Incumbency Is the Culprit at L.A. City Hall

Mayor Tom Bradley’s outside employment and stock transactions are under investigation. Questions have been raised about contributions to some City Council members’ election campaigns. In the bureaucracy, Sylvia Cunliffe’s regime in the Department of General Services and Leila Correa-Gonzalez’s activities at the Housing Authority also raised ethical and legal concerns. In short, it appears that City Hall is a mess.

Ever since the recall of Mayor Frank L. Shaw in 1938, we Angelenos believed that our City Hall was free of corruption. The initiative, referendum, recall and nonpartisan elections, all designed to rid government of unfair influence by special interests, kept L.A. different.

Now, it is obvious that political influence is for sale in City Hall. The clientele seeking such influence are those who deal with the city: banks, brokerage houses, developers, the Community Redevelopment Agency, public-works vendors and contractors. City Hall functionaries become lobbyists for those interests and use their contacts to secure special treatment from the council and the mayor.

In the last election, incumbents survived because voter turnout reached an all-time low of about 20%. People stayed home rather than participate in a political farce. Why bother to vote, they reasoned, when news coverage of the campaigns was scant and all predictions indicated that the incumbents would win easily?

Why did news of questionable doings surface after the election?

Why do incumbents have little trouble winning endorsement for reelection from the city’s major newspapers?

It is incumbency that is the problem. In Los Angeles, it grants license to abuse the public trust and violate the social contract.

Just one visit to the council chambers is enough to outrage any citizen. There is no decorum and little respect for citizens who come to testify. Many council members eat, read, talk on the phone or tell each other jokes. Why bother listening to constituents when deals have already been cut and tickets sold to campaign fund-raising dinners? How many council members depend primarily on constituents rather than special interests to fund their campaigns and walk precincts?

Nothing seems to embarrass City Hall enough to change in ways to restore public confidence in government. Thus, in the last few years, the citizens of Los Angeles have had to take some matters into their own hands. “Vigilante planning” was born, in which lawsuits were filed and initiatives placed on the municipal ballot to make end runs on elected officials’ decisions.

This trend sends two messages: that elected officials have failed, and that on substantive issues (as opposed to candidates) voters will turn out to exercise their franchise right.

There is some hope for democracy. People do still care about issues, but they do not see the connection between candidates and public-policy outcomes. We need to work on that link--that is what political accountability is all about.

What is to be done? The newly created Ethics Commission has a wonderful opportunity to identify areas in which to reform the system. But we can also go further.

To restore confidence in government, Los Angeles voters should pass a strict conflict-of-interest ordinance with severe penalties and provision for citizen suits if the city attorney fails to prosecute. Among other things, such an ordinance could prohibit the chairmen of council committees from accepting campaign contributions from persons or organizations appearing before their committees. This practice, in effect, allows the chairmen to charge a scheduling fee to get actions on committee calendars, and is one of most flagrant conflicts of interest in City Hall.

We also need to consider a two-term limit on local offices, so that elected representatives are closer to the Jeffersonian concept of citizen-legislators, not career politicians. No matter how good one is starting out, the system takes its toll and the public suffers for it.

Guaranteed turnover at City Hall--for the mayor as well as council members-- would create more accountability and encourage candidates who view elected office as public service, rather than merely a job.

We have a choice: reshape the political system or surrender to a system that does not care about the future of our city.