Cooley, Garcetti Clash in Hostile Radio Debate

The campaign for Los Angeles County district attorney took off with a sonic boom Friday, as incumbent Gil Garcetti and challenger Steve Cooley unleashed months of pent-up hostility in their first one-on-one debate, a phone-in event broadcast live on public radio.

Garcetti raised gun control as an issue for the first time in the campaign, demanding to know Cooley’s position and implying that, as a registered Republican, Cooley might hold views similar to those of the National Rifle Assn.

He also charged that Cooley would dismantle the crime prevention programs that Garcetti considers his greatest accomplishment, and said the challenger had “put the muscle” on judges and deputy district attorneys for contributions.

Cooley, in turn, referred to Garcetti as a “failed, status-quo prosecutor” who had a history of questionable relationships with campaign contributors. He said the incumbent had squandered the opportunity to uncover the Rampart police corruption scandal and dragged his feet in releasing information that could free people improperly convicted in Rampart-related cases.

The debate, broadcast on KCRW-FM’s “Which Way, L.A.?” program and moderated by its host, Warren Olney, lived up to expectations as the first clash of two men whose personal animosity runs as deep as their disagreements on policy.

“It’s the beginning of the scorched-earth campaign,” Cooley said later from his home in Toluca Lake, from which he participated in the debate by telephone. Garcetti took part from his office in the Criminal Courts building downtown.

If there was a surprise in the debate, it was Garcetti’s introduction of gun control as an issue. It came up in the context of his portrayal of Cooley as a “partisan, conservative Republican.” Although the race is officially nonpartisan, the Democratic incumbent has been trying to paint Cooley as a right-wing extremist who is out of step with Los Angeles voters.

Asked by Olney to elaborate, Garcetti said Cooley had contributed to former Gov. Pete Wilson’s campaign. He then suggested that Olney ask Cooley about gun control.

“I am strongly in favor of a gun control law banning assault weapons; I’m in favor of licensing,” Garcetti said. “If he is in fact less than what most Republicans are . . . you know, the NRA and other people saying they don’t want gun control, let’s hear from him.”

Cooley at first sidestepped the question, saying only that it was Garcetti who was injecting partisanship into the race, not him. Finally, he said: “I believe in reasonable gun control [but] it’s not an issue for the D.A.’s office necessarily to be involved in; that’s a legislative issue.”

“Oh come on!” Garcetti interrupted. “Doesn’t the D.A. have a role in Sacramento?”

Pressed later in an interview, Cooley said he was not a member of the NRA and he believed in “reasonable laws in terms of who should be allowed to possess [and] purchase guns.”

“And most importantly,” he added, “there has to be effective, rigorous enforcement of those laws that are on the books that deal with those individuals in our society who use guns in a crime, and Garcetti has failed in that.”

In the debate, Cooley referred repeatedly to cases in which he said Garcetti had given favorable treatment to campaign contributors, including employees of Lockheed Martin IMS, who gave $15,000 to Garcetti last year after the district attorney’s office recommended the company for a $2.5-million contract to run the county’s child support computer system.

“That kind of quid pro quo is unacceptable in the chief prosecutor,” Cooley said. “The chief prosecutor is the one who’s supposed to lead the fight against public corruption, not give a bad example, and I think that Mr. Garcetti gave a bad example there, as he has in many other cases.”

“There’s a little hypocrisy here on the part of Mr. Cooley,” Garcetti shot back. “He is the one that has put the muscle on judges and deputy D.A.s to contribute to his campaign.” Such contributions amounted to a conflict of interest, he said. “You can’t do that.”

Cooley defended his contributions, saying: “Judges, deputy D.A.s, defense attorneys, police officers have every right to participate in this process. . . . I welcome their support. These individuals know that something has gone very terribly wrong in our criminal justice system under Gil Garcetti.”

Cooley, a head deputy district attorney, entered the debate as the front-runner despite being little known to most voters. He came in first in a three-way primary March 7, trailed closely by Garcetti. A Los Angeles Times poll published Monday showed Cooley with a commanding, 55%-18% lead seven months before the November general election.