Much of California’s Hispanic leadership is already looking past this year’s race and looking forward to muscling into the political mainstream-largely as a result of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. From 1989 through 1992, under the provisions of the act, the United States granted permanent residency to more than 2.6 million formerly undocumented immigrants. Most settled in California-and roughly half of those in the L.A. area. Nearly 500,000 will be able to apply for citizenship in 1994. An additional 880,000 can qualify in 1995 and more than a million in 1996. The vast majority are from Mexico. Virtually all are of voting age. Their impact on California’s politics will be profound, In addition, claims Richard Martinez, executive director of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project in Los Angeles, nearly a million Latinos in California who are already citizens are not yet registered. He is working hard to change that. “We look forward to a very large voting base in the years to come … with great anticipation,” says Martinez.
Those changes could make the election of Riordan-L.A.’s first new mayor in 20 years and the first Republican since 1961 less than a historic turning point. Last year’s riot after the first trial of Rodney King’s police assailants plunged L.A. into an emotional sewer. It also dulled political debate, made honest discussion of racial issues difficult and fueled concerns about the public’s safety. Reeling from the violent upheaval and a prolonged economic implosion, L.A. may simply have decided Riordan was the best it could do, for now.
Woo, the only plausible alternative, was out of sync with the electorate’s mood. Even though he tried to talk tough about crime, the gentlemanly Woo was less than convincing. Nor, after eight years in the widely scorned council, was he credible as a prophet of change. And though he packaged himself as the candidate of racial harmony, Woo was hurt by apathy, alienation and race-based suspicions that permeated L.A.’s minority communities. Many blacks, though partial to Woo, were not sufficiently motivated to vote. And Hispanics, who make up 40 percent of L.A.’s population (but only 10 percent of its current voters), felt ignored by both camps. Woo didn’t lose the “Bradley coalition”-an alliance of ethnic minorities and white liberals that elected Bradley five times in a row. He simply failed to energize it.
But while black turnout was low, whites came out in droves. Though L.A. is more than 60 percent “minority,” 85 percent of Riordan’s voters were non-Hispanic whites, according to the Los Angeles Times exit poll. Most voters, even those backing Riordan, said they were choosing the “lesser of two evils.”
In some respects, the campaign bore an uncanny resemblance to the 1969 contest, which Sam Yorty won by portraying ex-cop Bradley as a soft-on-crime leftist to a city still shaken by the 1965 riots. Riordan did not resort to Yorty’s blatant scare tactics. But his pledge to come up with 3,000 police played well to an electorate traumatized by last year’s violence-even if his plan to pay for cops by leasing out Los Angeles International Airport struck critics as absurd.
Riordan says he wants no more than two terms. Stan Sanders, a black mayoral candidate who ended up backing Riordan, thinks Riordan’s lack of interest in a political career will allow him to confound expectations. L.A.’s inner city will be high on Riordan’s agenda, Sanders insists.
The vacuousness of the campaign has left Riordan with a huge opportunity to define his role in whatever way he likes. He has portrayed himself as the ultimate “problem solver” who will not only attract business to L.A. but make it a mecca for people of every race, creed, political persuasion and sexual orientation. That will not be easy. The city that Riordan calls a “war zone” is laboring under a projected deficit of up to $500 million. And it is riven with deep racial fissures. UCLA sociologist Lawrence Bobo grimly observes, “We will either find a way to make it work here, or this will be a prototype for disaster for the rest of the nation.”
As music blared in the ballroom of the Biltmore Hotel during Riordan’s victory bash, celebrant Dee Dee Saltzburg was asked what Riordan’s win meant for L.A. “Hope!” she shouted. For a city in search of its lost promise, hope has lately been in short supply. To be successful, even as a transitional mayor, Riordan will have to find ways to provide it-not only for his already fervent supporters, but for the larger Los Angeles, much of which does not yet vote, but whose potency is already undeniable.
