Wide-Ranging Debate Reveals Much Accord

The fourth and most comprehensive debate between James K. Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa demonstrated Tuesday that the two men who want to be mayor of Los Angeles differ far more in their records than in their agendas.

Time and again during the 1 1/2-hour forum at the Los Angeles Times’ Harry Chandler Auditorium, Villaraigosa and Hahn echoed each other’s answers--on issues from education to housing, public transportation and even what to do about graffiti.

But while former Assembly Speaker Villaraigosa cited sweeping legislative solutions he applied to issues, Hahn touted practical programs he has instituted as city attorney.

Another potential watershed in the whirlwind campaign passed Tuesday, when Steve Soboroff, third-place finisher in the April election, said he would not endorse either candidate in the runoff. Both candidates had enthusiastically sought the backing of the Republican businessman, who said he would offer “counsel and support” to whichever man is elected June 5.

The forum at The Times saw Hahn take a relatively more aggressive stance--attacking Villaraigosa as too liberal for the city, for planning to cut funding for transit police and for purportedly co-opting many of the city attorney’s proposals.

Villaraigosa repeatedly referred to Hahn as “my friend Jim,” and targeted his opponent more obliquely. He alleged that the city has failed to rein in liability costs and suggested that Hahn supported a three-day workweek for LAPD officers as a sop to the police union.

The even-tempered tone of most of the debate seems to reflect both candidates’ desire to appear statesmanlike in a close competition that is now less than two weeks from election day.

If a clear leader had emerged in the polls, the underdog would have launched a more concerted attack Tuesday, said Cal State Fullerton political scientist Raphael Sonenshein, who has written extensively about politics in Los Angeles. Both men, instead, tried to draw attention to their records.

“They seem to be operating on two very different planes,” Sonenshein said. “Antonio tries to operate at this very visionary level, while Hahn talks about the nuts and bolts. They both did very well today on their own plane.”

Said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior scholar at USC’s School of Policy, Planning and Development: “It is [Hahn’s] experience versus Antonio Villaraigosa’s passion.”

In a discussion about weapons, for instance, both men said they do not own guns and cited what they have done to reduce gun violence. Hahn talked of the litigation he helped press with other public officials to prevent indiscriminate marketing of handguns. Villaraigosa discussed his support or authorship of state laws requiring trigger locks, limiting gun sales at trade shows and controlling the sale of assault weapons--a measure he called the strongest in the country.

The 50-year-old city attorney appeared comfortable, ambling around the stage and occasionally joking as he made a more concerted effort to critique his opponent’s record.

In response to a question about his opponent’s liberal record, Hahn used his rebuttal time to say that Villaraigosa is “out of step with most people in Los Angeles.” He also used a question about transit planning to suggest that Villaraigosa’s four-year, $57-million proposed cut of funding for police on rail and bus lines would take police off the streets and threaten public safety.

“If people don’t think it’s a safe system,” Hahn said, “they’re not going to ride.”

Villaraigosa called that description a distortion, saying he only proposed cutting the transit policing budget by eliminating officers’ responsibility for checking passengers’ tickets.

“The $57 million that I want to tap for more buses would free up our police force on the MTA rail lines from taking tickets to protecting people on the streets of Los Angeles,” Villaraigosa said. “That’s where I want to focus our police department.”

The former Assembly speaker also seemed at ease, although the debate’s format of relatively short answers gave him less latitude to employ the colloquial, storytelling style that has been his forte on the campaign circuit. He took fewer shots at Hahn and pulled punches, somewhat, by not referring directly to the city attorney.

Villaraigosa noted that the total current liability for the city (which includes workers’ compensation costs and projected litigation) has been estimated at $750 million to $1 billion, adding: “There has been no successful risk-management program in the city to address those liability issues.”

Similarly, he claimed credit for standing up to the police officers union when it asked that he agree, if elected mayor, to implement three-day work schedules for some police. Villaraigosa, who does support a compressed workweek for police but not that particular one, said the case illustrates that he will not be beholden to liberal or union interests.

“I said that I was unwilling to jeopardize the public’s safety for a three-day workweek for the Police Protective League,” Villaraigosa said. “I know how to say no to special interests.”

Although Villaraigosa has previously attacked Hahn for signing a pledge to implement the schedule within three months of taking office, he did not directly mention his opponent’s position Tuesday.

Villaraigosa said after the debate that he hoped he would get credit from the media for his lack of direct attacks on Hahn or his record.

Hahn, meanwhile, used two of his answers to counter a prevailing impression that Villaraigosa is the race’s native son, who can best identify with constituents in poor neighborhoods.

Asked whether he agreed with Mayor Richard Riordan’s recent comment that “poverty pimps” are benefiting from government programs for the poor, Hahn said he did not. He added that his knowledge came first hand, from growing up in South-Central Los Angeles near 89th and Figueroa streets. “I grew up in the same kind of community that you did,” Hahn said to Villaraigosa.

The former legislator on previous occasions has suggested a superior knowledge of life on the streets--citing his rise from poor street tough in the Eastside community of City Terrace to successful elected official.

Hahn also talked about how both of his children attend Los Angeles public schools--in contrast to Villaraigosa’s children, who are enrolled at a Catholic school in Pasadena.

“I believe public education is the best way,” Hahn said, “not only to learn reading, writing and arithmetic, but also to learn how to get along with people who are different than you, and I think that’s a big part of learning how to live life.”

Asked about pulling his children out of the public school system, Villaraigosa mentioned that his wife, Corina, teaches public school and that his top priority is improving public schools. But he said, “I won’t sacrifice my children anymore than I would ask you to do the same.

“People aren’t looking for me to necessarily have my children in the public schools,” he said. “What they’re looking for me to do is make sure I’m focusing on the needs of the kids in our public schools, and I’ll do that.”

More often during the debate, however, it was difficult to distinguish the two men.

Both said they would champion a plan by their former opponent, state Controller Kathleen Connell, to promote civic harmony by encouraging neighborhood festivals. Both suggested that newly forming neighborhood councils should have more say in placement of development projects and problematic public facilities like dumps.

Both agreed that the best immediate traffic solutions are more left-turn lanes, improved traffic signal synchronization and a ban on peak hour construction on major streets. In the long run, they both think a light rail line down Exposition Boulevard sounds like a good idea. Both want to add 1,000 officers to the LAPD, but agree that prevention programs are even more important in cutting crime.

As striking as what the two liberal Democrats agreed on was what they did not say. Neither would adopt Riordan’s suggestion that proposals to break up the city would abandon the poor and are immoral. Despite representing minority communities for years, both offered only muted testimony when asked about the connection between race and poverty.

Complete audio and video of Tuesday’s mayoral debate is available on the Times web site at: https://latimes.com/mayor

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Times staff writer Beth Shuster contributed to this story.

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