Gays, Arts Community at Heart of Wachs’ Bid

To gain insight into Joel Wachs’ life, one needs to look no further than his campaign finance statements.

As the city’s first openly gay candidate for mayor, he has collected money from gays and lesbians nationwide. And as a longtime patron of the arts, his contributor list is packed with the names of dozens of actors, artists, singers, writers, musicians and producers--the moneyed cultural elite of Los Angeles and elsewhere.

“These are the people I know,” Wachs said. “You go to the people you know.”

Although Wachs said early in his campaign that he would not make issue of his sexuality, he estimates that 15% to 20% of the $1.9 million he has raised in his bid for mayor has come from gays and lesbians.

According to Wachs’ campaign finance statements, the Gay and Mayor’s Race

Lesbian Victory Fund in Washington has served as an intermediary on more than 45 donations totaling $10,000.

David Mixner, a gay advocate and longtime political fund-raiser, recently sent a letter to more than 7,000 people across the country urging them to donate to Wachs.

“We have an extraordinary opportunity in Los Angeles to elect the first openly gay mayor of a major American city,” Mixner wrote. He added: “Please be generous and join me in making history.”

In an interview, Mixner said there were additional reasons for his decision to support Wachs.

“I’ve worked with Joel on a lot of civil liberty and civil rights issues over the years,” Mixner said. “He has always been there . . . and no one comes close to Joel in supporting the arts.”

But not all gay organizations are as supportive. Eric Bauman, the president of the Stonewall Democratic Club, said his group opted to support Antonio Villaraigosa because it believes Wachs--who was once registered as a Republican--is too conservative.

“I think that having an openly gay mayor in a major city in America would be a wonderful occurrence for gays and lesbians in L.A.,” Bauman said. “Having a mayor that brings the city back together is more important. Joel has spent over 20 years on the City Council, picking issues and using them to divide people.

“The city is cleaved right now, on ethnic and economic lines.”

And that division is reflected in the mayoral money game. Overall, Wachs lags behind three other mayoral candidates who have largely counted on lawyers and business officials as their core financial backers.

At the close of the latest filing period last week, commercial real estate broker Steve Soboroff had raised $3.6 million, while City Atty. James K. Hahn had collected $3.3 million. Former Assembly Speaker Villaraigosa, meanwhile, had raised $2.4 million.

Wachs, who posted $1,902,217 in contributions, also trailed those contenders in terms of cash on hand, with about $331,000.

Nevertheless, the councilman said he is not worried.

“Since the filing closed, we have raised a couple hundred thousand dollars more,” Wachs said. “The money is still coming in. A number of my arts friends who contributed early have put in more.”

The councilman created the city’s arts endowment, then helped it grow from $3 million to $17 million annually. He also fought for civil rights--writing the city’s laws prohibiting discrimination against gays and those with AIDS.

He has made a practice of spending one-fourth of his salary, now $133,051 a year, on art. A decade ago, the collection--which includes works by Andy Warhol, Sam Francis and Helen Frankenthaler--was valued at $500,000. An art magazine credited Wachs with having one of the top private collections in the country. Wachs built the assemblage of paintings, sculpture and photographs by buying works by many young artists before their work gained acclaim and high price tags.

Following up with his connections in the arts community, Wachs traveled to New York City last year for a fund-raiser at the home of the president of the Museum of Modern Art. He brought in more than $50,000 during that trip. Since then, Wachs estimates that he has held more than 150 fund-raisers. Many of them have been at art galleries or the homes of artists, art patrons and actors.

Last summer, Anjelica Huston and her husband, sculptor Robert Graham, hosted a fund-raiser for him at their house, while on the campaign trail Wachs received a $500 check from Broadway entertainer Tommy Tune. Jack Nicholson and Michael Douglas made contributions of $1,000 each.

On Saturday night, he attended a small dinner party at the Hancock Park home of two of his supporters, one of them a downtown lawyer. Billed as “an evening in Provence,” the $350-a-person dinner featured a performance by several opera singers. By the end of the night, Wachs had collected about $25,000 from a mix of people, among them the producer of the television show “Frasier.”

Although he has received several large checks, the core of his campaign consists of hundreds of small donations. His accountants estimate that more than 4,000 contributions have been made since the start of the race.

Wachs has refused to allow reporters to attend his fund-raisers, mostly to protect the privacy of the people at the events, he said.

Even so, candidates are required to make public the names of their contributors. Here is a sampling of some of his supporters:

* A dozen Disney employees and executives donated about $5,000.

* Carol Eliel, the curator of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, donated $500--as did Ann Goldstein, the curator at MOCA.

* Actor Paul Reubens (a.k.a. Pee-wee Herman) contributed $1,000.

* Steven Feder, owner of the Psychic Network, wrote a $250 check at the Huston-Graham party for Wachs.

Although the bulk of his financial efforts have focused on groups outside City Hall, Wachs received about $15,000 from lobbyists last year, compared with $22,800 for Hahn and $16,500 for Villaraigosa. Officials from the House of Blues donated $2,000 to Wachs, who led the charge to open the bidding process for operation of the Greek Theatre.

Wachs has also received more than $105,000 in out-of-state contributions, many of them from New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. Someone in Alaska sent two checks, totaling $200, to support Wachs’ mayoral bid.

Campaign consultant Joe Cerrell said he ran into Wachs recently on a trip to New York, where the councilman was going to attend an opening of a new gallery.

“[The artistic community] is always involved in politics,” Cerrell said. “But Joel is someone they can really relate to. He is interested in fine arts and entertainment. This is his hobby, and they know it will be a high priority of his if he is elected.”