Intensifying Charter Debate Polarizes City Hall Factions

With less than a month to go before voters are asked to consider an overhaul of the Los Angeles City Charter, the debate has splintered City Hall: Council President John Ferraro recently flipped sides and joined other panel members fighting to preserve the status quo, while Mayor Richard Riordan and his allies are intensifying their push to change it.

The result is a sharp-elbowed tussle to chart the future of Los Angeles.

Council members are turning to the city’s consummate insiders--registered lobbyists--in their quest to preserve the existing order. Riordan, by contrast, is backed by charter commissioners, most of whom were appointed by council members, and is reaching out to his wealthy friends and allies.

The early edge, most observers agree, goes to Riordan. His campaign already has amassed more than $500,000 and has enlisted Bill Carrick, arguably the most highly regarded campaign consultant in Southern California.

But opponents are working hard to make up ground, and Ferraro’s surprising decision last week to break ranks from the reformed charter’s supporters and join the opposition has sent tremors through the proponents’ camp.

“There’s some good in the charter, but I think it’s more bad than good,” Ferraro said last week in a brief interview. “When you look at the whole compromise, I don’t think it’s a good package.”

A Key Figure

Ferraro’s defection--just a few weeks ago he said he supported the charter despite reservations about a few provisions--represents a tough blow to supporters of reform. Unlike most of the council opponents, Ferraro is viewed as a centrist, well-regarded by the business community and generally allied with Riordan.

And he can command the full attention of just about any of the interest groups in and around city government. Last week, he corralled leaders of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, whose endorsement often is sought by candidates and causes, and urged them to come out against the charter.

Recognizing Ferraro’s influence, George Kieffer, chairman of the appointed charter commission, had worked hard to win the council president’s support. He and Erwin Chemerinsky, who chairs the elected commission, believed they had it and were disappointed when Ferraro jumped ship.

“John Ferraro is a very important person in city government and has been for a long time,” Chemerinsky said. “On the other hand, though I’m disappointed that he’s opposing the proposed charter, I’m not surprised.”

Chemerinsky’s lack of surprise, shared by many insiders, grows out of the fact that few take seriously Ferraro’s insistence that his decision was prompted by substantive concerns about the charter. Rather, they attribute it to the growing intensity of the charter debate and the growing number of council members who oppose the document.

With a majority of council members now lined up against the charter, Ferraro is feeling the heat to join that bandwagon, observers say. That’s because Ferraro depends on having the support of the council majority to hold on to the presidency.

“I’m disappointed that he never expressed to us his concerns that led to his decision to oppose the charter,” Chemerinsky said. “But he’s probably feeling great pressure from his colleagues.”

Other council members are working the City Hall corridors as well. Some have met with leaders of city employee unions, urging them to join the fight against the charter. That places the unions in a bind: They already have voted to endorse the proposal, but many union leaders have reservations about it and also recognize that the council approves their contracts, making it difficult for them to openly oppose that group.

At the same time, Ferraro’s move, the council majority’s increasingly assertive opposition and the outreach to city lobbyists together hand charter proponents a potentially powerful tool in their campaign to revamp the city constitution. It allows them to run their campaign as a challenge to politics-as-usual at City Hall.

The meeting last week at which council members joined with others to plan strategy demonstrates some of the inside nature of that group--and highlights its political vulnerability. It was held at the offices of Joe Cerrell, a political consultant who is one of the city’s consummate insiders. It was hosted by Steve Afriat, an established lobbyist and political consultant. Its guests make their livings doing business with the city. The public was not allowed to attend.

“We’re reaching out to people who are concerned at how inefficient the new charter will make it for people who do business with the city,” Afriat said.

Charter supporters paint a darker picture of that gathering.

“What that meeting clearly demonstrated is that the money raised against the charter is being raised by the City Council from lobbyists at the city who have a vested interest in maintaining the current, inefficient system,” said Riordan friend and advisor Bill Wardlaw. “It’s a very good reason in and of itself why people should be in favor of charter reform.”

In fact, critics accuse the anti-charter forces of employing offensive, though legal, tactics when they reach out to lobbyists and urge them to tap their clients for money to oppose the charter. The lobbyists, after all, largely make their living by lobbying council members. That makes it hard for them to say no when council members call in a favor.

Neither Wardlaw nor Carrick will talk about specific campaign plans, including whether they plan to attack the opposition. But Ward-law’s comments and Carrick’s track record both provide evidence of a willingness to play rough.

In the latest round of school board races, the group of Riordan-backed candidates mixed advertisements for themselves with hardballs tossed at their opponents. Those campaigns were coordinated by Carrick and partly overseen by Wardlaw.

Raising the Stakes

This time, sources say the campaign hopes to raise and spend about $1 million.

In an election where turnout is likely to be extremely low--less than 15% of registered voters are expected to go to the polls--much of that money would go for mailers targeting the types of voters most likely to show up on Election Day. In addition, sources cite a few groups the pro-charter campaign is likely to focus on.

Community activists who would like to see the creation of a network of neighborhood councils are on target. So are business and labor leaders who may appreciate the shifting of some power from the council to the mayor, a move advocates say will improve city efficiency and accountability. And San Fernando Valley voters probably will get special attention, because Riordan is popular there and because the widespread unhappiness with City Hall in that part of Los Angeles may make those voters receptive to a call for change.

That underlying argument--that the new charter represents reform and the old one is business as usual--may be the Riordan camp’s most potent message, especially when wielded against the council and its allies.

Although Los Angeles voters routinely return their council members to office, they are hardly enthusiastic about the council as a group. A recent Times poll found that 28% of respondents approved of the council’s performance, compared with 26% who disapproved.

Riordan, who perennially battles with the council, was viewed favorably by 57% of those polled. Just 13% had an unfavorable impression of the mayor.

Those numbers offer the mayor an appealing base to work from in a campaign that pits his version of reform against the council majority’s determination to fight it.

Rudy Svorinich, the council’s leading charter opponent, said he is confident nevertheless that the public will reject the document. He complains about the cost associated with creating neighborhood councils and possibly enlarging the council, and he derides the subtle shift in power from the council to the mayor as a recipe for corruption.

“We need to do everything we can to defeat this,” he said, adding that he hopes opponents can raise at least $500,000 for their campaign to reject a constitution he sees as riddled with problems.

City Atty. James Hahn, who often disagrees with Riordan but this time is aligned with him in supporting the charter, says that reasoning is wrong. Most council members declined to participate seriously in the charter drafting process, only to emerge now and wage a campaign to reject a document written in part by commissioners they appointed. That, said Hahn, is bad politics and bad government.

“With the council, you basically have people who are going to lose some power if this passes,” Hahn said. “That’s the reason they’re defending the status quo. . . . It’s very myopic, but that’s the reason.”