City Attorney Race: Is it Really About the Mayor?
Next week is the runoff election for Los Angeles City Attorney, between former city councilman Jack Weiss and former prosecutor Carmen Trutanich. But hanging in the balance might be more than just their fates--it might be Mayor Villaraigosa's political clout.
The Los Angeles Times gives the Weiss/Trutanich dustup this spin that makes it about the mayor:
"The mayor's raised money for Jack. The mayor's campaigning for him. He's doing everything he can for Jack," said Richard Katz, a Villaraigosa appointee on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority....Trutanich campaign consultant John Shallman warned that if Weiss wins the general election on Tuesday, it will show that "old-school corrupt machine politics is alive and well" in Los Angeles. Trutanich himself said Weiss, who faced lukewarm reviews from his colleagues and a failed recall attempt from a group of constituents in his Westside district, would never have gotten this far, financially or politically, without aggressive advocacy by the mayor.
Not that the mayor's support has been all pluses for Weiss, who is going into the Tuesday May 19 runoff vote with less money than Trutanich:
Two weeks ago, one of Villaraigosa's pension board appointees was forced to resign after he held a fundraiser for Weiss in violation of the city's ethics law. Weiss said he returned the contributions.
Councilman Dennis P. Zine is openly anti-Weiss, though, publicly callingfor an investigation into his fundraising. As the Metropolitan News-Enterprise reports:
Joined by Deputy District Attorney David Berger, a candidate for city attorney in the primary election...Zine told a small but vocal crowd of Trutanich supporters that Weiss lacked the "integrity," "ethics," and "diligence" to become the city's chief prosecutor."I know, after sitting next to Jack Weiss for eight years, Mr. Trutanich is the man I strongly support," he said......Zine also said that when he was in the council chambers he would often find Weiss' seat empty, claiming that the candidate had "missed hundreds" of meetings and was "not attending to the duties [he was] sworn to do."..... Kevin James, a onetime assistant U.S. attorney who now hosts a radio show and said he lives in Weiss' council district, said "some law enforcement agency with appropriate jurisdiction" should investigate Weiss' campaign fundraising..... Weiss' campaign manager Ace Smith, who was in the audience yesterday, dismissed the statements made during the press conference as "just reckless, frankly close to libelous charges launches by a campaign on the decline."
The Times' story also reports that a Villaraigosa supporter told a council member vacillating in support for Weiss "that a Weiss victory was critical for Villaraigosa to show that he has clout in a potential race for governor." As his own city's lifestyle and politics mag Los Angeles is about to unveil a new issue baldly declaring the mayor a "failure," Villaraigosa needs all the shows of political clout he can get.
Past City of Angles blogging on the Weiss/Trutanich wars here and here.
(Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)