Delgadillo Treads a Political Tightrope

Six months after generous spending by outdoor advertising interests helped propel Rocky Delgadillo into the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, the city’s top lawyer has found himself in the politically awkward position of urging that tough anti-billboard measures be scuttled.

Delgadillo said he based his recommendation to rescind or rewrite the ordinances on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that knocked out a similar measure in Massachusetts. The ruling, issued in June, has other cities across the nation reconsidering their bans.

Delgadillo offered several suggestions on ways to crack down on billboard blight in a letter sent Tuesday to City Council President Alex Padilla and to Mayor James K. Hahn, who also was the beneficiary of spending by billboard interests in this year’s elections.

Keeping the Los Angeles measure on the books “would expose our city to unnecessary liability,” Delgadillo wrote.

“However, let me be clear,” the letter continued. “While the Supreme Court may have rendered one tool in our arsenal unconstitutional, we will not rest until we fully protect our children from the insidious and cynical tactics of the alcohol, tobacco and billboard companies to sell dangerous products to our children.”

The council is tentatively scheduled to consider rescinding the ordinances next week.

Court Cites Free Speech

At issue are the 1998 measures championed by then-Councilman Mike Feuer, whom Delgadillo defeated in the race for city attorney on June 5. Three weeks later, the nation’s high court overturned a Massachusetts ban on tobacco ads near playgrounds and schools, saying, in effect, that so-called content-based restrictions violated advertisers’ free speech rights.

The Los Angeles measures banned alcohol and tobacco billboards and other signs within 1,000 feet of wherever children congregate--including homes, playgrounds, churches and youth centers. The following year, a coalition of grocers, alcohol and billboard interests filed suit in federal court over the alcohol-sign restrictions in the ordinances. (The lawsuit did not challenge the city’s restrictions on tobacco ads, largely because a federal settlement with the tobacco companies already had banned those ads.)

The suit still is pending, but widely expected to be dropped if the city repeals the measures.

When Feuer and Delgadillo emerged as the leading candidates for city attorney last spring, two media companies spent about $429,000 on billboards touting Delgadillo across the city. Although the expenditures were made independently of Delgadillo’s campaign, he nonetheless benefited from them and took heat for them.

Feuer charged that the firms, which he had angered with his ordinance and other attempts to crack down on billboards, were hoping to “buy” a friendlier city attorney in Delgadillo.

Delgadillo repeatedly said during the campaign that he would not be beholden to billboard interests or others that spent money on his behalf. His move Tuesday seemingly sought to balance his office’s recommendation to repeal the ordinance with several anti-billboard recommendations.

Among them was a proposal to use some of the city’s share of federal tobacco settlement funds to buy space on billboards near schools and put up anti-smoking and anti-drinking messages. Others included further extending the citywide ban on new billboards (recently extended for an additional six months), “until we can fashion a lasting solution that protects all the children of Los Angeles from alcohol and tobacco billboard advertising.” That would include possibly rewriting the 1998 measures to conform to the high court ruling and stepping up enforcement efforts to eliminate illegal billboards.

Ben Austin, Delgadillo’s communications director, said the proposals represent “creative solutions to a difficult constitutional problem.”

“It’s absolutely legitimate to raise questions about perceptions created by an independent expenditure campaign that Rocky had no control over,” Austin added. “But the reality is Rocky has been as tough on billboards and as aggressive in protecting our children and as creative in dealing with this constitutional quandary as any other leader in the city.”

Robert M. Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies, an expert in political campaign finance reform, said he would have preferred that Delgadillo recuse himself from any matters involving the billboard industry. However, he applauded the city attorney’s efforts Tuesday.

“If he can show he is making policy that is hurting the billboard companies, then that shows a lot of independence and shows the billboard companies didn’t succeed in what they are trying to do,” Stern said.

Connection Is Dismissed

A spokesman for Hahn, who as Delgadillo’s predecessor helped craft the twin ordinances and negotiate the federal anti-tobacco settlement, said the mayor supports Delgadillo’s efforts to preserve at least some of the original measures’ goals. But the spokesman, Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook, said Hahn would not support using federal settlement funds to buy billboard space when there are so many other pressing needs.

Middlebrook also dismissed any connection between the $260,000 that billboard firms spent on Hahn’s behalf and the mayor’s stance on outdoor advertising issues. “Any such insinuation flies in the face of the mayor’s positions and actions over the years,” Middlebrook said.

Feuer, now in private law practice, said he welcomed Delgadillo’s goal of salvaging as much of the original ordinances as possible through revisions or new legislation. But he, like Hahn, disagreed with Delgadillo’s proposal to buy sign space from the billboard companies.

“There is no question that any anti-smoking message is better than none, but we have to prioritize, and I believe it is better to spend exceptionally scarce resources on after-school programs and immunizations and other things that directly benefit our kids than to provide a windfall for the billboard companies,” Feuer said.

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Times staff writer Matea Gold contributed to this report.