Democrats in South L.A. legislative race accused of misconduct

LEFT: Laura Richardson, RIGHT: Michelle Chambers, California's Senate District 35 candidate 2024.

Sept. 9, 2024 3 AM PT

A south Los Angeles legislative race that pits two Democrats against each other on the November ballot is resurfacing allegations of misconduct levied against the candidates in their prior public offices.

Michelle Chambers, a former Compton City Council member, and Laura Richardson, a former member of Congress, are running to succeed state Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena) in Senate District 35, which encompasses the cities of Carson, Compton and stretches down to the harbor.

For months, their campaigns have swapped jabs at each other, comparing fundraising numbers, accusing one another of lies and resurfacing past scandals.

Now Chambers is confronting accusations that she called a colleague’s young Latino son a racial slur in a closed-session meeting three years ago, and that she bullied Compton city employees while she served on the council. Chambers denies the allegations.

Richardson is trying to launch a political comeback after being reprimanded by the House of Representatives in 2012 when the House Ethics Committee found her guilty of misusing government resources by illegally compelling her congressional staff to perform campaign work and obstructing an investigation into the matter. Richardson says she accepted responsibility for making errors and has since improved her management skills.

A local election plagued by animus is not “unique to this particular race,” said Fernando Guerra, a professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University who is unaffiliated with the campaigns. But he said the eleventh-hour resurfacing of negative allegations hurts civic engagement.

“The fact that these things come up this late, instead of coming out way before the primary, before people were even announcing — that’s the problem,” he said.

Chambers’ tense tenure on the Compton City Council

Michelle Chambers served two years on the Compton City Council.

Chambers did not complete her term on the Compton City Council, resigning about midway into her four-year term to take a job with the California Department of Justice in 2022.

Critics say her premature departure casts doubt on her commitment to serving as an elected official. Chambers said she took the state job to serve her community “on another level” by addressing hate crimes, homelessness and working with Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta on combating street takeovers. Bonta and Bradford have endorsed Chambers.

In the two years Chambers served in Compton, she said she got more done than her predecessors by improving street lighting, bettering the employment rate and helping small businesses. The period also came with a myriad of internal quarrels, including allegations of bullying, intimidation and the confusing episode in which a fellow council member accused Chambers of calling his son a racial slur.

Isaac Galvan, who served on the Compton City Council with Chambers for two years, said in 2021 that during a closed-session meeting, Chambers called his son an “ugly wetback.”

He made the claim during the public portion of the July 13, 2021, council meeting.

“That is not true,” Chambers replied, according to a video of the public meeting. “You are not telling the truth.”

Galvan lost reelection in 2022 and is currently awaiting trial on corruption, bribery and election fraud charges. He did not respond to interview requests.

After Galvan accused Chambers of using the slur in talking about his son, the city commissioned an investigation that cleared Chambers of wrongdoing. But now, two people at the meeting — who originally swore under oath that they did not hear her say the slur — told The Times they do, in fact, remember Chambers saying it.

Compton Mayor Emma Sharif and Councilmember Jonathan Bowers, who have both endorsed Richardson, said in separate interviews that they heard Chambers use the slur during the 2021 meeting. Sharif said she did not admit it during the investigation because she wanted to respect the rules of the closed session, which forbid making the discussion public.

Bowers called the investigation a “scam.”

“I said I heard several things. And then in that investigation they go, ‘Oh, we determined Michelle didn’t say anything.’ That’s just not true,” Bowers said.

Then-City Atty. Damon Brown, who has endorsed Chambers, defended the investigation, stating that it was conducted independently with no bias at play.

“Within weeks of the incident, they did not hear the comment, and they testified under oath to that fact,” Brown said. “And then three years later, they are saying something different while simultaneously supporting a candidate who is opposing Michelle’s candidacy. So I think those facts speak for themselves.”

Chambers called the whole thing a “political ruse” and adamantly denied saying the slur.

“What’s really disheartening is that they are using my Latino community as political ploy,” she said. “They all know I didn’t say that.”

Also while Chambers was on the Compton City Council, two high-profile city workers resigned, citing her behavior as a reason.

Cecil Rhambo, now the LAX chief of police, wrote a resignation letter in June 2019 saying he was stepping down from his position as Compton city manager over alleged hostilities from Chambers.

Then-City Controller Rafaela T. King resigned a year after Rhambo, writing in her letter that when she first started her job, everyone “seemed to be on the same page at the beginning ... that changed with the new Councilwoman and the new administration. I was constantly defending myself and my staff for daring to do the right thing.”

Chambers said she reconciled with Rhambo and that King was uncooperative and politically motivated against her, allegations which King denies. Rhambo did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Richardson’s rocky record in Congress

Laura Richardson campaigning for Congress in 2007.

Richardson’s experience stretches across local, state and congressional levels, where she prides herself for bolstering funding to transportation and infrastructure. While she has encountered some turbulence in her political career, Richardson noted no new issues have arisen in recent years.

She faced criticism from the LGBTQ+ community during a 1996 run for Assembly when Richardson’s campaign sent out a mailer saying her opponent, a lesbian, was “committed to a radical gay rights agenda.”

Richardson said her position on gay rights has since evolved, pointing out that as an Assembly member in 2007 she voted to support same-sex marriage, and that she supports Proposition 3 on the November ballot to remove outdated language from the state Constitution that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman.

“We have all, I think, gained a better understanding of how we can be supportive of everyone in the community, and I have a very strong record to do that,” she said.

Richardson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007. She served three terms before a House Ethics Committee investigation derailed her bid for a fourth.

The report found Richardson guilty of compelling congressional staff to work on her campaign and obstructing the committee investigation “through the alteration or destruction of evidence” and “the deliberate failure to produce documents.”

“On an almost daily basis for months at a time, Representative Richardson used resources (a term so broad that it can — and in this case does — encompass anything from a sheet of paper to the time of a government employee) that had been paid for by the American people in order to accomplish not the people’s ends but her own,” the report read.

Richardson admitted to wrongdoing, according to the report, and accepted a reprimand and $10,000 fine for the violations.

Richardson said that during her time in Congress Republicans frequently targeted members of the Black Caucus. Since the investigation, Richardson said she worked at an employment firm to improve her managerial skills and has recognized previous mistakes.

“It’s been said voters are very forgiving, and if you stand up and you accept responsibility and you improve in the work that you do — we need people who’ve been through things, who understand what it’s like to have had difficulties,” she said. “And so that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t shy away from it.”