Hahn Takes Flight With Bush to Find Their Common Ground

From the quiet on the presidential cabin aboard Air Force One to the tumult of the corridors of the Renaissance Center, where the U.S. Conference of Mayors was meeting, Los Angeles Mayor-elect James K. Hahn found himself the center of attention Monday.

Hahn is, President Bush introduced to the audience, “the newest mayor on the block.”

As he walked through the hallways here, one by one his soon-to-be colleagues approached him to offer congratulations to the city’s new chief executive, who will be formally sworn in next week.

Hahn flew to Detroit aboard Air Force One on Monday. On Sunday, he had flown to Texas, spending the night in Waco, about 30 miles from the president’s ranch where Bush had spent the weekend, and dining at a Mexican restaurant, Ninfa’s, with a deputy White House chief of staff. He awoke before dawn, made the one-hour trip in a White House staff van to the Army airfield at Ft. Hood, and lugged his suitcase aboard the presidential aircraft--shortly before Bush, First Lady Laura Bush, and their two dogs stepped aboard.

The payoff: Hahn said he spent about 40 minutes of the 2 1/4-hour flight visiting with Bush.

It was the first meeting between Los Angeles’ mayor-elect and the president, kicking off a relationship with potentially wide-ranging impact on city residents. Outgoing Mayor Richard Riordan enjoyed a friendship and close working relationship with President Clinton, a connection that helped Riordan--and, to a lesser extent, Clinton--throughout his term. The Clinton administration, for instance, helped pay for Riordan’s buildup of the Los Angeles Police Department and helped the city bounce back from the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Some local leaders have wondered whether Hahn and Bush could replicate that bond, in part because Bush has less incentive to court California--a state he badly lost last year--and in part because Hahn is a steadfast Democrat who has little in common politically with the nation’s chief executive.

Afterward, Hahn said the introductory meeting had gone well.

They found common ground on education policy, he said, and on the focus of the president’s speech to the mayors--the administration’s push for legislation that would ease the access to government money by religious-based organizations delivering social services.

They found more personal footing too: Both are the sons of politicians--Bush, the son of a president, Hahn the son of a veteran of community politics, who was a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for 40 years and the City Council for four years before that in Los Angeles.

They talked about the “special challenge,” Hahn said in an interview, of “growing up in the shadow.” But both agreed, he added, that the lineage offered a benefit too.

The mayor-elect, who called the discussion “a very cordial conversation,” said Bush asked about the mayoral campaign, and “I told him how that all went down.”

The conversation focused primarily on education, he said, and in particular his push to gain increased funding for after-school programs.

Bush said he would look into such needs, Hahn said. “But he’s more interested in loosening the restrictions” on the existing funding that the federal government makes available to local programs, Hahn said.

Asked whether they differed on emphasis--with Bush seeking to relax the strings on federal contributions and Hahn seeking to increase the spending--he said of the president: “He’d like to do both.”

Hahn said he told Bush that Los Angeles was not getting “its fair share,” receiving about $1.7 million in the $206 million in federal spending on after-school programs in California.

Bush came to Detroit to seek support among the mayors for what he calls his faith-based initiative, which has stumbled in Congress.

Hahn expressed support for the role that religious-based social agencies could play in helping downtrodden communities and others in need.

But he remained uncertain about Bush’s proposal, saying, “I want to know more about it.” In particular, he said, he wanted to ensure that the government did not end up supporting religious activities.