Holden Claim of Bradley Endorsement Is Denounced

Nearly a year after his death, former Mayor Tom Bradley is still shaping the course of Los Angeles politics, this time in the City Council district where his storied political career began.

Bradley’s posthumous role began in April, when incumbent 10th District Councilman Nate Holden claimed that shortly before his death, the former mayor had endorsed Holden’s reelection. Since then, Holden and his runoff opponent, Madison Shockley, have argued bitterly over who represents Bradley’s legacy, including marshaling the former mayor’s intimates to proclaim each the true heir.

In the latest round of the battle, the Shockley campaign is mailing district voters a letter from the longtime mayor’s daughter denouncing Holden.

Lorraine Bradley wrote: “It is impossible for me to say whether or not my father wished to endorse Nate Holden.” But, she said, her father “consistently refused to support Councilman Nate Holden.”

Lorraine Bradley said she wrote the letter because “my father’s name should never have been used. He’s dead.”

Holden claimed the Bradley endorsement in April by sending a letter to district voters from former Bradley assistant Bill Elkins saying that Bradley met with Holden just before he died and agreed to back Holden’s reelection.

Elkins’ letter infuriated many friends, staffers and relatives of Bradley, and the Shockley campaign quickly courted their support. They emphasized that Bradley had fought a bitter mayoral fight with Holden in 1989 and that he had twice endorsed Holden’s opponents in City Council elections.

Several Bradley supporters, including lawyers Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. and Melanie Lomax, retired 10th District City Councilman David Cunningham and former Bradley aide Wanda L. Moore, organized a Shockley fund-raiser Tuesday.

In an interview Wednesday, Holden acknowledged that Elkins’ letter may have turned some former supporters like Cunningham and Cochran against him.

But Holden said he is “in a Catch 22.”

“I didn’t ask Bill to write that letter,” he said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have sent it, but you can’t unring the bell.”

Holden said he was fond of Bradley, although they clashed politically.

Holden said that in 1973, Bradley appeared at a fund-raiser for his state Senate campaign and that in 1994 he sponsored a City Hall reception for Bradley.

Lorraine Bradley said she was asked by the Shockley campaign to write her letter, and agreed to do so because “it was not appropriate” for contemporary candidates to claim her father’s support. She said she declined a request to endorse Shockley for the same reason.