In D.A. Race, Motherhood Becomes as Sensitive an Issue as Gun Control

First, the thrust: Incumbent Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti basically accused challenger Steve Cooley on Tuesday of dissing mothers everywhere by failing to endorse Sunday’s Million Mom March against gun violence.

Then, the parry: Cooley responded that he would have loved to have attended the march, but thought it was more important to spend Mother’s Day with his own mother, who was in a hospital recovering from a heart attack.

In other words, motherhood is now an issue in the campaign for Los Angeles County district attorney, a race that began ugly and just keeps getting uglier.

To be sure, Garcetti insisted Tuesday that he hadn’t known Cooley’s mother was ill and, naturally, wished her well. His attack, he said, was aimed at illustrating a larger point--that he has a strong record of support for gun control measures and Cooley “sounds more and more like an NRA-backed candidate.”

Cooley, who has said in the past that he is not a member or supporter of the National Rifle Assn., responded that he favors strong gun control measures and that Garcetti’s attack was simply “the latest desperate effort to divert attention from the real issues of the campaign.” He said those are the Rampart police scandal, the county’s troubled child support system and Garcetti’s failure to prosecute environmental crimes in the Belmont Learning Complex construction project.

Garcetti and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca were at the head of a march in Westwood on Sunday, one of two local demonstrations in support of the Million Mom March in Washington. The march was in support of strong gun control legislation. Cooley was not at the Westwood demonstration, prompting Garcetti to issue his statement Tuesday.

“If Steve Cooley feels he cannot endorse the Million Mom March and help put an end to gun violence, then I shudder to think about how he really feels on gun control,” the prosecutor said. “This is just another indication that Steve Cooley cannot be trusted to support common-sense gun control legislation.”

Cooley said he spent Sunday at Saddleback Hospital and Health Center in Laguna Beach, where his mother, Mary Jean Cooley, was admitted late Thursday after suffering a heart attack. He said she was released Sunday night and is doing well.

Cooley said he was invited to attend the march by Marsha Wilson, a friend of Saul and Petra Zavala, whose daughter and niece were shot to death while walking to Lynwood High School last year. The Zavalas have been critical of Garcetti’s failure to obtain extradition of a suspect in the killing from Mexico. Mexican authorities have balked because Garcetti has refused to rule out seeking a death sentence in the case.

Wilson confirmed that Cooley called her Saturday to say he couldn’t make it to the march because of his mother’s health.

The skirmish over the march reflected Garcetti’s effort to shift the debate in the race to his challenger’s record and paint Cooley as a right-wing zealot. Garcetti came in second to Cooley in the March 7 primary election and is trailing the challenger, one of his top deputies, as they head toward a Nov. 7 runoff.

Garcetti has challenged Cooley on gun control in their debates and specifically attacked him Tuesday for statements Cooley has made criticizing “feel-good laws” on guns. Such language, Garcetti charged, “closely resembles the statements of the gun lobby.”

Cooley responded angrily. “He can call it anything he wants,” he said.

He said he supports many gun control measures--trigger locks, a ban on assault weapons, licensing of gun owners--but believes there have been other measures enacted “by politicians posturing at news conferences” to take advantage of tragedies.

As an example, he cited proposals to ban the sale of ammunition in cities, such as Los Angeles, when bullets could be easily purchased in surrounding jurisdictions.

“It makes everybody feel good, but it doesn’t have an impact,” he said.

He accused Garcetti of failing to fully enforce existing gun laws, specifically citing the cases of Brian Patrick Ballou and Robert Rosenkrantz, sons of prominent, politically connected attorneys who critics say were treated leniently by the district attorney’s office in unrelated cases involving the use of firearms.

Garcetti responded that both cases were handled by deputies and that he was not responsible for any leniency. “We are vigorously enforcing all gun laws,” he said. “We do that every day.”