Sparks Fly in Final Mayoral Debate

The cracks that recently emerged in the polite facade of the Los Angeles mayor’s race expanded into wide fissures Wednesday night as several of the top candidates attacked one another in a wide-ranging and sometimes heated final debate before Tuesday’s election.

Previously calm discourses on school reform and traffic reduction gave way to caustic exchanges in which the candidates accused one another of failing to stop the Rampart scandal and of sidestepping campaign finance reform.

The three front-runners in recent polls, City Atty. James K. Hahn, former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and commercial real estate broker Steve Soboroff, sustained some of the hardest shots during the two-hour forum at UCLA, which was aired live on the city’s cable station, Channel 36.

Hahn was criticized for failing to do more to root out police abuse, while Villaraigosa had to answer for the letter he wrote five years ago to the White House on behalf of convicted cocaine trafficker Carlos Vignali. And Soboroff was accused of condoning racial profiling by police.

The debate, sponsored by Verizon Communications, will be rebroadcast on Channel 36 on Friday and Sunday at 8 p.m. and Monday at 9 p.m. It also will be shown in two parts on KCET-TV tonight and Friday at 7 p.m.

With six days left to campaign and a broad television audience watching them debate for the first time, most of the candidates seized the chance to bring their opponents down a notch.

State Controller Kathleen Connell set the tone in her opening statement when she criticized Villaraigosa and businessman Soboroff for benefiting from campaigns by the political parties that do not have to be reported to campaign finance officials.

“I tell you, Steve, you need to condemn this,” Connell said, turning to face him. “And we need to, all of us as candidates, take responsibility for the actions of our supporters.”

Soboroff had said earlier in the day that he does not agree with some of the contentious campaign mailers sent out by the Republican Party and that he would like the tactics to stop, but said he has not called party officials directly to tell them so.

Hahn and City Councilman Joel Wachs were soon on the hot seat, asked to explain why they had not done more about the Police Department’s Rampart scandal, despite the fact the City Council had been told in 1996 about the possible presence of a rogue police unit called the Rampart Reapers.

After a question from a media panel on the 1996 closed council session, Wachs said that he asked questions but was assured by then-Chief Willie L. Williams and his assistants that there were no problems in the police division.

“Therein lies the problem,” Wachs said. “The reason I called for an independent investigation of the Police Department from the beginning of Rampart was that I knew that police reform would not come from within. . . . Otherwise you just get stonewalled by the department, and you don’t have the ability to get independent information.”

Without naming Hahn or Wachs, Villaraigosa said that the 1996 incident proved that “city officials were sleeping on the watch.”

“They failed to implement the Christopher Commission reforms. They failed at the first, second and third chances to implement the reforms. Something is terribly wrong,” Villaraigosa added.

Hahn attempted to turn the question, instead, into a discussion of his work to negotiate a consent decree for federal oversight of the Police Department.

“I fought the mayor and I fought the police chief for the consent decree,” Hahn said, “to make sure . . . that the LAPD was held accountable.”

But that didn’t close the discussion. Soboroff, speaking next, said that the statements before the City Council about rogue Rampart officers weren’t the first warnings to Hahn’s office about abuses in the troubled police division. He cited a 1995 case in which he said a deputy city attorney warned about false testimony by two Rampart officers. Another warning came, he said, in the 1991 Christopher Commission report. And Soboroff cited USC law professor Erwin Chemerinksy’s calls for closer cooperation between the city attorney’s office and LAPD to reduce police misconduct.

The Republican businessman said Hahn had already had at least three opportunities to combat abuses like the Rampart scandal. “This is baseball season, folks, and three strikes and you are out, and not three strikes and you are mayor,” Soboroff concluded.

That broke the repose of the normally reserved city attorney. Speaking out of turn and over the objections of moderator Xandra Kayden, Hahn snapped at Soboroff: “You have no credibility on police reform issues.”

Hahn faced Soboroff and loudly proclaimed: “You are the only one up here who has refused to back the consent decree. You are the one candidate who has declined to agree to end racial profiling. If there is one candidate that people can eliminate on the issue of police reform, it is you.”

After Kayden had restored order, Soboroff stammered, seeking the right retort.

“To say that I am for racial profiling,” Soboroff said, “. . . It, it, it’s childish. To talk as a politician: Do we have [racial profiling] or don’t we have it. It’s a waste of time. Guess what? We have it. Let’s move now to train people so we don’t have it again.”

For Villaraigosa, the most difficult moment came when he was asked about the letter he wrote to the White House five years ago on behalf of convicted drug trafficker Vignali. The former legislator conceded that he made a mistake.

“I do not believe he was wrongfully convicted and, no, I don’t believe that he should have received a commutation,” Villaraigosa said. Repeating his earlier description of the incident, Villaraigosa said he was trying to accommodate Vignali’s father, a friend and Democratic campaign contributor.

But Wachs said the action had serious ramifications.

“The hard part for a number of people who have sons or daughters in prison,” Wachs said, “is that they see that the system of justice doesn’t work equally for them.”

Hahn tried to exploit the issue by saying that Villaraigosa also had voted against legislation to help crack down on street gangs when he was in the Assembly. While Villaraigosa did not answer that charge, he was allowed the final word on the topic.

“I have clearly acknowledged I made a mistake,” he said. “The people of this city will have to decide whether that mistake is enough to blemish an unparalleled six years of public service.”

The debate was mostly calmer after that, although Hahn used his closing remarks in part to take another shot at Villaraigosa and Soboroff for benefiting from expenditures by the two political parties.

Hahn said secret contributions by the state Republican and Democratic parties have undermined the city’s tough campaign reform law.

The candidates had been spoiling for a fight for several days and they warmed to the battle earlier Wednesday.

Even as they waited backstage at UCLA’s Royce Hall for the debate to begin, Soboroff and Hahn squared off in a brief, face-to-face shouting match. The incident began when Hahn told a bank of television cameras that Villaraigosa and Soboroff should ask their political parties to disclose the source of the funding for their member communication campaigns.

Soboroff walked up behind his rival.

“Here’s Steve, you can tell him yourself,” a reporter said.

So Hahn turned and confronted the real estate broker. “Steve, who is funding these campaigns?” he said.

Soboroff dismissed the question as “the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever heard.” He accused Hahn of being “desperate.”

Their voices rose as Soboroff tried to turn the argument toward the Rampart scandal. The television cameras closed in. Both men stared each other down under the glare of the lights. “Jim, you’re shaking,” Soboroff said.

“I’m not shaking,” Hahn retorted. “All we want to know is who contributed the money.” Finally, Hahn’s staffers pulled their candidate away.

“I feel sorry for him,” Soboroff muttered as he stalked away.