sixty percent of Latinos voting in last week’s election supported Riordan over state Sen. Tom Hayden even though the mayor remained conspicuously absent from the fight against Propositions 187 and 209. Why?

Cultural and religious affinity are part of the answer. Latinos appear comfortable with the mayor, and he with them. Hayden’s embrace of Cesar Chavez, on the other hand, didn’t resonate with many urban Latinos, who are far removed from farm workers’ marches.

Riordan also garnered high-visibility support from local Latino leaders, including City Councilmen Richard Alatorre, one of Riordan’s staunchest allies in city government, and Richard Alarcon, who endorsed the mayor’s reelection.

Riordan’s long-standing work within the Latino community gave him an added political boost, particularly during a campaign in which Hayden was criticized for pandering to blacks.

Hayden took 75% of the black vote, not nearly enough for him to challenge Riordan. But there’s a deeper story. The city’s African Americans face a new--and harsh--political reality: Demographics are eroding their electoral clout.

Blacks comprise about 13% of the city’s population and their electoral participation continues to match that. Latinos comprise about 40% of L.A. residents, but they still vote well below their population share. However, this is changing with the new patterns of immigration. As growing numbers of Mexican and Latin American immigrants become citizens and voters, simple demographic arithmetic will inevitably shift electoral clout to Latinos at the expense of black political power.

The force of this realignment will be felt when state and local districts are redrawn in the next reapportionment four years from now. African Americans risk becoming marginalized politically, as “black” electoral districts become increasingly “brown.” Ultimately, political power for blacks could be defined by their ability to decide which Latino represents them in City Council, Congress or the Legislature.

That is a far cry from the clout wielded by the Bradley coalition, an alliance of blacks and Westside liberal Democrats that dominated local politics in the 1970s an ‘80s. That coalition collapsed completely in 1993, when businessman Riordan defeated Woo, a liberal Democrat and the putative heir to Tom Bradley’s constituency, to win his first term as mayor. Woo garnered 86% of the black vote and 75% of liberal voters, but Riordan split the Jewish vote and attracted nearly 40% of the Democrats and 55% of Westside residents.

The black-Jewish coalition was forged in the civil rights struggle. The new alliances, however, are grounded in economics; blacks and Jews largely come from different places on these issues. That’s why Hayden had no hope of putting the pieces of the Bradley electorate back together again.

Hayden’s made no secret of the fact that he is pondering another run for mayor in 2001. Part of the motivation behind his candidacy was to position himself for that race. But Hayden’s sour demeanor and charged rhetoric may have foiled his strategy. Clearly, he hasn’t co-opted front-runner status among already emerging mayoral candidates. Still, Hayden does have time to regroup.

As for Riordan, no one can dispute the need for him to overcome the perception among many blacks that they have been shut out by his administration. And black-brown relationships will have to be dealt with.

Two looming decisions may bring conflicting pressures to bear on these priorities. There is the dicey problem of selecting a new police chief to replace William L. Williams. And the mayor will be pushed to exert leadership in choosing a new school superintendent reflective of the district’s Latino majority.

Moreover, the dominance of the San Fernando Valley in Tuesday’s election, and Riordan’s strong base there, ensure that the secession movement and its offspring--charter reform--will remain on the agenda. Angelenos have let the mayor and the City Council punt these issues to dueling charter-reform commissions. A more honest approach might be to lock the mayor and the City Council in a small, windowless room and not let them out until they’ve compromised. Voter participation might surge if a proposition to require that ever reached the ballot.

Despite last week’s meager turnout, a school-repair bond passed, fueled by an electorate that is inching, slowly, toward becoming representative of the city’s population. If there is any conclusion to be drawn from the election results, it is that the body politic of the New Los Angeles appears healthier than many thought.