Oliver Stone Changes Script, Backs a Republican

Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale) stands little chance of beating his Democratic rival, Adam Schiff, in the race for Hollywood campaign money but has won over one seemingly unlikely supporter: film director Oliver Stone.

The director of “Nixon” and “JFK” has given more than $10,000 to Democrats in recent years, including $5,000 in 1998 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which fights to unseat Republicans like Rogan.

But Stone threw his support behind the conservative congressman after listening to him at a June 10 fund-raiser.

From the back of a room overlooking the ocean, he listened to Rogan recall his boyhood as the son of a welfare mother and his role as a House prosecutor in the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton.

“I was impressed by his honesty about his impeachment vote, his impoverished background and his resulting understanding of how to make welfare intelligent and work for everyone, not just throwing money at it,” Stone said through an assistant.

Rogan’s campaign says it received a $1,000 donation from Stone about a week after the fund-raiser.

Rogan, whose district includes the Burbank studios of Warner Bros., Disney and NBC, and the Glendale animation campus of DreamWorks, has accused Clinton “and his Hollywood liberal friends” of waging “destructive warfare against me” as payback for impeachment.

Indeed, a long list of celebrities on Hollywood’s A-list have donated to Schiff, a Burbank state senator: actors Michael Douglas and Richard Dreyfuss; musicians Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and Don Henley; and DreamWorks titans David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, to name a few.

But Rogan is still popular with some studio brass. The Motion Picture Assn. of America hosted a fund-raiser for him in Washington on June 12, collecting $12,000 from studio lobbyists and others, Rogan campaign manager Jason Roe said.

TO NET OR NOT: A direct mail blitzkrieg by consumer journalist David Horowitz, who is dissing Councilman Alex Padilla’s open-access Internet proposal, resulted in one mailer reaching enemy territory, er, mailbox.

Turns out a Horowitz attack letter was mailed to Padilla’s press deputy, David Gershwin. He received the anti-Padilla letter and the enclosed prepaid postcard addressed to City Council President John Ferraro. The postcard urges council members “to oppose the Padilla bill when it comes up for a vote before the City Council.”

The Padilla bill would regulate cable companies providing Internet access, which the councilman says is necessary to protect consumers and hold those companies accountable.

Horowitz, whose mug is cropping up all over recent TV and newspaper ads blasting Padilla’s policy, is shilling for Hands Off the Internet.

HOTI’s Web page (https://www.handsofftheinternet.org) bills itself as “a coalition of Net users united in the belief that the Internet’s phenomenal growth stems from the ability of entrepreneurs to expand consumer choices and opportunities without worrying about government regulation.”

But there’s more to “Net users” than meets the eye. Click deeper into the Web page to see who HOTI’s members are, and AT&T; pops up.

There’s even a hot link to a brusque AT&T; announcement that it would conduct a test to integrate multiple Internet service providers into a “high-speed, always-on cable network.” This move, says attorney Peter Arnold, director of Hands Off the Internet, “gives the [Internet service providers] a chance to pull themselves out of a hole--a hole that they dug themselves into.”

With its aggressive media and direct mail campaign in L.A., Hands Off the Internet must be spending a tidy sum here.

Dollar for lobbying dollar, the open-access issue was the No. 1 project in the first quarter of this year, according to the city’s Ethics Commission. Lobbying reports show that nearly $250,000 was spent.

And the biggest spender on open access? That’s AT&T; calling . . . with $163,991 for various lobbyist expenses.

SECESSION 101: Valleyites may bolster their pro-secession arguments by criticizing the city for their “stepchild” status and less-than-equal city services. Some may cite overcrowded schools as ample reason to break off from Los Angeles Unified School District.

But Councilwoman Laura Chick recently suggested that municipal divorce will happen anyway. The culprit: the 101 Freeway.

Speaking to chamber of commerce types at City Hall last week, Chick said transit issues are among her top priorities, and the Valley is desperate for even short-term fixes for the clogged freeway.

Conditions on the 101 are so bad, she said, “we will have secession no matter what, because people in the Valley won’t be able to get out.”

NATE THE NAVIGATOR: Councilman Nate Holden was chided earlier this year when he requested--and received, at city expense--a $45,223 sport utility vehicle. Many at City Hall criticized the Lincoln Navigator 2000 as too luxurious for municipal duty, while others said its less-than-stellar emissions record set a bad example for a city already choking from diesel smoke and smog.

But speaking earlier this week, Holden notes that the flashy, slate-colored SUV has given him extra visibility and name recognition.

The councilman was in the area of the post-Lakers victory riot and said the crowd instantly recognized him in his Navigator.

While boisterous crowds destroyed two LAPD patrol cars, damaged two television vans and kicked a limousine, Holden said many in the crowd recognized his SUV and didn’t lay a finger on it.

Fans were no problem, the councilman said, and most people were out simply to have a good time.

When they recognized his Navigator, the throngs, Holden said, probably muttered to themselves, “Here he comes. There he is. There he goes.”