Until last week, Los Angeles mayoral challenger Antonio Villaraigosa had received unchallenged campaign mileage from touting his role in Proposition 1A, the $9.2 billion school bond that voters approved in November 1998. Villaraigosa had been state Assembly speaker when the Legislature put it on the ballot.
Hahn characterized his predecessor, Mayor Richard Riordan, as someone who \”spent a lot of time and effort raising money to rearrange the members of the school board.\”
>It was a balmy spring evening, and the Jewish elite of Los Angeles had gathered in Beverly Hills to hear two U.S. senators provide a top-level briefing on Israel and the Middle East. The dinner at the Beverly Hilton was hosted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the nation’s pre-eminent pro-Israel lobby, and it was a record-setter, with 1,100 in attendance, checkbooks in hand.
The final act of Hertzberg-for-Mayor played out last week, with Bob Hertzberg endorsing challenger Antonio Villaraigosa. And although there was some unexpected drama, the endorsement itself proved anticlimactic: Villaraigosa already had surged to a comfortable double-digit lead in two polls.
The tip/rumor/innuendo in question involves personal information, as yet unconfirmed and unpublished, about a member of Mayor James Hahn\’s family. Faced with resistance from reporters, management at the Daily News has since dropped the subject. The L.A. Weekly\’s editor, apparently, still wants the story. Editors at the Los Angeles Times, for its part, elected to let the matter lie; no reporters\’ rebellion was required.
The still-simmering flap over forged endorsements for Mayor James Hahn is the classic scandal that didn\’t have to be. A little more than a week ago, this incident grew from niche story — something that only Jewish Journal readers might notice — to the week\’s hottest local political fracas, with widespread coverage in newspapers and on radio and TV.
Four major contenders are vying to unseat 54-year-old incumbent Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn in next week\’s primary election. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, then the top two finishers will meet in a May runoff.
You don\’t have to go far to hear complaints about the L.A. Unified School District (LAUSD), the city\’s beleaguered public school system, nor very far to catch grumbling about Mayor James K. Hahn. But linking the two is a stretch for many, because Los Angeles\’ mayor has no authority over the city\’s schools — none at all.
Yet one challenger in particular, Bob Hertzberg, has made LAUSD the centerpiece of his campaign by pledging, somehow, to break up the nation\’s second-largest school system. Politically, the strategy isn\’t off the wall.