Riordan, Clinton Alliance Faces Test

Among the congratulatory calls that poured into Mayor Richard Riordan’s office after his reelection last week was one from a stalwart ally whose support dramatically helped the mayor in his first term: President Bill Clinton, who called to tell Riordan he looked forward to carrying on their cooperation and to visiting Los Angeles sometime soon.

That alliance--an unlikely union of a Republican venture-capitalist mayor who looks with suspicion at career politicians and a Democratic president who has practiced politics for most of his life--has helped deliver billions of dollars to Los Angeles over the past four years and has raised the political fortunes of both men.

But as Riordan enters his second term, Clinton’s ability to devote personal attention, political capital and money to the city of Los Angeles may be tested by something else they have in common: Both mayor and president are lame ducks.

Because he cannot run again, Clinton no longer needs California to win reelection; Riordan’s own time in office is limited by a two-term cap imposed, in part, by a measure he backed. Moreover, Clinton’s second term finds him facing new budget pressures in Washington and surrounded by fewer of the California natives who helped secure Riordan access to the highest levels of the federal government, particularly former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta and former deputy assistant to the president John Emerson.

All that has some people close to Riordan worried.

“The mayor has had a great relationship with Washington,” one person familiar with the issue said. “The question for the second term is: Can he keep it?”

Over the past four years, Clinton has helped shepherd billions of dollars to Los Angeles and land Riordan important political support, while Riordan has backed some Democratic candidates and helped reinforce that party’s desire to reach out to moderate Republicans and business leaders. Although the political situation will change over the next four years, some of Riordan’s appeal will continue to be valuable to Clinton and the Democrats.

If, however, the effect of staff changes, tight budgets or term limits does anything to squeeze the relationship between Clinton and Riordan, the impact on Los Angeles could be profound.

According to city records, the federal government over the past four years has showered Los Angeles with money: $12.5 billion for earthquake recovery, $529 million toward community development, $512 million for two major transportation projects and $162 million for police.

Thanks largely to the federal government, Interstate 10, the nation’s busiest freeway, was out of commission for just 66 days after the 1994 earthquake. Thanks largely to the federal government, the city has 2,200 more police officers than it did in 1993; federal money has paid for more than 1,300 of them. And thanks mostly to the federal government, houses and apartments from South-Central to Northridge are being built with federal support and are providing residences for thousands of Los Angeles residents.

That extraordinary largess has paid off not only for the city, but also for Riordan, vastly bolstering his efforts in precisely the areas where he has pledged to take action: crime and economic development.

In addition to the community development money from the federal government, Washington has chipped in a $30-million economic development grant and more than $250 million toward job training programs. This summer, young people across Los Angeles will be placed in summer jobs and internships, in part because of a program jointly backed by the federal and local governments.

“The responsiveness back there has been great, on the Alameda Corridor, additional crime bill funds, all kinds of areas,” Riordan said in an interview last week. “The administration returns my phone calls in very short order.”

In addition, Clinton has delivered for Riordan in less tangible but important ways. When the mayor heard about potential hepatitis infections in Los Angeles schools, he called Emerson, who contacted Donna Shalala, secretary of Health and Human Services. Within the hour, the federal government had pledged to deliver inoculations to Los Angeles.

When city leaders were wondering what would happen to Police Chief Willie L. Williams, the White House offered to find him a place in the drug czar’s office, an offer Williams did not pursue. And when state Sen. Tom Hayden called to complain about Riordan being allowed to appear at a Transportation Department news conference to accept federal transportation money during the mayoral campaign, Clinton canceled the scheduled briefing, moved it to the White House and hosted it himself.

Sources close to the mayor concede that Riordan enters the new term facing some new uncertainties in his relationship with Washington. But Riordan and a number of his aides say they are confident that, although some political incentives may be fading--most notably, the fact that Clinton no longer has to mount an election campaign in California--new ones have emerged. And they say Riordan and Clinton appear to have developed a genuine mutual admiration, a fact that could continue to work to Los Angeles’ advantage, as well as to the advantage of both men.

The web of personal ties, political interest and public benefit often is hard to untangle.

When Clinton was in Los Angeles in mid-1995, for instance, the city and mayor were reeling from the killing of a young girl by gang members. Clinton asked if there was anything the federal government could do. Riordan, seizing on the opportunity, rode with the president to the airport. According to City Hall sources, he spent the trip lobbying for more federal law enforcement funds, particularly money to allow the city and county to work together in the fight against gangs.

The president, persuaded by Riordan’s pitch, delivered.

Included in the city’s 1996-97 budget: $1 million for the Community Law Enforcement and Recovery program. Known as CLEAR, the program brings together city and county officials to suppress gang activity and engage in other community programs. Just last month, Riordan joined Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, City Atty. James Hahn and City Councilman Mike Hernandez to announce that the CLEAR money would help pay for a Highland Park project to map out routes to a high school so that students can be given safe passage from gangs as they go to and from school.

If issues such as that represent the common ground Clinton and Riordan have found on programs, other examples highlight their mutually beneficial political marriage.

Take, for instance, Hayden’s effort to sidetrack the proposed photo opportunity between Riordan and Transportation Secretary Federico Pena, a member of Clinton’s Cabinet.

In January, Hayden was in the early stages of his effort to topple Riordan from the mayor’s office, a longshot bid that depended in part on Hayden reminding the largely Democratic electorate of Los Angeles that Riordan is a Republican. When Hayden got wind of a scheduled news conference between the mayor and Pena, he called the White House to complain that Clinton, a fellow Democrat, should not be providing a public relations forum for a Republican candidate.

“I spoke to the White House, and I told them that they should stop trying to create photo ops for their friend Richard Riordan because it was not the role of the Democratic president to bail out the Republican mayor of Los Angeles,” Hayden said last week. “They said that they didn’t know what I was talking about and there was no such thing on the agenda. And then the next day it happened, and they called up and said, ‘Whoops.’ ”

In fact, sources familiar with the news conference say it was not a “whoops” but a deliberate reaction to a request White House officials found presumptuous, especially in light of the bond between Clinton and Riordan. After Hayden called, sources said, the president himself intervened to intentionally snub the state senator.

“One of [Clinton’s] top assistants went in and reported it to the president, who said: ‘OK, cancel it. We’ll have the press conference here at the White House, and I’ll have it myself,’ ” one person familiar with the episode said. “That’s why we had it at the White House.”

The result of Hayden’s intervention: Instead of a low-key affair with the transportation secretary, the federal gift made national news, with Riordan and the president appearing side-by-side just days before Clinton’s second inauguration.

It was a powerful image of cooperation, one that vividly bolstered Riordan’s claims to enjoy bipartisan support.

There is some irony in the bond between Clinton and Riordan. The mayor, after all, is a Republican who generally favors a minimal role for government. And yet, Riordan’s success has in many ways been the product of a strong and beneficent federal government.

But Riordan rarely is a stickler for ideology. First and foremost, he is a deal maker, and the federal government has plenty to offer.

As he and the president look toward the end of their times as chief executives--and as some city officials worry whether the federal government will be there for Riordan in the coming term--Riordan continues to bring some influence to the bargaining table.

The Democratic Party is trying to forge its own truce with moderates and business, and if Riordan were to shift gears and throw his support solidly behind Republican candidates, it could hurt Democratic efforts in the upcoming governor’s race and beyond. The governor’s race in particular offers Democrats a chance for cross-party help from Riordan, because it is expected to pit Republican state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, who is far more ideological than the mayor, against either U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), with whom Riordan has worked closely and traded endorsements, Panetta, who was a linchpin in Riordan’s relationship with the White House, or fellow businessman Al Checchi.

As one person close to the mayor noted, if Riordan does not find support from Washington, he may go looking elsewhere.

“Bill Clinton has several political reasons why he still wants an ally in Dick Riordan,” one political observer said. “You have gubernatorial and senatorial elections coming up. And Al Gore is very, very important to Bill Clinton.”

“Let’s put it this way,” that observer added, “Clinton may not need to carry California again for himself, but he still has his party’s interests to think of. And he doesn’t want the mayor out there looking for new friends.”

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Federal Largess

Since 1993, Los Angeles has received billions of dollars in federal funding for a variety of uses. Among the most notable examples of federal largess toward Los Angeles:

* Earthquake relief and rebuilding: $12.5 billion

* Community development money from Housing and Urban Development: $529 million

* Transportation (the city’s share of Metropolitan Transportation Authority money, plus Alameda Corridor money, some of which is shared with other jurisdictions): $512 million

* Job training: $250.8 million

* Law enforcement: $161.8 million (includes money to hire new police officers, outfit the Los Angeles Police Department with better technology, hire civilians, launch anti-gang programs and fight domestic abuse, among other things)

Source: Los Angeles city records