The Onus Is on Alarcon

Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon can’t have it both ways. Last week, the state Senate candidate called for unity in the northeast San Fernando Valley after a divisive primary race against former Assemblyman Richard Katz. At the same time, however, Alarcon refuses to disavow an ugly campaign mailer that sparked much of the tension he seeks to ease.

In the last days of the campaign, voters in the 20th Senate District received a letter signed by state Sen. Richard Polanco suggesting links among Katz, Gov. Pete Wilson and an Orange County candidate accused in 1988 of hiring guards to frighten immigrants from polls. Katz called the letter “race-baiting.” It was.

On a wider scale, the letter has also harmed the relationship between two of the Democratic party’s biggest constituencies in Southern California: the Jewish and Latino communities. Alarcon is Latino and Katz is Jewish. Both men pledged during the campaign that race would not be an issue. While the political consultant who drafted the letter has expressed remorse for it, Polanco has refused to apologize and makes an unconvincing argument that Katz introduced ethnicity into the campaign first.

For his part, Alarcon has said he bears no responsibility for the letter. He’s wrong. Candidates bear full responsibility for everything done in their names. Whether he likes it or not, Alarcon’s name is attached to the Polanco letter and it threatens to blot his campaign in the next election.

To call for unity without taking a first step toward it smacks of an empty gesture. Alarcon is correct that it is time to “move beyond the negative symbols of this campaign and work toward unity,” but his must be the first move.