[Mb-civic] Villaraigosa's Challenge

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Villaraigosa's Challenge: Governing Los Angeles in the Bush 
and Schwarzenegger Era
by Peter Dreier

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/weblog/breakingnews/archives/2005/05/d
reier_villarai.html

Antonio Villaraigosa's landslide victory (59 - 41 %) May 17 over Los
Angeles Mayor James Hahn has raised hopes about moving the city in a new
direction. It was a personal victory for Villaraigosa -- a high school
drop-out who later graduated from UCLA, became an organizer with the
teachers union and president of the local ACLU chapter, and served as
Speaker of the state Assembly and City Council member -- whose election
immediately makes him a national figure, including his photo on the cover
of Newsweek, headlined, "Latino Power."

It was also a victory for LA's progressive movement, which since the 1992
riots has forged an increasingly powerful grassroots organizing and
political coalition of unions, community organizations, religious
institutions, and ethnic civic groups. For example, the city has adopted a
living wage law, an ordinance that effectively stops low-wage big-box
stores like Wal-Mart from setting up shop, an anti-sweatshop policy, and a
municipal housing trust fund. At the end of his victory speech on election
night, Villaraigosa asked for a moment of silence to honor Miguel
Contreras, his close friend, political ally, and leader of the LA County
Federation of Labor, who died May 6. In many ways, Villaraigosa's victory
was built on the political foundation that Contreras had built over the
past decade.

In 1973, Los Angeles was the first major U.S. city with a white majority
to elect an African-America mayor -- Tom Bradley, who served for 20 years.
This sprawling city of four million people is now 48 percent Latino, 31
percent white, 11 percent Asian and 10 percent black. The demographic
changes have triggered racial tensions, but the past decade's groundswell
of grassroots labor and community organizing has helped refocus much of
the frustration in positive directions. As a result, LA is a much more
progressive city than it was three decades ago. According to exit polls,
47% of voters identified themselves as liberals, compared with 27%
moderate and 26% conservative.

Villaraigosa's wide victory margin was spread across all key demographic,
racial, ethnic, economic, and geographic groups. He won majorities among
all income groups, from 54% among those earning over $100,000 to 67% 
among
voters below $20,000. Villaraigosa's progressive politics and charisma
helped him carry a whopping 77% of voters between 18 and 29 and 70% of
those between 30 and 44.

Four years ago, Villaraigosa lost a close run-off against Hahn, a moderate
Democratic, but the incumbent's lackluster record - including ongoing
pay-to-play corruption scandals -- gave Villaraigosa another chance.
Compared with 2001, he strengthened his base of Latinos (he won 84% of
their vote), union members (60%), and Jews (55%). Four years ago,
Villaraigosa won only 20% of the African-American vote, due in large
measure to their loyalty to Hahn's late father, Ken Hahn, a long-time
County Supervisor who represented black neighborhoods and had been a civil
rights ally. But this year Villaraigosa won 48% of the black vote,
including 59% among blacks under 44 years old. He also expanded his
support among white voters in the suburban middle-class San Fernando
Valley, garnering 48% of their votes compared with 34% in 2001.

How can Villaraigosa possibly live up to such high expectations,
especially when, in formal terms, LA's mayor has very little power and the
city has very limited authority to raise revenues to address the
day-to-day problems confronting LA's residents?

In some ways, this is a terrible time to be mayor of a major American
city. The Bush administration and the Republican Congress have turned
their backs on cities and inner-ring suburbs -- and working class and poor
people who live there. Federal funds for affordable housing, schools,
public transit, public safety, and health care are woefully inadequate.
The Bush administration's priorities -- cutting taxes for the rich,
weakening regulations on business that protect consumers, workers, and the
environment, and reducing spending for domestic programs while increasing
military spending -- come at the expense of cities and inner-ring suburbs.
Bush has imposed many new mandates on cities - such as increased homeland
security and No Child Left Beyond requirements for schools - without
providing the funds necessary to comply. Let's call it fend-for-yourself
federalism.

Washington was once a partner with America's cities in addressing urban
problems. No longer. Since 1977, federal aid as a share of total city
revenues has declined from 15 percent to 5 percent. State aid has not even
come close to filling the gap. As a result, most big-city mayors are
trapped in a fiscal straitjacket. Demands for public services and
expenditures are inexorable and often beyond municipal control (as in the
case of the local share of Medicaid expenditures). As a result, even
economically successful cities like LA face chronic difficulty balancing
their budgets. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has exacerbated this
situation. He has all but declared war on poor and working class people by
cutting funds for schools, seeking to put a limit on spending for social
programs, attacking unions (especially teachers, nurses and state
employees) as "special interests", while taking huge donations from
corporations and giving business a freer hand on environmental and
workplace safety issues.

Although both the national media have emphasized Villaraigosa's stature as
LA's first 20th century Latino mayor, he has more in common with recent
progressive big-city mayors like Chicago's Harold Washington (an
African-American) and Boston's Ray Flynn (Irish Catholic) than with other
Latino mayors, most of whom have been moderates.

Villaraigosa will be judged by his ability not only to take care of the
municipal housekeeping chores (such as fixing potholes, reducing traffic
congestion) but also whether he can address the plight of the poor and the
struggling lower middle class -- to promote what activists call a
"growth-with-justice" agenda. The city's economy is booming, but the
divide between the rich and everyone else is widening. LA has more
millionaires than any other city but it is also the nation's capital of
the working poor. It confronts a shortage of decent jobs that pay a living
wage and access to health care. Housing prices are skyrocketing. Rents now
average over $1,200 per month and the median sales price exceeds $350,000.
Traffic congestion and inadequate public transit make LA the most polluted
(and unhealthy) metro area in the country. Overcrowded and underfunded
schools, including a severe shortage of pre-school programs, threaten the
city's economic future. Despite a decline in the crime rate, LA is still
one of the most dangerous cities in the country.

Villaraigosa needs to educate LA that there are many problems that cannot
be solved by the city government alone. The new mayor will need to reach
out to the suburbs within the region to forge a sense of common purpose --
for example, to avoid bidding-wars for jobs and investment -- to improve
the region's business climate. He will need to be a voice for LA in
Sacramento by working closely with the Democratic legislature to challenge
Schwarzenegger's agenda, raise taxes on the state's wealthy residents and
corporations, and expand funding for public schools, health insurance,
urban parks, and public transit. When he served as Speaker of the state
Assembly, Villaraigosa surprised many skeptics by his effective
coalition-building skills that enabled him to pass progressive legislation
to expand funding for urban parks, health insurance, and school
construction. Given the limited powers granted LA's mayor, Villaraigosa's
personality and leadership skills will be critical. He needs to be a new
kind of pro-business mayor -- by redefining a "healthy business climate"
to mean prosperity that is shared by working people.

This includes using the power of the mayor's office to leverage the city's
diverse and strong economy. In contrast to Bush and Schwarzenegger, who
want to loosen regulations on business and promote voluntary compliance
with environmental, consumer and workplace protections, Villaraigosa can
promote a more enlightened view of business' responsibility to the broader
community. He can encourage employers to support workers' rights to
unionize - whether its janitors and security guards in office buildings,
or nurses at hospitals. He can support ordinances that require developers
to share in the city's strong housing market by setting aside 20% of units
for low-income and moderate income families. He can champion a
linked-deposit policy that uses the city's deposits to encourage banks to
end redlining and predatory practices and, instead, make loans to small
businesses, would-be homebuyers, and developers of affordable housing.

As a long-time organizer and activist, he understands the importance of
mobilizing people to help-themselves. He can encourage people who live and
work in the city to participate in more volunteer activities -- in the
city's schools, neighborhoods, churches and synagogues, and workplaces. He
can encourage tenant groups to help the city enforce housing codes in slum
housing. He can encourage parents to spend more time reading to their kids
and working with parents to mobilize for school reform.

As mayor of the nation's second largest city (and with the largest city
headed by a Republican mayor, Michael Bloomberg), Villaraigosa will have a
forum to challenge the misguided priorities of the Bush administration and
the GOP-controlled Congress that have ignored urban areas and the poor.
But Villaraigosa also understands that while its nice to see your picture
of the cover of Newsweek, voters expect him to get their potholes fixed ,
hire more cops, and make Los Angeles a more livable city.

Peter Dreier, who teaches Politics and directs the Urban & Environmental
Policy program at Occidental College, is coauthor of The Next Los Angeles:
The Struggle for a Livable City (University of California Press, 2005) and
Place Matters: Metropolitics for the 21st Century (University Press of
Kansas, 2005)

***

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