Holden Says Bradley Backed His Candidacy

Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden has announced an endorsement from an unlikely supporter in his fourth and final run for his 10th District seat: the late Tom Bradley.

The eleventh-hour endorsement is surprising not only because the former mayor died in September, but also because Bradley fought a bitter mayoral battle with Holden in 1989 and twice endorsed Holden’s opponents for his council seat.

Bradley began his political career in the district Holden now represents, and reports of the alleged endorsement have upset the former mayor’s family and outraged some prominent African American politicians and Bradley intimates.

Holden revealed the alleged endorsement in a letter to 10th District voters from former Bradley assistant Bill Elkins. The letter says Holden met with Bradley immediately before his death. The former mayor “made a commitment” that he would support Holden’s reelection because he was “impressed by the programs and policy initiatives successfully implemented” by Holden, Elkins wrote.

Elkins said he was present when Holden met with Bradley at his residence in 1998. The councilman asked Bradley for his endorsement, and the former mayor said “yes,” according to Elkins.

He said that he asked Bradley if he was sure and that Bradley repeated his answer while nodding “profusely.” “There was no mistake,” Elkins said.

Bradley had heard from 10th District residents that Holden was responsive to their needs, Elkins said, adding: “He clearly felt Nate had turned a page or two.” The endorsement startled the former mayor’s family, said daughter Lorraine Bradley. “We were upset,” she said. “It implies that from the grave Daddy’s endorsing him.”

She said she thinks that either Elkins or her father would have told her or her mother of any meetings with Holden or endorsement plans.

Although she does not doubt the authenticity of Elkins’ letter, others have accused Holden of deception.

“That’s a lie,” said Dave Cunningham, who followed Bradley as the 10th District councilman.

“I spent a lot of time with Tom Bradley before he died. He had real problems with Nate Holden, and endorsing him was one thing he assured me he would never do,” Cunningham said.

He added that Bradley could barely speak during his last months. To communicate with the former mayor, Cunningham said, he spoke and waited for Bradley to respond with a yes or no answer along with facial expressions and gestures.

When Holden’s name was mentioned, Cunningham said, Bradley “became very animated. He would shake his head, his eyes would flutter and he would say, ‘No, no, no.’ ”

Lawyer Melanie Lomax, a former Los Angeles police commissioner whose parents were Bradley’s schoolmates, said she saw the longtime mayor every week after he suffered a heart attack and stroke in 1996. “I think I was totally familiar with Tom Bradley’s relationship with Nate Holden,” she said.

“Tom Bradley would roll over in his grave if he knew that anyone was suggesting he endorsed Nate Holden. This will backfire. Their differences were well-known, and this smacks of what it is: Nate Holden trying to use the good name of Tom Bradley,” said Lomax, who represented a former Holden staffer in a sexual harassment lawsuit against the councilman.

Holden commented on the endorsement and subsequent criticisms only through members of his council staff. His deputy, Dana Sarbeck, said that although Holden and Bradley were at odds politically, “they had a good relationship.”

Responding to Cunningham’s criticism, Sarbeck told a reporter that Holden said it was Cunningham who first informed Holden that Bradley would endorse him.

“That’s a bald-faced lie,” Cunningham responded.

Later Thursday, Holden chief of staff Louis White telephoned The Times and said he had to clarify the councilman’s earlier remark. White said that in 1998, Cunningham visited him and told him he supported Holden’s reelection campaign, and suggested that Holden take Bradley to lunch.

White said that he passed that message on to Holden and that Holden later had dinner with Bradley. White, however, said he does not know if the meeting resulted in Bradley’s endorsement.

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas called the claimed endorsement “a stunt” and “a new low,” since “most of Nate Holden’s career was spent fighting Tom Bradley.”

Bradley backed a former aide, Homer Broome Jr., in a losing 1987 race against Holden. Holden ran against Bradley in the 1989 mayoral race, which those close to Bradley say further embittered him toward Holden. In the 1995 council election, Bradley emerged from his political retirement to endorse Holden opponent Stan Sanders.