Rivals Urge D.A. to Probe Mayoral Race

Their once-congenial campaign suddenly convulsed by charges and countercharges, the candidates for mayor of Los Angeles on Friday each formally requested that the district attorney investigate alleged violations of state and city campaign laws.

And even as aides to City Atty. James K. Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa charged the other with wrongdoing, they defended their own actions against the charges of their opponent.

“I think it was clear to everyone that he’s just run a phony, self-righteous, victim campaign here, trying to pretend he’s not the one running attack ads when he started it,” Hahn said at an impromptu news conference in front of a Jefferson Park church.

Villaraigosa later retorted: “Saying I’m trying to make myself a victim is like the criminal telling the victim he asked for it.”

While the campaigns and candidates sniped at one another, they also continued their fierce burst of advertising images and charges. Hahn’s campaign sent out a mailer stating that Villaraigosa was “wrong for Republicans,” and in it, featured a picture of Villaraigosa standing in front of the Watts Towers--a recognizable symbol of the city’s black community. Villaraigosa went on television with a new advertisement, this one accusing Hahn of wrongdoing while misstating some of the specific allegations against the Hahn campaign.

Both sides, meanwhile, are receiving substantial help from outside entities: Construction magnate Ron Tutor reported spending $75,000 on Hahn’s behalf, and the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians reported spending $50,000 on a mailer opposing Villaraigosa. A group affiliated with City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas has put $20,000 toward helping the former Assembly speaker, joining with other donors, political parties and unions who are helping that campaign.

Following up on remarks by Villaraigosa at Thursday’s debate, his campaign manager, Ted Osthelder, sent a three-page letter to Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley accusing Hahn’s campaign, the Soboba Band of Mission Indians and potentially other Indian tribes of “illegally coordinating alleged independent expenditures” in support of Hahn and in opposition to Villaraigosa.

The letter refers to postcards sent to 120,000 Los Angeles homes last week charging that Villaraigosa voted to go easy on sexual predators and rapists. The Times reported Thursday that a longtime Hahn supporter had helped persuade the tribe to pay for the mailing.

Hahn insisted Friday that he had not authorized or known in advance that one of his supporters was involved in the mailers.

“These [mailers] are not part of the Hahn for mayor campaign,” he said. “I disavow them, because they’re not part of what I want to do.”

“This is Sacramento politics,” he added. “I don’t know anybody in this Soboba tribe. I don’t know what their beef is with Villaraigosa.”

Osthelder, Villaraigosa’s campaign manager, urged Cooley to subpoena and impound all phone records, calendars, schedules and computer calendars maintained by the Hahn campaign, including personal records kept by Hahn, longtime supporter Daniel Weinstein, campaign consultant Bill Carrick, strategist Kam Kuwata, campaign Chairman Bill Wardlaw and campaign manager Matt Middlebrook, reflecting “potentially illegal phone contacts or other communications which may have taken place.”

He alleged that Weinstein acted as an agent of the Hahn campaign during a telephone conference call May 21 urging leaders of the Soboba band and five other Indian tribes to contribute $100,000 apiece to pay for anti-Villaraigosa mailers.

The Villaraigosa campaign contends that the $100,000 donated by the Soboba is really a contribution to the Hahn campaign and, as such, violates the city’s “campaign finance laws, which limit contributions to mayoral candidates to $1,000 per person per election.”

Democrats Accused of ‘Willful Violations’

At the same time, an attorney for the Hahn campaign asked Cooley to investigate the state Democratic Party’s fund-raising and spending on a massive effort to see Villaraigosa elected mayor.

Attorney Jack G. Cairl accused the party, Villaraigosa and his campaign of “knowing and willful violations” by allegedly earmarking contributions made to the party to promote Villaraigosa’s candidacy.

Hahn’s campaign said the party took advantage of a loophole in state law created by the passage of Proposition 34 in November, which exempts spending to communicate with members by political parties, unions and others. The result is that those groups are able to send out mail to thousands of households without having to make timely disclosures of their expenditures, effectively circumventing city election rules.

The contributions to the Democratic Party include payments by some of the richest people in Los Angeles, including Villaraigosa supporters and contributors Eli Broad and Ron Burkle, each of whom gave $100,000 to the state party. The California Teachers Assn., which employs Villaraigosa as a consultant, has given at least $250,000, along with the Service Employees International Union.

Hahn charges that these large contributions are being earmarked by the state party to pay for campaign mailers, phone banks and other political activity on Villaraigosa’s behalf. Hahn charges that they are intended to circumvent city laws that limit contributions to mayoral candidates to $1,000 in the runoff and that held them to a maximum of $7,000 during the last month before the April election.

“It is obvious that the donors knew or had reason to know that the payments made to the [Democratic Party] would be used to expressly advocate the election of Mr. Villaraigosa,” Cairl said. “We believe that an investigation will show that the payments were made on the condition or with the agreement that the money would be used to support Villaraigosa for mayor.”

“Let’s be clear about this: All of those contributions were within the law,” Villaraigosa replied when asked about the contributions at his own campaign stop.

While Villaraigosa argued that Hahn and his supporters have led the campaign’s turn toward the negative, a 30-second Villaraigosa TV ad released Friday struck back hard at his opponent.

According to the ad, “In the latest wrinkle in Jim Hahn’s continuing smear campaign against Antonio Villaraigosa, the L.A. Times reports Hahn’s campaign conspired with out-of-town gambling interests to attack Villaraigosa. A Hahn associate raised the money and coordinated the attack, in possible violation of city law.”

In fact, The Times did not report that the campaign itself coordinated with or conspired with the Indian tribes but rather that Weinstein, a longtime supporter of the city attorney with ties to the campaign, solicted the $100,000 from the tribe. Weinstein hosted two fund-raisers for Hahn during the mayoral campaign which raised $19,000 for the candidate.

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