Candidates Pick Up High-Profile Endorsements

The face-off between Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn and Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa for the city’s top job continued Thursday with dueling high-profile endorsements.

In the morning, Villaraigosa touted support from City Controller Laura Chick, who has been harshly critical of the ethics of the Hahn administration.

And Hahn, in the afternoon, picked up the backing of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, which praised his crime-fighting efforts.

Neither endorsement came as a surprise.

Chick, whose 2003 audit of the city’s airport department helped spark a federal investigation into city contracting, has been openly feuding with the mayor for more than a year. And many chamber leaders have long supported Hahn.

But two days after the election, in which Hahn nearly became the first incumbent mayor to be unseated in 32 years, the endorsements underscored that the candidates will push hard in the 10 weeks before the May 17 runoff election.

“Any endorsements today are important because they convey momentum,” said Republican strategist Arnold Steinberg, adding that what the candidates want to demonstrate to voters right now is “movement, momentum, activity.”

Standing on the stage in his East Los Angeles headquarters, Villaraigosa beamed as Chick lauded him before a phalanx of television cameras. The controller, who is under 5 feet 3 in height, perched precariously atop a rickety suitcase to reach the microphones.

Villaraigosa “will finally bring this city truly into the 21st century, and he will bring Los Angeles to its full potential,” she said. “He will not be afraid to think big ideas.”

The candidate said he was “humbled and honored,” and promised in a nod to Chick’s role as controller that “rooting out waste and fraud will be at the top of my agenda.” Chick, who was reelected Tuesday to a second four-year term, endorsed Villaraigosa in 2001.

In 2003, she announced that she was backing Hahn for a second term, only to retract that endorsement last year after months of squabbling with the mayor over her audits. The controller also played a role in one of the mayor’s greatest political liabilities, the suggestion that there may be corruption in city contracting.

Chick said she has turned over materials about city contracting to the U.S. attorney and the district attorney, both of whom have subpoenaed officials from the Hahn administration.

Hahn has denied any wrongdoing, pointing out that no one in his administration has been charged with any crimes.

At the Chamber of Commerce headquarters downtown Thursday, President Rusty Hammer praised Hahn’s work to make Los Angeles safer, stimulate the local economy and build more housing.

“He’s been an effective leader for the city of Los Angeles,” said Hammer, who was joined by other chamber leaders.

The chamber, which has regained some its past influence in civic affairs in recent years, has been a strong advocate for business tax reform, modernization of Los Angeles International Airport and expansion of the Police Department.

Hahn also received the chamber’s endorsement in his 2001 mayoral campaign. George Kieffer, the immediate past president of the chamber, has been one of Hahn’s closest supporters. Chris Martin, chairman of the chamber’s board, said the chamber would probably raise about $25,000 to $35,000 for the mayor’s campaign.

“We don’t put big money behind things,” Martin said, explaining the endorsement was more like “a good housekeeping seal of approval.”

Hahn noted that he also won the support of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, the city’s most influential organized labor group, saying the two endorsements were a mark of both his broad appeal and ability to bring people together.

Yet to be determined is which candidate, if any, will receive endorsements from the three major candidates who did not make the runoff -- state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley), Bob Hertzberg and Councilman Bernard C. Parks.

A nod from Hertzberg, a Sherman Oaks lawyer, might help with voters from the Valley, while an endorsement from Parks could be influential among blacks.

Villaraigosa said Thursday that he would like those endorsements, but wants to give the three men time to collect themselves after a hard-fought and exhausting campaign.

Parks, the city’s former police chief, captured more than half the city’s black vote Tuesday, according to a Times exit poll. In 2001, Hahn carried it by more than two-thirds.

The councilman, who was pushed out of the Police Department by Hahn three years ago, said in an interview Thursday that he had not yet made up his mind about any endorsements.

Parks said that he was putting together “my list of things that are important.”

That list includes a controversial plan to eliminate a flexible schedule for the city’s police officers that allows some to work three 12-hour days instead of five days a week.

Hertzberg and Alarcon made no public statements Thursday.