Villaraigosa Urges Halt to Hostility in Race, but Hahn Aide Calls Idea a Ploy

Former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa issued a challenge to City Atty. James K. Hahn on Saturday to join him in ceasing the recent hostility in the campaign for mayor of Los Angeles, suggesting that both should focus only on their own records and agendas.

The Hahn campaign quickly rejected the challenge as a publicity ploy--saying Villaraigosa should not be taken seriously until he apologizes for his recent comparison of Hahn to the late Mayor Sam Yorty, a master of divisive electioneering.

Rather than clear the air, the truce proposal quickly devolved into renewed complaints in a contest that both sides view as extremely close as it heads toward the June 5 election.

In the first phase of the mayoral election, Villaraigosa invited his opponents to examine his legislative record. Hahn and his aides said that is what they have done.

But Villaraigosa said Saturday that Hahn had so badly mischaracterized the former assemblyman’s record on criminal justice--suggesting that he favored light treatment for child molesters, pornographers and gang members, among others--that the campaign needs to take a drastic change in course.

“There is nothing wrong with making claims about your opponent’s legislative record,� Villaraigosa said. “But those claims have to be accurate and truthful, and Jim Hahn has not passed that test.�

Villaraigosa proposed that he and Hahn stop analyzing each other’s records and, instead, let the media and public make those assessments.

Hahn campaign spokesman Kam Kuwata countered that Villaraigosa’s proposal was insincere because it was made through the media and not directly to Hahn. Kuwata charged that the most egregious claim of the last week was Villaraigosa’s in comparing Hahn’s tactics to those of Yorty, who, when challenged in two mayoral elections by Tom Bradley, an African American, ran campaigns tainted by racism.

“When Mr. Villaraigosa apologizes to the city of Los Angeles and Jim Hahn for injecting the ghost of Sam Yorty into this race,� Kuwata said, “then we can begin to take these publicity stunts of his far more seriously.�

But Villaraigosa refused to retract his Yorty comparison, repeating his assertion that Hahn was sowing fear and playing off the crime issue, as Yorty once did.

In the early months of this year, Hahn and Villaraigosa had no such harsh words for each other. The first hints of conflict emerged in March, when Villaraigosa said Los Angeles needed a more aggressive city attorney to limit liability costs.

Hahn began a stronger counterattack when Villaraigosa started to surge in the polls. About two weeks before the April 10 election, Hahn said Villaraigosa helped create the state’s energy crisis by voting to deregulate the power industry.

Villaraigosa shot back that Hahn was guilty of a “willful failure of leadership� in not helping to head off the Rampart police corruption scandal.

Then it was Hahn: Police would never accept Villaraigosa as their leader because he once wrote a letter on behalf of a convicted cocaine trafficker whose sentence was commuted by former President Clinton.

In the last week before the election, Hahn began to attack Villaraigosa’s votes on crime and punishment. On Thursday, the city attorney launched his most concerted attack, suggesting that Villaraigosa voted for laxer treatment of pornographers, rapists and other criminals.

A review by The Times found that Villaraigosa sometimes voted to allow lesser sentences and took the position of civil libertarians. But it also found that Hahn distorted portions of his rival’s record on crime issues, making Villaraigosa appear farther outside the mainstream than he was.

“They implied that I support rapists, child molesters, child pornographers and gangs,� Villaraigosa complained Saturday. “I am a father. Those kinds of statements are nuts.�

But others said Villaraigosa was out of line to compare Hahn to Yorty, who ran some of the most divisive campaigns in the city’s modern history. And Hahn spokesman Kuwata protested that Villaraigosa had used radio ads suggesting that the city attorney was responsible for attacks actually made by a third party.

Kuwata said emphasis on the candidates’ records is valuable. “What becomes really informative for the voters of Los Angeles,� he said, “is to have them address the real differences between the two of them.�