Alarcon, Katz May Switch From Friends to Men Behaving Badly

Although state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Van Nuys) still has a year before term limits force him to retire, it looks like the political posturing to replace him has already begun.

So far, the two top contenders for the post are former Assemblyman Richard Katz and Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who for years have had a close, friendly relationship.

But when they both announced recently that they may run for Rosenthal’s seat, most political pundits predicted that the Battle of the Richards would be nasty.

It appears that Alarcon drew first blood this week during an emotional debate over a Metropolitan Transportation Authority plan to once again delay the start of construction of a Valley rail line.

Most council members accused the MTA board of moving ahead on other rail lines at the expense of the Valley.

But Alarcon blasted the MTA structure itself, saying it was created in a way that forces one region of the city to fight with another over limited transit dollars.

Alarcon said the blame should go to “whoever came up with this cockamamie idea on the way the MTA is formulated.”

It turns out that the “cockamamie” idea came from Katz, who wrote a state bill nearly 10 years ago that created the MTA by merging the Southern California Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

Although Alarcon did not mention Katz by name, several council members in the chamber laughed and identified the target of Alarcon’s attack by meowing like cats.

More proof that politics can get catty.

The Loudest Man

For the next five to six weeks, the Los Angeles City Council will be without the gadfly who has been dubbed “the loudest man in City Hall.”

Leonard Shapiro, a Granada Hills retiree and newspaper columnist, will be out of action after taking a spill while giving a tour of City Hall to a group of elementary school students.

Shapiro, who loudly berates the council on a regular basis and writes a column about it for the Watts Times, was knocked unconscious and broke five ribs when he slipped into an empty fountain in the Civic Center.

In an interview from his sickbed, Shapiro said: “I had just given the kids a tour of the 911 center, and they had to call 911.”

For the past 10 years, Shapiro has volunteered to lead about two tours a month. But in the past two months he has increased his pace, providing 10 tours a month, mostly for children from the San Fernando Valley.

If the council doesn’t miss Shapiro, the children surely will.

Despite his injuries, Shapiro has not lost his sense of humor. He said the fall was so painful that he couldn’t speak for five minutes.

“Can you imagine me not being able to talk?” he said.

City officials said the council meeting won’t be the same without Shapiro. In fact, one longtime council aide suggested that the council pipe in Shapiro’s weekly diatribe via phone from his sickbed.

If they raise the volume enough, it will be like he never left.

Budget Action

Now that the federal budget has been put to bed, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) is looking for a little financial action.

So, he’s angling for a spot on the House Banking Committee, which will soon be embroiled in a major reform of laws governing the relations between banking institutions, investment houses and other commercial entities.

This may not sound like a thrill a minute for everyone, but it’s a high-profile assignment. And right up Sherman’s alley because of his background as a tax attorney, accountant and former member of the state Board of Equalization.

The Banking Committee isn’t a bad place to meet potential financial backers either.

But Sherman has competition for the spot. Rep. Robert A. Weygand (D-R.I.), who sits next to Sherman at Budget Committee meetings, is lobbying strenuously for the same committee assignment.

Technically, under the convoluted ways of the Congress, Weygand is already a member of the Banking Committee, accruing seniority even though he is “on leave,” Sherman explained.

So, Weygand is campaigning against Sherman to get a seat on a committee he’s already a member of.

Now someone else is in the picture.

He’s newly elected GOP Rep. Bill Redmond from New Mexico. The GOP House leadership is looking for a high-profile committee assignment for him in light of his upset victory over Democrat Eric Serna.

To bring our saga full circle, Serna, if he had been elected, had dibs on that same, apparently much-coveted Banking Committee seat.

Because Sherman is new and must stand for reelection in the West Valley-based swing district next year, the House Democratic leadership is inclined to take care of him to maintain the seat.

But there are only so many juicy assignments to go around.

“They let me serve on the hot committee the first half of the year, so I don’t know if they’re going to let me [serve] on the hot committee the second half of the year,” Sherman said. “There’s only a limited amount of fun a freshman is allowed to have.”

Wright Stuff

Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) is waiting for the budget conference committee to give a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down to his $1.5-billion working-class tax-cut proposal.

But one vote he won’t be getting is that of fellow Republican Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley). Wright said she favors a tax cut, but not the one proposed by her fellow legislator.

“I’m not backing McClintock’s tax cut because it’s never going to happen,” Wright said. The problem, she said, is that McClintock recently sprung the huge tax cut idea on the budget conference committee, which is charged with mediating competing interests. Her job on the panel is to juggle the needs of all her GOP members. It would be unfair to expend all her capital on the McClintock plan, which could have been better dealt with if he had brought up the tax cut as a regular bill. Instead he put the conference committee on the spot, asking it to adopt the idea as its own. Then there is the question of whether Wright would be inclined to do any favors for McClintock.

The two of them have a history of being on opposite sides of various Valley-area GOP political battles over the years.

And when Wright first ran for the Legislature, McClintock endorsed her opponent, Marian LaFollette.

Wright noted that she did support McClintock in his Assembly bid last year. As for whether she’s settling an old score, Wright said, “He’s not on my radar screen for political battles.”