Commentary : Ponder This: Henry Cisneros as Los Angeles’ Next Mayor : Politics:He lives here now, and he’s more able than most to lead the city.

A year ago, I stuck my neck out by predicting that the federal indictment of Henry G. Cisneros, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, would amount to little in the long run. I was proved right last week, when Cisneros copped a plea in a Washington, D.C., courtroom, agreeing to pay a $10,000 fine on a single misdemeanor count in exchange for dismissal of the 18 felony charges he faced.

But this column is not to say “I told you so.” It is to ponder Cisneros’ future. And my conclusion will surely irritate many of the same readers who took me to task last year for defending the former San Antonio mayor, once the brightest and fastest-rising star in Latino politics.

Now that Cisneros has left his native Texas for California, where he is the chief operating officer of the nation’s most potent Spanish-language TV network, Univision, the future looks as bright as ever for him--and not just in the private sector. If he were of a mind to do it, he could be a big-city mayor again. This time in Los Angeles.

Let me be clear that I have heard nothing from Cisneros that would lead me to believe he wants to be mayor of Los Angeles, or anywhere else. To the contrary, when we have talked about whether he might ever return to public life, he has been quick to insist he is now determined to make his way in the private sector after a long series of modestly paid government jobs.

So would I, if I owed the legal bills Cisneros must face after having indictments brought against him for lying to FBI agents prior to his confirmation as HUD secretary.

The sorry details of Cisneros’ legal problems are widely known. While mayor of San Antonio he had an extramarital affair. When the affair became public, he opted to leave office but also privately agreed to help out his former mistress financially. Those payments are what got him in trouble with the FBI, because he so understated the amount of money involved that, when his former mistress went public last year, his indictment was inevitable.

My column defending Cisneros was prompted more by my concern that special prosecutors were out of control than by any desire to restore the HUD secretary’s tarnished reputation. But it was reader reaction to that column that first made me realize how easily Cisneros, who has been at Univision since 1997, could reinvent himself and restore his public stature if he chose to.

Letters from Texas, where many newspapers ran the column, indicated that voters there are in no mood to forget Cisneros’ affair, much less forgive what he had done. But readers in California and especially in Los Angeles (where reinventing oneself is almost a spectator sport) were just as unanimous in sharing my view that Cisneros’ affair and its legal aftermath were much ado about very little. Latinos, especially, were hopeful that Cisneros would not allow the only scandal in his career to drive him from public life.

So, as sure as Los Angeles’ skies are smoggy, Cisneros is now going to face friendly but persistent pressure to resume a high public profile, this time in the Golden State.

That is really no surprise, given how eager many Latinos are for fresh, smart leadership in California. And how eager many well-intentioned Anglos are to identify respected Latino leaders who can help build bridges between the state’s biggest minority group and the rest of California.

As much as anything, that hunger for Latino leadership is why a handful of Latino politicos (most of whom couldn’t carry Cisneros’ briefcase) are being touted as serious candidates for major political posts in this state, including mayor of its biggest city.

The field of would-be mayoral candidates here is so utterly lackluster, in fact, that last week--ironically on the same day Cisneros’ plea bargain was announced in Washington--Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan went out on a limb to endorse a candidate in the 2001 city election that will select his successor. The mayor mailed a letter urging his most loyal fund-raisers to help the budding candidacy of his unpaid advisor Steven Soboroff, a local developer, civic activist and--like Riordan before he was elected in 1993--a political outsider.

Well, I’ll go Riordan one better. If Henry Cisneros were to express an interest in being mayor of L.A., our 2001 campaign would be over before it even begins. Which is not to say Cisneros will, or even should, run. Only that it’s a very intriguing scenario to ponder.