Hahn Puts Energy Crisis on Opponent’s Doorstep

During a Los Angeles mayoral debate Thursday night, City Attorney James K. Hahn accused former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa of contributing to California’s escalating power crisis, attempting to link his opponent to the state’s flickering lights and financial problems.

What began as a mild event in which the candidates echoed each other’s calls for more neighborhood involvement in regional planning and increased investment in underserved communities quickly turned into a lively difference of opinion between the two men vying to run Los Angeles.

The state’s power crisis, which has dogged Gov. Gray Davis and forced rolling blackouts up and down California but has left Los Angeles largely unscathed, provided the fodder for the differing views of how California found itself in its current predicament.

Hahn responded to a question about whether he would support selling the city’s surplus energy by calling the state’s electricity shortage a “fiscal time bomb,” and he put the blame on Villaraigosa, who was one of 120 legislators to vote for deregulation. Villaraigosa responded that Hahn was attacking him because “he has no plan.”

The former legislator said later in the debate--the second between the two candidates, with four more to come over the next 18 days--that the city’s financial straits stem more from spiking legal liability costs than from the state’s energy troubles. Those costs, he said, are the result of Hahn’s failures.

In his remarks, Hahn noted that the former Assembly speaker argues that he pushed for the city’s Department of Water and Power to be exempt from deregulation. But, he added, “if anybody’s gone to a gas station recently and seen that the prices are over two bucks a gallon, do you feel exempt? If anybody’s seen the gas bills they’ve gotten over the winter that skyrocketed, do you feel exempt?”

The city attorney also accused Villaraigosa of reaping the benefits from deregulation by getting more than $300,000 in political donations from energy companies.

“Mr. Villaraigosa owes an apology to all of us for voting for that mess,” concluded an unusually animated Hahn, who came out from behind his lectern and walked around the floor of the Cal State Northridge gymnasium, where the debate was held.

Hahn’s attacks drew a mixed chorus of boos, hoots, applause and cheers from the 300-some vocal listeners gathered on bleachers of the campus’ “Matadome.” Many of those in the crowd, especially a younger contingent of students, seemed to be rooting for Villaraigosa.

Striding out onto the floor with a small smile, the former legislator retorted that Hahn was turning on him to avoid answering questions about what the city should do to contend with the power crunch.

“The question was, ‘What’s your plan?’ ” Villaraigosa said. “Unfortunately, you couldn’t explain what plan you have, because you don’t have one. You spend more time attacking me than you do sharing with us what your vision for the city is.”

Villaraigosa said that when he voted for deregulation, there was virtually no opposition to the program.

“In fact, my dear friend Jim Hahn, who’s so concerned about our energy rates, never cared enough to write a letter, to come and visit Sacramento and say that he was against deregulation.”

A few minutes later, Hahn fired back, turning to stare down his rival.

“Well, you know, Antonio,” he said, his tone icy, “I’m glad you’re so proud of what you voted for up there in Sacramento, but I’ll tell you, the reason I wasn’t going up to Sacramento was that I was down here in Los Angeles doing my job as city attorney.”

As the audience alternately booed and cheered, moderator Bill Rosendahl quipped, “Are we enjoying ourselves, folks?”

The sharp tone of Thursday’s event came with time beginning to run out on a campaign that started in earnest five months ago and is rushing toward election day on June 5. After weeks of criticizing Villaraigosa’s voting record on crime, Hahn is moving on to another issue he hopes will characterize his opponent as out of step with the sentiments of most Los Angeles residents.

Hahn’s jabs initially succeeded in putting Villaraigosa on the defensive in the weeks immediately following the April 10 election. Villaraigosa, however, on Wednesday secured the endorsement of Mayor Richard Riordan, which he hopes will bolster his standing among moderate and conservative voters. Hahn won the backing of the city’s police union, an endorsement that he hopes will signal his commitment to tough law enforcement.

During Thursday night’s debate, Villaraigosa repeatedly invoked Riordan and cited the Republican mayor’s support for his candidacy.

Hahn, who also sought the mayor’s backing, downplayed it, instead referring to the police union vote as “the most important endorsement that came out this week.”

For much of the evening, Villaraigosa tried to maintain an above-the-fray tone, but he could not resist getting in his own digs at Hahn, saying he “hasn’t done a very good job” as city attorney of keeping down the city’s millions of dollars of liability costs.

Several times, he referred sarcastically to the city attorney as “my dear friend,” his tone notably more disparaging than earlier in the race, when the two men spoke of each other in amiable terms.

Despite the points of sharp disagreement, Hahn and Villaraigosa most often found common ground in their answers to questions posed by community organizations about live ability. The candidates were well-prepared for the questions, as both had received them ahead of time.

Among other things, both men called for creating more after-school programs, nurturing small businesses, developing a regional plan for airport traffic and increasing efforts to foster racial tolerance.

Thursday’s debate is one of six being held throughout the city before election day, and it was the only one slated in the San Fernando Valley. As such, both candidates emphasized their plans to get neighborhoods more involved in their own governance, hoping to appeal to residents disillusioned with city services and contemplating secession, a prospect Villaraigosa and Hahn both oppose.

But with a relatively small audience and little new ground covered, some political analysts said the face-offs between the two candidates will not play a big role in who ultimately wins.

“I don’t think their two debates so far have moved anybody,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior scholar at USC’s School of Policy, Planning and Development. “I think for better or worse . . . the race is going to be heavily dependent on what the candidates do with television commercials and also in direct mail.”

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