Latino Candidates Running Despite Fear of Split Vote

As filing for Los Angeles city elections opens today, a broad field of candidates assembling for mayor is expected to include two prominent Latinos, despite vigorous efforts by political leaders to get one of them to drop out of the race.

In three private meetings, Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina and former Clinton cabinet member Henry Cisneros urgently tried to convince their colleagues, would-be mayors Antonio Villaraigosa and Xavier Becerra, that one of them needed to pass on the race so the other could have a chance of winning.

But it appears that those efforts have failed. Both Becerra and Villaraigosa plan to run to replace Mayor Richard Riordan. And each will probably hamstring the other, most political experts agree.

The meetings underscore two real but uncomfortable facts of political life in Los Angeles. The first: As much as candidates and consultants publicly talk about reaching out to all communities, privately they concede that their mission is to establish a strong base, often an ethnic one, before seeking ways to attract enough other support to win. And the second: Although many politicians and others wish for a day when voters choose candidates regardless of race or gender, that day is not yet here.

For Latinos, in particular, expanding population and voter registration rolls have made the once-unobtainable mayor’s office appear tantalizingly within reach. No politician with Mexican American roots has been elected mayor of Los Angeles since 1870.

In this election, the attempt to eliminate competition between two promising officials, both of them Latino, was led by Cisneros, a former San Antonio mayor and secretary of housing and urban development, and Molina, one of Los Angeles’ most important public figures. In two meetings at Molina’s home and a third at a Sunset Boulevard office, the two political veterans presented themselves as neutral intermediaries, seeking to avert a collision between two promising politicians.

Cisneros and Molina suggested that they would help determine the better candidate by first measuring fund-raising, endorsements and popularity citywide and then asking the lagging candidate to leave the mayor’s race, preferably by last summer.

All four of the principals declined to discuss details of the secret negotiations. But those familiar with the meetings said the plans collapsed because Becerra refused to go along. When the four-term congressman insisted on continuing his mayoral bid--even if objective measures proved that he was not the stronger candidate--Cisneros and Molina became frustrated and broke off the discussions.

“For me, it is truly a lost opportunity,” Molina said in an interview last week, while declining to criticize Becerra. “It was the opportunity to build a very strong coalition and really have a shot of winning this thing and bringing some really great leadership to this city.”

Cisneros, who now works in San Antonio for a housing developer but lives part-time in Los Angeles, seconded those sentiments.

“I think it’s quite likely that neither one can make the [June election] runoff, if both are in the race,” Cisneros said. “That is really a shame for Latino ambitions in Los Angeles.”

Molina and Cisneros said they hold out a slim hope that either Becerra or Villaraigosa will not proceed with a formal filing for mayor, which is due in the city clerk’s office by Tuesday.

Questions of race and ethnicity are always emotionally charged, never more so than in Los Angeles, a city whose demographics are rapidly shifting. Latinos are on their way to becoming a majority, while the Anglo and African American populations are declining. Asians are growing faster than any other group, but are a relatively small slice of the overall population.

None of the six contenders is expected to be strong enough in the April 10 election to draw the majority of the vote needed to win the mayor’s office outright. The two top vote-getters are expected to go on to a June 5 runoff, possibly each with less than one quarter of the vote, not even 150,000 ballots in a city of nearly 4 million.

Many political consultants agree that candidates will fare best if they begin with solid bases--African Americans, Latinos or Republicans, for example--that will vote in large numbers for them. A candidate then must forage for votes with the rest of the electorate to prevail in the primary and, particularly, to succeed in the runoff.

Tom Bradley launched his breakthrough election in 1973 as the city’s first African American mayor from a base in South-Central Los Angeles. Bradley had no serious black challenger on his home turf, and went on to attract many other voters, particularly liberal whites on the Westside.

Two Candidates Have Different Styles

While united by their Mexican American heritage and their desire to become mayor, Becerra, 42, and Villaraigosa, 47, have markedly contrasting styles. Villaraigosa is effusive and restless. Becerra tends to be careful and poised.

Most political observers say Villaraigosa has established the more credible campaign--raising more money, attracting endorsements from a more varied group of leaders and leading slightly in early polls.

“I can still do this,” Villaraigosa said in an interview. “I had hoped to avoid running against a longtime friend. Unfortunately, Xavier wasn’t interested in working out a resolution.”

The emotion-laden dispute between them is heightened by their long and friendly personal relationship. Becerra even moved into Villaraigosa’s home at one time--in order to live in the district where he would launch his first run for Congress.

That shared history heightened the building tension as Molina and Cisneros called their first meeting, late in the summer of 1999. The two would-be candidates went to Molina’s home in Mt. Washington, near downtown Los Angeles, where Cisneros joined them.

According to sources familiar with the discussion, Molina and Cisneros said they would not dictate which of the two had the more legitimate chance at the mayor’s office. Instead, they proposed a procedure they believed would make it clear who should stay in the contest.

Cisneros talked about the pollsters who could be hired to help pick the stronger candidate. Once the results were in, he suggested, the four, together, could decide who should get out of the race. Or perhaps a larger committee of Latino leaders could be assembled to discuss the issue, the two mediators suggested.

From the beginning, Villaraigosa said he would abide by such an arrangement. But Becerra balked.

“We talked about the concept and the talk was, ‘Do you agree with this concept?’ ” Molina confirmed. “And [Xavier] said, ‘I don’t know if it’s true that there should be only one Latino candidate,’ and I said, ‘Xavier, any political consultant or anyone will tell you this is true. This is just the way the numbers work out.’ ”

But his personal political experience told Becerra not to bow to the conventional wisdom, the congressman said in an interview. He won a seat in the state Assembly and, later, his first run for Congress, when other candidates were backed by much of the Latino political establishment.

“My effort and vision to be mayor doesn’t rely on someone giving their blessing and saying, ‘You should run for mayor of Los Angeles,’ ” Becerra said. “It doesn’t work that way any more, if it ever did.”

Cisneros and Molina tried to convince him that running for mayor of the sprawling city would be much different, according to those familiar with the conversation. But Becerra was not convinced.

“I really believe that I will be able to connect with voters, whether Latino or otherwise,” he added. “A poll isn’t going to tell you that, or looking at money isn’t going to tell you that.”

Then, at a follow-up meeting at Molina’s home, Villaraigosa made a striking attempt to end the impasse. He said he would leave the mayor’s race, if Becerra would agree not to run for reelection to his House seat. Under that scenario, Becerra would have had a clear run as the only Latino in the mayor’s race. Villaraigosa, who left the Assembly because of term limits, would have been able last fall to run for Becerra’s vacated seat in Congress, thus creating a platform to carry on his political career.

Sources said Becerra declined the proposal, insisting that he should retain his House seat and then run for mayor. That position particularly galled Molina and Cisneros, who saw Becerra’s rejection of the “swap” proposal as selfish, the sources said.

The third and final meeting was held last year at the office building in Echo Park where Becerra has a field office and where Villaraigosa also once maintained an office. As they did at each of the other meetings, Becerra and Villaraigosa opened the session with a hug. But it soon became clear that the differences remained. It was “useless to continue to meet,” Molina said.

“It’s all for naught,” she said, “if they both go forward for what may be a futile exercise.”

Molina and Cisneros said they hope the election won’t continue to divide Latino leaders and voters.

Both said their drive to consolidate the Latino vote is only a pragmatic tactic to get a candidate into a runoff election. Once there, they said, either Becerra or Villaraigosa should and would be attuned to issues of concern to all of the city’s residents.

“After we have had our Tom Bradley, we can fight over these things,” Cisneros said. “But let’s establish the political beachhead first, before we play the traditional political game of dividing up the vote, the way it has been played by others for years.”

“I hope this can still be resolved, not only for this race but to set the pattern for future races,” Cisneros concluded. “Latino prospects are getting better and better in Los Angeles, but can always be blunted by candidates who split the vote.”