Villaraigosa Cultivates Ties With Leaders in Capitol

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spent the second day of his Capitol Hill tour Thursday meeting with the kind of national figures that any mayor would want to have handy on speed dial.

He chatted about LAX airport expansion with Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and Marion C. Blakey, head of the Federal Aviation Administration. A few hours later, he was in the offices of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), talking terrorism with her and John D. Negroponte, the director of National Intelligence. In between, he called on two of the most powerful Republican leaders in the House of Representatives.

The mayor and his deputies were vague about the subject of the closed-door meetings, but they said the mayor came to fight for Los Angeles’ fair share of transportation and homeland security dollars.

Other meetings were chances to establish or strengthen cross-country contacts. Feinstein, a Villaraigosa ally, said the new mayor’s relationship-building will probably pay off for L.A.

Now, for example, “the director of National Intelligence knows the mayor of L.A. [and] will take the phone call,” she said. “They can build a relationship over time. I think that provides dividends for the city the mayor serves.”

Many Democrats hope Villaraigosa -- a former labor organizer -- will help reinvigorate their party. But Villaraigosa spent much of his morning meeting with the Republican leaders of Congress.

He paid a call to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), who, as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, controls hundreds of millions of federal dollars. He also visited Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas), chairman of the House Rules Committee and a key gatekeeper of congressional legislation.

Dreier talked with Villaraigosa before Los Angeles TV news cameras as part of a staged media moment in a Rules Committee drawing room. The mayor sat on a striped couch under a painting of a California landscape. The congressman, sitting closer to an oil portrait of Ronald Reagan, gave Villaraigosa a coffee-table book about the Capitol.

“Isn’t this great?” the mayor cracked. “I was looking for funding for transportation, and here I got a book.”

The joke was a possible reference to the unresolved fate of two items on Villaraigosa’s agenda -- a $500-million carpool lane for the 405 Freeway, and the recalculation of a homeland security funding formula.

As proposed, the recalculation could cost Los Angeles millions of dollars.

Villaraigosa also pledged his support for the proposed expansion of the Gold Line train from Pasadena to Montclair, a project that Dreier supports.

Villaraigosa said he had a successful meeting on the future of LAX with Mineta and Blakey.

Before Villaraigosa became mayor, the City Council approved an $11-billion expansion plan for the airport.

Villaraigosa voted against the expansion as a councilman, and now that he is mayor, the fate of the plan is uncertain.

Villaraigosa said he supported some of the improvements. Meanwhile, community members and nearby cities have sued to stop the full expansion. The FAA approved the full plan in May.

The mayor said he spoke to Mineta and Blakey about the aspects of the plan that he supports, such as the realignment of the southernmost runway -- a move that would reduce near misses among planes.

He also told them he favors “a regional approach to building airport capacity” -- that is, looking at under-used airports such as the one at Palmdale to absorb future passenger traffic.

Villaraigosa said he could not be more specific because of the lawsuits pending against the city.

Greg Martin, an FAA spokesman, called the meeting “very constructive.”

“There’s a clear mutual understanding on the need to move forward on the first phase of the reconfiguration of the airfield, as it will provide a significant safety benefit,” Martin said, referring to the runway.

Villaraigosa and his entourage also paid visits to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. They boarded a plane back to Los Angeles in the afternoon.