Being an Incumbent Has Many Benefits

The contest for mayor of Los Angeles is growing increasingly tense as Tuesday’s election approaches, with much of the heat generated by attacks on the records of the most experienced candidates. But the assaults have not masked an essential truth: In politics, incumbency almost always provides a crucial boost.

Its benefits are immeasurable: a battle-tested army of aides, ready attention from the media, and that most important political asset of all, access to money.

The age-old practice of leapfrogging from one office to the next has grown more urgent and necessary as politicians face term limits, which guarantee them unemployment if they can’t win a new job.

Gone are the days when a city councilman like Joel Wachs could hold the same job for nearly 30 years. (Wachs, a mayoral candidate, is banned from running again for the council.) Nowadays, politicians appear to be searching for their next job almost as soon as they are elected.

Los Angeles’ election next week represents only the latest example. Among the candidates who are currently or were until recently in office: U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, state Controller Kathleen Connell, City Atty. James K. Hahn, former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and Wachs, all running for mayor; City Council member Laura Chick, aiming for city controller; and former state Sen. Tom Hayden, running for City Council.

“I’ve seen guys over the years leave local office telling the voters they’re going to the state level, where they’re really needed,” said Bob Mulholland, campaign advisor to the state Democratic Party. “Then several years later, they’re running for county supervisor saying that’s where they’re really needed. . . . The vast majority of people running for office are in another office.”

Ask political consultants and others whether they would prefer to work for incumbents or novices and the answer is nearly universal: incumbents. By far.

First and foremost, they say, is the sheer ability to raise money. Many politicians already have a cadre of special-interest groups, lawyers, lobbyists and others willing to contribute in the name of access.

“If you’re Jimmy Hahn or Joel Wachs, you have Rolodexes the size of oil drums of people you’ve helped for decades,” said Ace Smith, who is running the campaign of businessman Steve Soboroff. “You just dial for dollars.”

Second, these consultants and others say, is the related benefit of name recognition. First-time candidates like Soboroff must spend a tremendous amount of their precious campaign contributions on advertising just to introduce themselves to voters.

“The advantage of incumbency is amazing,” said Rick Taylor, a veteran Los Angeles political consultant. “There is no dollar figure you can put on it.”

Additionally, incumbents typically have far more experience with the issues--or at least with finessing their answers--than outside candidates.

At a recent mayoral debate, for example, Wachs said he was so busy with city business that he didn’t have time to prepare. He didn’t need it.

“We were asked questions for an hour and a half. By my experience, I was able to answer every question,” Wachs said. “I didn’t have to hire a staff to tell me what to say.”

And that suggests another benefit to incumbency: Elected officials often ask their prized staff members to take a leave from their government jobs to help on the campaign. Other aides use their vacations or evenings and weekends to work on their bosses’ races.

“They have a million-dollar staff,” said Taylor, the political consultant, referring to incumbents. “To have those people with that kind of knowledge and resources . . . they know where the bodies are buried. They know every issue you’ve ever done.

“My own staff has been trying to get the city’s sign ordinance for weeks,” Taylor said. “If I was a councilman, my staff would have had it in minutes.”

Not only are staff members likely to pitch in, but so are other officeholders with whom incumbents have developed relationships. For example: Sen. Barbara Boxer and Gov. Gray Davis have endorsed Villaraigosa, with whom they worked when he was Assembly speaker.

It all boils down to a substantial difference between the campaigns that can be waged by incumbents and by the average first-time candidate.

So Ken Gerston, who is running for City Council against Hayden, is sending out lots of glossy mailers--with pictures of his family and parents. Even his wife is out knocking on doors. Council candidate Jack Weiss, who is running against Gerston and Hayden, is trying potholders, the traditional political gimmick.

Compare that with the efforts of incumbents, blessed with the benefits of their current offices:

Councilman Wachs sent out city directories to voters far outside his district--at taxpayers’ expense--before city ethics laws came into effect and prevented it. Council member Chick, the city controller candidate, teamed up with Wachs to sponsor a motion to increase the budget for graffiti removal across the city; Connell, the state controller running for mayor, held a state hearing in Los Angeles on the hotly contested development at Playa Vista.

Councilman Mike Feuer, who is running for city attorney, wrote a highly publicized proposal to ban small, easily concealed handguns and to require purchasers of other firearms to provide a thumbprint. Hahn, the city attorney aiming for mayor, made local and statewide headlines when he sued Southern California Gas and other natural gas suppliers, accusing them of a massive conspiracy to eliminate competition, drive up prices and exploit deregulation of the electricity industry.

In the world of campaigns, there is nothing better than earned media--free television and radio exposure--as opposed to paid media or costly advertisements.

As an incumbent, “you have more reason and opportunity to be public . . . on interview shows, in newspapers, on television,” said Steve Afriat, a political consultant handling Chick’s campaign for controller. “You advise incumbents on where to put priorities in terms of the message they want to present to voters.”

There is, however, a fine line for incumbents between political work and legitimate city business. It is a line that sometimes gets crossed, particularly in City Hall, but most politicians are too busy doing it themselves to challenge a competitor on it.

The city’s Ethics Commission attempts to clarify those lines before, during and after city elections. Laws governing political activity were created to ensure a more level playing field for outside candidates, according to Ethics Commission Executive Director LeeAnn M. Pelham.

City officials, for example, cannot use or authorize the use of city offices, stationery, telephones, cars or equipment for any campaign activity. They cannot engage in any fund-raising or campaign activities during paid city time. They cannot knowingly solicit contributions for or against political candidates from any city officials or employees and they cannot receive, deliver or attempt to deliver a political contribution in City Hall or any other city office building.

“There’s no reason, in my view, that city officials can say they’re clueless about this,” Pelham said.

The well-defined law explains why Mayor Richard Riordan recently walked reporters outside his City Hall office to discuss his support for several candidates in Tuesday’s election. Just being on the safe side, his staff explained.

Starting With a Clean Slate

But there are some disadvantages to incumbency. Incumbents have records for their opponents to plumb; they lack the new candidate’s clean and uncontradicted slate. The sharpest accusations against Hahn, for example, have centered on the Rampart police scandal and other matters that occurred on his watch. Former Speaker Villaraigosa and Rep. Becerra have come under fire for their involvement in the case of convicted drug dealer Carlos Vignali, whose sentence was commuted by former President Bill Clinton during his last hours in office.

Another major disadvantage for a current incumbent is time. Spend too much time on the campaign, and your performance in office is criticized. Spend too much time doing your job, and the campaign suffers.

“I can’t make it to every mayoral debate,” Connell said recently. “But I think the people realize that I have a significant and demanding job.”

Hahn said: “I have two full-time jobs. . . . It’s been difficult. I spent a lot of time last year on the [Los Angeles Police Department] consent decree. I’m sure my campaign staff would like me to have done other things than be held up in a conference room for days at a time.”

For those running incumbents’ campaigns, such time conflicts can be frustrating. But for those on the outside, it’s a definite plus.

“We get a lot of his time,” said Parke Skelton, the campaign consultant for the otherwise unemployed Villaraigosa. “He doesn’t have the interference of an elected office. I would say that’s the primary advantage.”

But if you ask Villaraigosa, he’ll tell you straight: “Would I prefer to be speaker right now? Absolutely, because of the advantages I see with the other candidates. If I call a press conference on the [Police Department’s] consent decree, no one shows up. If you do it as speaker, everyone’s there. . . . And, you can raise more money if you’re already in elected office.”

(Not that Villaraigosa has suffered much: His tenure in the Assembly paved the way for endorsements, substantial campaign money and valuable alliances with labor and other organized groups.)

Newcomers often have only one way to offset the advantages of incumbency: a hefty bank account.

Soboroff, a commercial real estate broker, has put more than $680,000 of his own money into the mayoral campaign. He says he has been forced to work harder raising money and spreading his message--and his name--to mostly disinterested voters.

Soboroff tailored his campaign to maximize his outsider qualities: “a problem solver, not a politician.” (Soboroff isn’t exactly an outsider, however. He served as an unpaid advisor to Riordan, who has endorsed him, and he is a former city Recreation and Parks Department commissioner. He headed into the race’s final week as one of the top three candidates, according to a Los Angeles Times poll.)

“I think it’s healthy,” Soboroff said recently, referring to his candidacy. “. . . I have this incredible amount of passion and energy and willingness. . . . I’m advantaged because I don’t need the job. I’m not term-limited out.”

Still, Soboroff complains these days of tendinitis in his arm. An occupational hazard, perhaps. He got it, he says, from shaking so many hands on the campaign trail.