Garcetti Refuses to Debate Opponents in District Attorney Race

The Los Angeles County Criminal Courts Bar Assn. plans to hold a debate among candidates for district attorney Feb. 11, despite incumbent Gil Garcetti’s refusal to appear alongside challengers Steve Cooley and Barry Groveman.

Attorney Barry Levin, the group’s president, said Friday that he was told by Garcetti campaign spokesman Bill Carrick that any debate simply would turn into an attack on the incumbent.

“I understand that,” Levin said, acknowledging that a 1996 debate sponsored by his group resulted in “opponents stocking the audience with errant D.A.s” who used the event to criticize Garcetti.

Three lawyers groups and a few radio and TV programs have extended invitations for Garcetti to debate his challengers, but he believes the public is well aware of where he stands on issues and hence does not need to see him debate, according to Carrick.

Cooley, a career prosecutor, and Groveman, an environmental defense lawyer, say the debates are crucial to leveling the playing field in a contest in which Garcetti has several times as much money to spend on the March 7 primary.

“Debates are an important aspect of democracy. They would be reported on by the independent media,” Cooley said. “They can’t be bought the way television ads can be.”

Garcetti, Groveman said, “is going to engage in a campaign to mislead the public through paid television spots.”

The challengers cited a television commercial Garcetti aired in the last three weeks of the 1996 race, which showed a picture of opponent John Lynch’s face rippling and changing colors while a narrator criticized the challenger for his role in the McMartin preschool molestation case and the prosecution of financier Charles H. Keating Jr. Lynch’s campaign called the ad misleading, while the Garcetti camp stood by it.

Garcetti ultimately beat Lynch by 5,000 votes out of 2.2 million cast.

Carrick said a debate among the three candidates would descend into an assault on Garcetti by his opponents. “It would be a food fight with the two of them frothing at the mouth,” he said, adding that “I don’t think anything will be gained by him or the public.”

Garcetti’s challengers, however, said taking criticism is part of holding public office. “Nothing I would say could be worse or embarrass him more than what he has done,” Groveman said. “He has an obligation to debate his legacy. He has a report card and he has to explain it.”

Cooley said participation in debates is itself a campaign issue. “How can we trust a person to go to court on behalf of the people when he is afraid to go before the court of public opinion?” he said.

Garcetti is seeking his third term. A career prosecutor, he was first elected in 1992.

Cooley heads the district attorney’s welfare fraud unit and has led the Antelope Valley and San Fernando branch offices in his 26-year career.

Groveman is a private lawyer who has been a paid legal advisor to the Los Angeles Unified School District for 10 years.