Garcetti Staying Far Away From Campaign

By MITCHELL LANDSBERG

Feb. 10, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

His opponents are calling him “the stealth candidate.” They claim to have put out an all-points bulletin for him.

But Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti isn’t so hard to find. In the midst of his second reelection campaign, he’s spending time in his 18th-floor office in the Criminal Courts Building, periodically slipping out to tout his accomplishments to friendly audiences and generally acting as if he had no opposition at all.

After his squeaker of a victory in 1996 against a former deputy, John Lynch, Garcetti is playing it safe. “He’s not doing a campaign, per se,” said his campaign consultant, Bill Carrick.

And in contrast to the last election, which was overshadowed by the embarrassing loss by Garcetti’s office in the O.J. Simpson case, there is no overarching issue that has grabbed public attention so far in this year’s race. Garcetti would just as soon keep it that way.

With the nonpartisan election now less than a month away, challengers Steve Cooley and Barry Groveman are trying to raise public awareness of the campaign and to tie Garcetti to the Rampart police scandal, which they say he has mishandled. But they have been frustrated by his refusal to debate or otherwise engage in the give-and-take of a campaign.

“We want to bring this guy Gil Garcetti into this campaign so we can discuss real issues,” Cooley told members of the Criminal Courts Bar Assn. on Tuesday, when the organization held what was supposed to be a debate by the three candidates. As was the case the week before, at a candidates’ forum held by the Assistant District Attorneys Assn., only Cooley and Groveman took part.

The tactic infuriated both challengers and lawyers sponsoring the event. “I think it stinks,” said Stephen Sadowsky, treasurer of the Criminal Courts Bar Assn. “I think the public has a right and a need to hear the positions on the issues.”

Added Richard Hutton, a member of the defense lawyers’ group: “I think it suggests very skillful political management. . . . If you’ve done a terrible job and have a terrible record, you’re better off avoiding any debate or discussion.”

Carrick said Garcetti simply didn’t want to subject himself to a pileup. “We’ve got two guys who have nothing positive to say,” he said. “They’re total attack dogs. . . . There’s no purpose in [being] a punching bag for two guys who may or may not be serious candidates.”

If there’s a runoff, he said, Garcetti will enter the ring.

Most political observers, Carrick included, think it’s likely that Garcetti will wind up in a November runoff against one of the two challengers. Garcetti is considered vulnerable, but perhaps not so much as he was in 1996, when he won by fewer than 5,000 votes out of 2.2 million cast.

That race was widely viewed as a referendum on the Simpson trial. The sting of that loss has presumably diminished in the last four years. On the other hand, voters haven’t forgotten Simpson--or Garcetti’s role as the chief of the office that prosecuted him.

“If you mention Gil Garcetti to the average voter, they’ll have an opinion,” political consultant Steven Afriat said.

Opinions on Garcetti run deep. Even his own office is sharply divided. In a vote among deputy district attorneys last month, 56% supported Garcetti and 40% supported Cooley, Garcetti’s chief deputy. Fewer than 1% supported Groveman, who has only limited experience as a prosecutor. But Groveman’s outsider status may be his greatest source of strength among voters at large.

One rebellious deputy district attorney, Patrick Connolly, has started a Web site (https://www.gilgarcetti.com) devoted to attacks on Garcetti.

Opponents say the incumbent has exhibited ethical lapses in cases in which the district attorney’s office was perceived as being lenient toward defendants with ties to campaign contributors or political supporters of Garcetti. Groveman, an environmental defense lawyer who led a Los Angeles Unified School District task force investigating toxic hazards at the Belmont High School site, has accused Garcetti of not being aggressive enough in investigating environmental crimes at the school.

And, increasingly, both candidates have accused Garcetti of mishandling the Rampart scandal, which could cost taxpayers an estimated $125 million in civil liability.

Cooley and Groveman have criticized Garcetti for his 1996 decision to cancel a policy of sending prosecutors to the scenes of shootings involving police officers. Garcetti recently announced that he would reinstate that policy.

Had it been in effect the last four years, Cooley and Groveman have said, it might have uncovered or discouraged abuses in the Rampart Division.

Cooley has also accused Garcetti of prolonging the ordeal for defendants who were wrongly accused by corrupt Rampart police officers. He has called on the district attorney to open up the files of Rampart cases so that defense attorneys can assess whether they are tainted.

And he has cited an internal memo that, he argues, should have tipped Garcetti off to problems in the Rampart Division several years ago. Had Garcetti heeded the June 1997 memo, in which a deputy district attorney reportedly warned that police Officer Rafael Perez could not be trusted, he could have headed off the scandal, Cooley said. Perez is the officer at the center of the scandal who allegedly planted evidence, falsified reports and framed suspects.

“The question has to be asked, ‘What happened to this opportunity to detect that Rafael Perez was a liar?’ ” Cooley said.

Carrick declined to respond specifically to Cooley’s charges, saying instead: “This is just more of the same from Mr. Cooley. The attacks get shriller and less factually based as his campaign continues to sputter and flounder.”

Groveman and Cooley have so far largely avoided attacking each other, each aware that he will need the other’s support if he winds up in a runoff with Garcetti. At the Criminal Courts Bar Assn. forum, Groveman said he had “grown to like” Cooley, although he stressed that Cooley lacked his breadth of experience. And Cooley said that while Groveman might not know as much about being a prosecutor, “This man has courage. . . . He’s many times the man Gil Garcetti is.”

Neither challenger can claim the war chest that Garcetti has. The incumbent had raised $770,000 as of Dec. 31, compared with $420,000 for Groveman and $229,000 for Cooley. And so far, his campaign costs have been minimal--one advantage of not campaigning. Carrick said the campaign hasn’t even decided whether it will buy television time in the primary.

Garcetti may be holding back, saving his resources for a runoff campaign. Or he may be hoping he can quietly win the primary outright and avoid a runoff. Asked if that seemed possible, David Evans, president of the Criminal Courts Bar Assn., replied, “Unfortunately.”

“I say ‘unfortunately,’ not because of who Garcetti is,” he said, “but because the issues have not been discussed.”