Attack Ad Shows Hahn Is a Hypocrite, Villaraigosa Says

On the surface, the two Los Angeles mayoral candidates conducted their campaigns Wednesday as usual: One had a news conference on building schools, the other on improving neighborhoods.

Beneath the surface, however, City Atty. James K. Hahn and former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa are waging a bitter fight over a Hahn-sponsored television commercial that attacks Villaraigosa for writing a letter to the Clinton White House on behalf of a convicted drug trafficker. The ad includes scenes of a crack pipe being held against a flame and a hand cutting cocaine with a razor.

On Wednesday, Villaraigosa hit back. This time, his campaign sent a letter to Hahn, decrying him as a hypocrite for running the same kind of television commercial he denounced in a campaign four years ago.

In 1997, when the city attorney was running for reelection, Hahn called attack ads run by his opponent despicable and sleazy. In those ads, challenger Ted Stein accused Hahn of failing to prevent the death of two people by not seeking jail time for two men charged with domestic violence in separate cases.

Hahn said he stands by his current ads, calling them factual and saying that Villaraigosa must defend his record.

Hahn added Wednesday that the Stein ad and his commercial criticizing Villaraigosa are “totally different situations.�

“Those ads were based on cases handled by deputy city attorneys that showed no direct involvement by me whatsoever and tried to somehow connect that to some terrible tragedies that happened much later,� he said during a news conference in Mar Vista.

The city attorney added: “There is a direct connection between [Villaraigosa] writing a letter and somebody getting pardoned who was guilty of a crime.�

In fact, Villaraigosa was one of many Los Angeles leaders who wrote to the White House on behalf of cocaine trafficker Carlos Vignali, the son of a political contributor. In addition, President Clinton’s brother-in-law, Hugh Rodham, helped secure Vignali’s freedom by pleading his case with the president’s aides. Vignali’s sentence was commuted by Clinton in January.

Villaraigosa has said he regrets writing the letter, but that he was responding to a father’s pleas.

The former legislator attempted to ignore the ad issue as he toured Valerio Primary Center in Van Nuys with Mayor Richard Riordan Wednesday afternoon. Villaraigosa discussed his plans to appoint a deputy mayor to oversee education issues, including helping the Los Angeles Unified School District build 100 new schools.

But responding to reporters’ questions afterward, he said: “There are people all over this city that are concerned with the tone and tenor of the Hahn campaign, with the distortions of the track record, and with the beyond-the-pale commercials of that campaign.�

Hahn is “certainly engaged in attack politics in the kind of ads that, frankly, he rejected a couple years ago when they were used against him by Ted Stein, the kinds of ads that were used against Michael Dukakis and other elected officials,� Villaraigosa said. “They’re an attempt to distort and misrepresent the record of another candidate for the purpose of creating a climate of fear. . . . I am as outraged as he was back then.�

Stein’s 1997 ad said Hahn’s office should have done more to seek jail time for two domestic violence offenders who later killed. In one case, a serial rapist, out on probation after the city attorney’s office charged him with a misdemeanor for a domestic violence incident, killed a 19-year-old woman. In another, a man who violated a restraining order to stay away from his family was given probation in a plea-bargain with the city attorney’s office, and then hacked his son to death with a machete.

In both cases, deputy city attorneys defended their actions, saying the sentences were standard based on the information they had.

When Stein ran an ad about the two deaths during his run for city attorney, Hahn blasted his challenger for “sleaziness.�

“Stein is using a terrible and tragic situation mixed with Willie Horton tactics,� Hahn said in a statement at the time, referring to a controversial ad then-Vice President George Bush ran against Dukakis in the 1988 presidential contest.

Also Wednesday, a vanload of protesters showed up at Hahn’s news conference, where he was touting his office’s efforts to rid the neighborhood of gangs and blight. The protesters interrupted Hahn, circling reporters and the candidate, chanting: “Shame on you!� and “No more crack pipe politics!�

After attempting to answer questions from reporters over the yelling, Hahn got in his car and left. “It’s hard to have a conversation here,� he said.

The protesters refused to say whether they were with the Villaraigosa campaign, identifying themselves only as labor union members and “concerned citizens.�

Both Villaraigosa and campaign consultant Ace Smith denied any involvement in the disruption.

In another sign of the sharpening rhetoric, a carpenters union has sent out a campaign mailer attacking Villaraigosa’s record on crime when he was in the state Assembly. The city Ethics Commission said the union spent $50,000 on 150,000 pieces of mail.

“Antonio Villaraigosa is Dangerous and Must Be Defeated,� the mailer says in large lettering, over a photo of Villaraigosa with a line through him.

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Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed to this story.

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FINAL DEBATE

The two mayoral candidates will face off in their final debate at 7 tonight at the Museum of Tolerance. Reservations were required. The hourlong event, sponsored by the League of Women Voters, Verizon and KABC-TV, will air live on Channel 7 and KNX-AM (1070).