Ex-Speaker Hertzberg Joins Race to Unseat Hahn

Comparing himself to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertz- berg on Wednesday joined the race to unseat Mayor James K. Hahn, declaring that the mayor was “asleep at the switch” and promising to bring a new dynamism to City Hall.

“My approach, just like the governor’s, is bringing energy and action and a transformational nature to the campaign,” Hertzberg said in outlining his plans to give Los Angeles “an extreme makeover.”

The 49-year-old Sherman Oaks Democrat said Hahn “just doesn’t have the energy level and the interest and the imagination and the creativity.”

Hahn, who until now has refused to comment on his challengers, fired back.

“Anyone who can’t see that I have the biggest vision of any mayor of any big city needs glasses. It’s a pretty big vision to say you want to make Los Angeles the safest big city in America,” Hahn said, as he cited his work to expand the Police Department, spend more money on affordable housing and empower neighborhoods.

“I think Bob needs to go back to the optometrist,” Hahn said.

With state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar) a declared candidate and Councilman and former police Chief Bernard C. Parks considering a run, a field of candidates is taking shape that some say poses a growing threat to Hahn’s hopes of winning a second term in March.

With Parks already working to undermine Hahn’s support in the black community, Hertzberg is looking to take away San Fernando Valley voters, who played a crucial role in helping Hahn defeat former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa in 2001. Hahn carried 55% of the Valley three years ago.

Hertzberg’s potential to seriously weaken Hahn may also encourage Villaraigosa, now a city councilman, to enter the race.

“I have not ruled it out,” Villaraigosa said Wednesday. The councilman has sparked new speculation that he may run by making appearances outside his district, including a speech Wednesday night to the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn.

Parks said in a statement that Hertzberg’s announcement was “more bad news for Mayor Hahn as more and more people are coming to the conclusion that he has failed to lead.”

Hertzberg, who served six years in the Assembly, has been advising Schwarzenegger since the recall and helping the Republican governor work with the Democratic majority in the Legislature. In addition to Hertz- berg’s ties to the Valley and the governor, he has lined up support from a broad range of influential figures.

“Assuming he can raise the money to make himself known, he becomes the logical front-runner to replace Hahn,” said Dan Schnur, a Republican political consultant.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Rob Stutzman said Wednesday that the governor “considers Bob a friend,” but had not decided if he would endorse Hertzberg.

Hertzberg is now an attorney with the multinational law firm of Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw and until recently worked as an advisor to public relations giant Fleishman-Hillard, whose lucrative city contracts have come under scrutiny by prosecutors investigating city contracting.

He was elected to the Assembly in 1996 as a moderate Democrat and served two one-year terms as speaker from 2000 to 2002. Confronted with the disastrous energy crisis, the state’s deteriorating financial condition and the redrawing of the state’s legislative and congressional districts, Hertzberg nonetheless earned a reputation for boundless energy and a personal touch that helped craft compromises across party lines.

“If he’s mayor of Los Angeles, I think it will be different than anything anyone has ever seen. He really takes the bull by the horns,” said Assemblyman Darryl Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat who worked closely with Hertzberg in the Capitol.

Hertzberg was occasionally criticized for heading in so many directions that he lost focus. And his critics still cite the close of the 2000 legislative session as an example, when scores of bills died before they could get hearings.

But Hertzberg, who said the end-of-session chaos reflected his refusal to vote on bills without holding hearings, makes no apologies for his style.

On Wednesday, taking a page from Schwarzenegger’s book, he laid out an ambitious program for his first 100 days in office.

Hertzberg pledged to enlist engineers, architects, landscapers and urban planners to develop a plan for “an extreme makeover” of the city’s neighborhoods. He said he wanted to meet with city leaders and neighborhood leaders to devise a way to shift more power and budgetary authority to neighborhoods.

And he said he would enact “sweeping changes” in the city’s ethics laws, though he did not specify what those would be.

Hertzberg stands to benefit as Hahn struggles to respond to criminal probes into city contracting by local and federal prosecutors.

“When voters smell corruption, they look to an outsider,” Schnur said. “Hertzberg has the best credentials of any candidate in this race to run on a message of cleaning up City Hall.”

Hertzberg still faces a significant hurdle as a Sacramento politician, few of whom have fared well in Los Angeles mayoral elections.

In the last three decades, big names including Jesse Unruh, Tom Hayden and Villaraigosa have sputtered on the mayoral campaign trail.

“Nobody knows who the speaker of the Assembly is,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior scholar at the School of Policy, Planning and Development at USC. “It’s a district office. And even if you are a Sacramento leader, no one knows you outside your district.”

Hertzberg also will have to overcome Hahn’s fundraising head start, as the mayor has filled his campaign coffers with more than $1.3 million.

But Hertzberg has lined up major private-sector supporters to co-chair his campaign, including KB Homes Chairman and CEO Bruce Karatz, developer Richard Ziman, and Valley businessman and attorney David Fleming, who was a Hahn supporter three years ago.

“This city really needs new leadership,” said Fleming, who added that he was planning to raise funds for Hertzberg.

Hertzberg said he would not raise money from commissioners and lobbyists, and called on Hahn to return money that he has received from those contributors.

But he said he would not refuse money from city contractors and people seeking land-use permits from City Hall, two groups of donors that Hahn has proposed to ban from making political contributions in his ethics reform proposal.

Also co-chairing Hertzberg’s campaign are Nancy Daly Riordan, wife of former Mayor Richard Riordan; Valley Republican Assemblyman Keith Richman; and South Los Angeles Democratic Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally.

Dymally’s chief of staff said Wednesday that the veteran lawmaker plans to “work very, very hard” to build support for Hertzberg in the city’s black community.

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Hertzberg bio

Name: Bob Hertzberg

Age: 49

Occupation: Attorney, Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw.

Elected office: State assemblyman, 1996-2002; Assembly speaker, 2000-02.

Education: BA, University of Redlands; JD, University of California Hastings College of Law.

Family: Wife, Cynthia Telles, faculty member at UCLA School of Medicine; three children, ages 12, 14 and 16.

Other activities: Sits on numerous boards, including the Universal Access to Preschool Advisory Board of the Los Angeles First Five Commission; Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund; and Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times