Will the Real Reform Candidate Please Stand Up?

Tom Hayden, state senator and former radical activist, is running for mayor against incumbent Richard Riordan. It’s a battle between an insurgent reformer and a representative of an establishment wedded to the status quo. But which is which?

We might expect Hayden to slip easily into the role of the insurgent reformer. Hayden has a long record of challenging powerful interests on behalf of progressive causes. Riordan, on the other hand, is the most establishment mayor of Los Angeles since his fellow Republican Norris Poulson left office in 1961. Building on his own corporate experience, Riordan enjoys broad support from business and operates like a corporate CEO.

But Riordan is gearing up to run for reelection as an insurgent reformer against an establishment wedded to the status quo. How can an establishment mayor run against the establishment? More easily than you might think.

To the immense frustration of progressive activists, the meaning of the word “establishment” has changed over the past three decades. This shift is particularly alarming to those like Hayden who used the term in the 1960s to denote their enemies in the system. How, for example, could someone who fights for the poor be part of the establishment? But the very success of these activists helped change the meaning of the word. As progressive Democrats won political offices and as African American and Latino activists took over city halls, they brought with them a reform vision. But they also became the government. The outsiders became the insiders.

These progressives still felt that they were fighting the establishment, by which they meant corporate interests that were polluting the environment, keeping wages low or blocking the expansion of social services. But the public was seeing things quite differently. Political scandals, critical news reporting and other factors made politics seem less ethical and attractive. The reputation of public office declined precipitously. The most effective campaign technique became to attack the political status quo.

Soon the story came full circle. A Supreme Court decision in 1976 allowed wealthy candidates to spend their own money to seek political office against traditional politicians dependent on campaign contributions from special interests. Whereas 30 years ago, voters had been suspicious of wealthy candidates, they now came to see rich candidates as free of the taint of the political status quo. Thus, the economic establishment could make a comeback by adopting the mantle of insurgent reform.

So it was that in 1993 Riordan, a wealthy businessman, defeated Michael Woo, a city councilman, by presenting himself as an alternative to a tired political establishment. In 1997, Riordan will run against the city council itself. Riordan began his term with strong support on the council. He enjoyed the endorsement or neutrality of the most powerful members of a body where Woo had few friends. But he managed to squander that support by his reluctance to work in a collegial manner. Over time, friendship and alliance have turned to bitterness. Riordan’s political advisors have turned necessity into virtue by casting the council as the principal roadblock to reform. The next step will be to tie Hayden to the council.

In its bitterness against Riordan, the council has been helping Riordan to make his case. On charter reform, the council’s failed legal maneuvers to keep the mayor’s elected commission off the April ballot diverted attention from the more preposterous elements of the mayor’s proposal guaranteeing the right of the people to decide.

And on the matter of officeholder accounts, the council’s decision to place a measure on the April ballot asking the voters to alter Proposition 208 to increase the funds available for the discretionary use of members is a well-placed punch in one’s own nose. Can anyone seriously imagine that the voters will approve this measure? And can’t effective television ads immediately be drafted against it?

The council’s resentment of Riordan is not yet a matter that interests the voters, because it is not yet about the voters. Legislatures usually are too divided to win power struggles with disciplined executives. They win only when the executive’s power is used for corrupt ends or to hurt the interests of the people. For now, the council looks like a rebel without a cause. Of course, after the election Riordan still will have to deal with the council if he wants to get anything done.

So is it hopeless to challenge the mayor? Only by thinking in different ways can such a challenge be sustained. Hayden may be enough of an outsider to give it a good try.

Riordan is vulnerable in two areas: social divisiveness and the MTA. Anticipating the first problem, Riordan’s people already have begun to call Hayden’s challenge “divisive,” but the controversy over the Willie Williams situation can only highlight Riordan’s limited abilities and talents in group relations in this tensely divided city, not to mention his remoteness from the daily lives of the voters. Charter reform also has the obvious potential to become a profoundly divisive issue.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is potentially damaging to Riordan because his actions on the MTA board contradict his campaign image as a reformer. Rather than fighting against the status quo, Riordan has used his enormous power over the board to maintain a contracting system that has been among the region’s ugliest spectacles. Painting that picture is a challenger’s job worthy of Hayden, who became thoroughly familiar with the MTA as a state senator.

Regardless of what happens in April, the message for progressives is clear: The defense of incumbent powers and privileges is the road to political oblivion. Using the political status quo to challenge the “other establishment” will not work for long. Progressives will never be able to use politics to bring about broad social change unless they first reform politics.