On Charter Reform, Mayor Makes Good Case Against Himself

There was serious confusion last week in the minds of most of the city’s Elected Charter Commission members as to why the panel had been meeting for the past two years. That’s probably why they rejected the compromise charter, called the unified charter by its supporters, in a persuasive simulation of high moral dudgeon.

Backtrack a moment. ‘Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the town, there was a warm, holiday feeling that portended tidings of comfort and joy. Five members of each of the two separate, often antagonistic commissions, one elected, the other appointed to change the city charter, had, more or less, agreed to put a joint document before the voters in June. Deep was the sense that something special had happened. Personal agendas had been pushed aside and the future good of the city put first.

That was then. The good feelings soured on the first Tuesday of the new year, when most of the elected commission, including members who had approved the compromise, kicked it out the door in a 9-6 vote. In so doing, they not only belittled the joint conference committee’s months of hard work. They also effectively disregarded much of the testimony they had heard since mid-1997.

The electeds’ vaudeville included some passionate claims of personal honesty and integrity, qualities certain members seemed to confuse with upholding the promises of their original campaign literature. The keynote was set by Mayor Richard Riordan, who was enraged that the joint compromise proposal compromised his nonnegotiable demand that his office have unrestricted powers to fire general managers and city commissioners. The proposal has merits and demerits, but apart from Riordan, it lacks widespread support. Many voters recall the abuses of power by Mayor Frank L. Shaw in the 1930s, and, as Madeline Janis-Aparicio of Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy noted, the provision would make it difficult for any council member to get a department to do anything for a constituent. “All the politics would have to go through the mayor,” she said, “just like in New York.”

Perhaps sensing its unpopularity, Riordan de-emphasized this goal in his pep talk to the commission. He spoke anecdotally of last year’s $400,000 city-phone-bill late fees, implying this wouldn’t have happened if managers had been accountable only to him. “Angelenos elected you to produce the best charter for the city,” the mayor said. To Riordan, such a charter obviously had to be exactly what the mayor wanted. Late Friday, Riordan shifted gears, proposing that the issue of mayoral authority, left unspecified by the mayor, be a separate ballot initiative and considered along with the other charter reforms.

As the votes against the consensus charter went down, you saw some strange rationales: former state Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland, who opposed increasing the mayoral powers throughout the months of debate, loudly assailed the absent appointed commission for reputedly not compromising (though it did) on this point, on which she herself had declined to compromise. “What do they think we are, chopped liver?” Boland shrieked, setting the “Gong Show” tone of the evening’s subsequent discussions. Commissioner Nick Pacheco said he opposed the compromise because it didn’t include provisions he had sought, even though own commission had rejected Pacheco’s proposals much earlier. Commissioner Janice Hahn boasted that she had called for the “abolition” of the City Council-appointed commission and was still in no mood to accept its legitimacy.

There were, indeed, few signs that the past 19 months of debates and hearings had made much difference to most members. Some clung to the idea of fully empowered, elected local councils, an idea long abandoned by its strongest supporters among the City Hall unions, as well as by the appointed commission. Others found the mayor’s empowerment demands sacrosanct, despite the fact that most public testimony and all available polling repudiated the grant of ultimate power over city managers. In the end, the commission majority seemed to hold in contempt much of the public that had come before it. Several members even characterized the majority public testimony on these and other controversies as coming from “special-interest groups.”

Most of all, you felt the presence of swollen political egos. The elected-commissioner majority included more people who had run for office and lost than any panel in recent memory, notably Boland, Hahn and Woody Fleming. On behalf of their own ambitions, these members forsook dialogue for stump-speeching, exulting their purported integrity and independence in a context where such qualities were scarce.

Minority members who could see the larger context voted for the unified proposal over some visibly heartfelt objections: Dennis Zine, for instance, who wanted more time to consider the matter, and Bennett Kayser, who still strongly supported elected councils. Most of all, you sympathized with the elected commission’s chair, Erwin Chemerinsky, who, with the appointed panel’s opposite number, George Kieffer, painstakingly nurtured the unified measure that included a startlingly broad selection of the work of both commissions. Last week’s vote was a harsh repudiation of Chemerinsky’s patience, courage and dedication.

Ironically, it was also a perfect illustration of why this city must reject increased mayoral power. In bending the arms of commission members over whom he did not even have firing power, Riordan gave us a garish illustration of power’s abuse. It showed that the city still needs all the protection it can get against a bullying chief executive who sets his own personal agenda against the public will.

The following afternoon, in an atmosphere of somber unity, appointed commissioners adopted unanimously the spurned unified document. Absent any second thoughts from their opposite numbers on the elected panel, this version goes on the ballot in June. So does the original, long-form, uncompromised elected commission’s charter.

Considering its recent background, we can call the latter document the “low-road charter.” The unified document, which has the backing of labor, business and countless other civic groups, can be called the “high-road charter.” Now, it’s time for the voters to choose between the consensus document for our city’s future and Riordan’s personal brand of ideal local government.