Mayoral Race Means a Secession Balancing Act

With a well-organized movement pushing for the breakup of Los Angeles, the major candidates for mayor are walking a fine line between their opposition to secession and their need to avoid alienating voters in the breakaway areas.

All six leading contenders are sympathetic with secessionists’ complaints about poor city service and a feeling of being disconnected from city government. But each proposes an individual way to thread the political needle, offering an array of different ideas for how to address the unhappiness that fuels secession while rejecting breakup as the solution.

“There is an answer short of secession: the government giving people a responsive government in which they have a voice,” said City Councilman Joel Wachs, one of 24 candidates vying to become mayor.

Answers such as that are typical of the candidates, and on the surface suggest that each has similar stakes and interests in the secession debate. In fact, however, secession is a far more perilous issue for some of the contenders than for others.

That’s because Wachs, businessman Steve Soboroff and state Controller Kathleen Connell are counting heavily on the San Fernando Valley as a base of support, and their core constituencies are generally voters who are disenchanted with City Hall.

City Atty. James K. Hahn, former Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa and Rep. Xavier Becerra all need to do well in the Valley, but they have strong constituencies outside the Valley, and all tend to see the city’s problems in less dire terms than their rivals do.

Stumbling on the issue could be costly: The breakaway areas of the Valley, Hollywood and the harbor district contain 44.5% of city residents and 48.1% of registered voters. In November, 48% of all city votes were cast in the Valley.

A poll by The Times two years ago found that 60% of Valley voters supported secession and 47% of voters citywide favored a breakup.

As they address those voters and the secession issue generally, the six leading mayoral candidates cover a narrow spectrum. They have used symbolism and subtly nuanced stands to telegraph their sympathies--putting campaign offices in the Valley, for instance, or, in the cases of Soboroff and Wachs, endorsing breakup of the school district, a proposal closely connected in local politics to municipal breakup.

At one end is Wachs, a Studio City resident who signed the petition by Valley VOTE that triggered a cityhood study for the San Fernando Valley. He said he believes it is important for voters to decide for themselves whether they should have their own government.

In contrast, Hahn said he did not sign the petition that launched a similar study in San Pedro. Though he now supports the study that is underway, Hahn is pledged to fight any cityhood proposal that makes the ballot.

“These secessionist movements are a symptom of frustration with government and not a solution,” Hahn said.

The other leading contenders live in areas of the city where no cityhood petition was circulated.

Of those, only Connell said she would not have signed a petition for a cityhood study if one had been presented to her. “I’m comfortable with my services in my area of the city,” said the West Los Angeles resident.

In varying ways--and even while disavowing secession generally--the candidates have all appealed to the breakaway areas. Wachs has pledged to appoint harbor-area residents to a majority of the Harbor Commission seats, and Soboroff and Connell have each pledged to work at least two days a week in the Valley if elected.

Hahn and Soboroff recently opened their campaign offices in the Valley, even though neither lives there. Connell announced her candidacy in front of Van Nuys City Hall.

More substantively, Soboroff and Wachs have emerged as the campaign’s leading proponents of school district breakup, an idea with substantial support among secession advocates. Soboroff ventured that controversial opinion even at a time when his most important supporter, Mayor Richard Riordan, was publicly wary of the notion.

The idea of breaking up Los Angeles has been discussed for decades, but only in the last three years have activists organized the campaigns necessary to trigger formal studies of secession proposals. The Valley and harbor-area studies may come out in March, which should guarantee that the issue remains a major one in the April 10 election.

As the secession notion touches new areas of the city, it has begun to generate significant opposition as well, a development that further complicates the political calculus for the would-be mayors.

Squaring off against the leading secession proponents are some organized labor officials, who worry that new cities might adopt work rules less favorable to unions. Hahn and Villaraigosa are engaged in a fierce struggle for union support, and Becerra also considers himself a friend of organized labor.

The union representing blue collar city workers says it has secured pledges from Hahn, Becerra and Villaraigosa to “fight efforts to divide the city of Los Angeles.”

But in an indication of how sensitive the topic is, Becerra later denied signing the pledge, saying he plans to fight a breakup only after it makes the ballot. Villaraigosa, who also opposes a breakup, tried to distance himself by saying an aide had signed for him.

“Working to keep the city together is a real big issue for us,” said Julie Butcher, head of Service Employees International Union, Local 347, which endorsed Hahn. Employees represented by the union could suffer if new cities choose to trim services, pay and benefits.

Wachs and Soboroff refused to sign the pledge. “I think the issue is to fight the problems, not fight the movement,” Soboroff said.

The secession group Valley VOTE decided this month to prepare a questionnaire on the issue for the mayoral candidates, and will likely release a report card just before the election to help voters decide which candidates are most likely to let the question be decided on the ballot.

Hollywood VOTE is also working with its counterparts in the Valley and harbor district to organize a candidates forum in March at which the contenders will be asked about secession.

Candidates are well aware of the value of being on the good side of the energized secessionists.

Villaraigosa backed legislation that removed the City Council’s right to veto a breakup and wrote a bill that gave Valley VOTE an extension on its petition drive. All of the candidates support the city’s growing neighborhood council network, which they see as a way to address some of the local concerns that drive secession efforts.

Connell joins the rest of the field in supporting a citywide vote on secession. Soboroff goes one step further, joining Wachs in endorsing school breakup as a move that appeals to some of the secessionist impulses without succumbing to them entirely.

And Wachs goes further than the rest of the field in saying that secession may be the only alternative if the city fails to change to meet the demands of residents.

“If government totally refuses to listen to the people, then secession might be the only option,” he said.

But the clearest signal of the influence that secession advocates have on the mayor’s race may be the most simple: All six leading contenders have contacted Valley VOTE Chairman Richard Close to seek his endorsement, he said.

Despite the movement’s spread from the Valley to the harbor and Hollywood, the political consensus in Los Angeles is that secession remains an unlikely possibility--one loaded with complex political and logistical drawbacks.

And yet, some observers hope that its mere presence in the public debate will alter the campaign by forcing candidates to address complaints about Los Angeles that some might otherwise choose to duck.

“It ought to put more pressure on the candidates to be more specific about what they are going to do, rather than just spouting bromides,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political scientist at Claremont Graduate University. “That would be healthy.”

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Views on Secession

All six major candidates for mayor of Los Angeles oppose the breakup of the city. But despite their agreement on that point, each has different views of the issue and its implications for the city. In the candidates’ words:

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Xavier Becerra: “There are enough divorces. We don’t need another one. I don’t see that the roots of it aren’t resolvable.”

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Kathleen Connell: “I think their concerns are valid. It will be my role as mayor to try to increase the level of services and address the concerns about being disenfranchised.”

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James K. Hahn: “I’m concerned about public safety services, police and fire services, and how they would be handled in a transition.”

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Steve Soboroff: “When people walk out of their house onto streets that are safe and lit, under trees that are trimmed, and can play in the parks and go to the libraries, that’s all people want. If you have a problem you solve it so the city doesn’t break apart.”

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Antonio Villaraigosa (on why he supported legislation that stripped the City Council of the ability to block secession): “They convinced me it was unfair for the City Council to veto the people if they decide to secede. This is a democracy.”

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Joel Wachs: “If government totally refuses to listen to the people, then secession might be the only option.”

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Secession Areas

One of the issues in the Los Angeles mayor’s race is the secession efforts in three parts of the city. The areas trying to break away:

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Source: City of Los Angeles