Hahn Loses Power Play to Bolster the LAPD

Ending an uneasy standoff that tested Mayor James K. Hahn’s political clout, the City Council voted immediately Wednesday to override his veto of the city budget -- rejecting again his plans to add hundreds of new police officers.

It was the first time in Hahn’s two-year tenure that the council had overridden his veto, and council members withstood an aggressive lobbying campaign that mixed rewards and punishment, accusations and flattery.

The city’s $5.1-billion budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 will be the one the council approved last week. It includes a more modest police hiring plan and strives to avert a shortfall that had been projected at $280 million next year if Hahn’s version of the spending plan had prevailed.

Council President Alex Padilla, once a Hahn ally who broke with the mayor in the budget fight, called the seven-week debate “the first big and high-profile test of the relationship” between the mayor and the City Council. “I’m proud of the council for having stood up to pressure to do what we believe is right.”

Hahn vetoed the budget about 4:45 p.m. Within half an hour, council members, who had been waiting in the marble chamber with ebbing patience, voted 11 to 3 to override.

“There are many people who believe that having an after-school program, a park open during the summer months, is just as important as having a police car on the street,” said Councilman Bernard C. Parks, the former police chief.

Siding with the mayor were Councilwoman Janice Hahn, his sister, along with council members Tom LaBonge and Jan Perry. Councilman Hal Bernson left before the vote.

“I am disappointed by the council’s actions to delay the hiring of new police officers and to delay the critically needed reorganization of the Los Angeles Police Department,” the mayor said in a prepared statement. “I will work to ensure that the City Council’s vote is not a permanent setback to our efforts to combat crime and reduce gang violence in Los Angeles.”

Since taking office in 2001, Hahn has vetoed just two other bills -- measures involving campaign finance and term limits. Both vetoes were sustained.

The budget impasse upset the power dynamic in City Hall, severing alliances between the mayor and council leaders, and propelling the council to a more independent role in setting policy.

Apart from Padilla, Hahn also lost the support of two important allies on the Budget and Finance Committee: Councilmen Nick Pacheco and Eric Garcetti.

Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, called the budget fight “a very important test” for the mayor and the city.

“The mayor always uses his symbolic power of the bully pulpit and his divide-and-conquer strategy,” Guerra said. “If there is a pattern of being unable to sustain a veto, the divide and conquer isn’t there and you start to take away that symbolic power of the mayor setting the agenda for the city.”

The override capped a fevered lobbying effort that stretched from Hahn’s release of the budget in mid-April until virtually the moment the council voted.

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who opposed the mayor’s budget, distributed copies of her campaign literature from 1987 that read, “Ruth Galanter ... She Can’t Be Bought and She Won’t Back Down.”

Galanter, who will leave office June 30, said she posted the flier in response to heavy lobbying from the mayor and those close to him, including an offer for her to serve on the California High Speed Rail Authority.

On Monday afternoon, she said, she received a call from the office of Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City), saying he would support her for that position because he embraced the mayor’s public safety agenda.

Galanter said the mayor, who had lobbied her in her office, never offered any kind of quid pro quo.

But she said she was “besieged” by phone calls, including one from a city employee who said she was calling on behalf of Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook. Middlebrook, the aide said, wanted Galanter to know that the mayor’s office could be helpful to her in the future.

“I was a little offended,” she said. “This is a mayor who, from the moment he was elected, has spurned any collaboration with me.... Someone made the judgment that I was prepared to sell out for six months on a state commission. I am not prepared to sell out.”

Middlebrook declined to comment.

In a phone interview Wednesday evening, Wesson confirmed that Hahn contacted him to ask that he give Galanter a position on the rail authority. But he denied that he ever discussed the budget vote with the mayor, or that his staff offered Galanter a position in exchange for her vote.

During the council session Wednesday morning, Hahn chief of staff Tim McOsker scurried from one council member to another, whispering in their ears, while other mayoral aides circled nearby. Padilla, who normally sits alone at a lectern in the middle of the horseshoe table, spoke quietly with a steady stream of colleagues who approached him throughout the meeting.

“What this comes down to is a power play between the mayor and the council,” said Councilman Dennis Zine. “This is like high noon at the OK Corral.”

Hahn used different approaches in attempting to rescue his hiring plan. He tried conciliation. He tried anger. He gave radio interviews hoping to rouse the public and ratchet up pressure on the council.

Capitalizing on Police Chief William J. Bratton’s popularity, the mayor made joint appearances with the chief, who said he needed the extra officers to fulfill his crime-reduction promises. Bratton suggested that council members were oblivious to crime in their neighborhoods. His pugnacious style backfired, and he wound up writing an apology to all 15 members.

“The strategy they took was for [the mayor and] Bratton to attack,” said Arnie Berghoff, a City Hall lobbyist. “I don’t think any council member likes to be bullied. And that’s how they took it.”

When the mayor released his budget proposal in mid-April, it seemed destined for speedy passage. It called for a package of fee increases that would help cover the cost of hundreds of new police officers. The budget sought to make good on Hahn’s promise to curb crime and make L.A. the safest of the nation’s big cities.

Within days of releasing his financial plan, city analysts weighed in with a warning: Passage of the budget could mean grave financial trouble. The analysts cautioned that aggressive police hiring, coupled with Hahn’s reliance on one-time funding sources, would produce budget shortfalls reaching $280 million in June 2004.

Council members said that when they questioned Hahn budget aides about the shortfalls, they got few answers.

“The unfortunate reality is this is a coalition that the mayor’s office created ... by not answering very direct, important questions about the city’s future,” Councilman Jack Weiss said.

Unnerved by the reports, the council proposed to delay spending nearly $70 million for the LAPD expansion and other new projects for up to six months until the city’s finances became clearer. The council did authorize police to hire 400 officers to replace those expected to retire or leave.

But Hahn wouldn’t accept any delays. Eager to salvage his budget, the mayor floated a compromise to pay for police expansion by cutting 3% from most city departments. He could not muster enough support, however.

Instead, the council sent back a budget that did not contain the new police hires he wanted -- setting up the veto showdown.

“There is always, always, tension between the executive branch and the legislative branch,” Janice Hahn said. “It was bound to raise its head, and it did.”