Political Paradox

In the corner of Los Angeles that Mayor James K. Hahn calls home, children still play on the streets and neighbors still watch one another’s backs. “It’s like total 1950s,” the mayor said recently of his home of 18 years. “It’s a gem.”

It’s also about as far as one can get from City Hall and still be in Los Angeles -- 24.6 miles from the downtown Civic Center, 29 miles from Hollywood, 52 miles from Chatsworth in the northwest San Fernando Valley.

But, isolated and idiosyncratic, San Pedro is in many ways a perfect fit for the enigmatic man who is battling to hold on to the grandest office in City Hall.

The winner of six straight citywide elections, the son of one of the region’s most gregarious and skilled politicians, Hahn often astounds his colleagues with political clumsiness and personal isolation.

A former city attorney who built his political career on a reputation for honesty and integrity, he enters what could be his last campaign with his administration under investigation by federal and local prosecutors.

A mayor with an encyclopedic knowledge of Los Angeles who has presided over steep drops in crime, kept the city from fracturing and fiercely guarded its coffers, Hahn finds himself accused by opponents of being a failed leader.

Not a man to talk openly about his challenges, Hahn prefers to focus on more basic measurements:

“I’m going to let the results -- what I’ve been doing -- speak for themselves,” he said in a recent interview.

Yet these paradoxes are complicating Hahn’s quest for reelection March 8.

Old Family Ties

A famously tough and effective campaigner, the 54-year-old mayor is in the fight of his political life. In the last year, the U.S. attorney’s office has subpoenaed his e-mails. Several of his closest aides have resigned amid questions about their fundraising activities.

Hahn, who denies any wrongdoing, has had to defend his ties to a public relations firm that is accused of overbilling the city by $4.2 million.

And his rivals have been mining votes in parts of the city that for decades were sacred ground for the Hahns, including largely African American South Los Angeles, which once appeared to have an unbreakable bond with his family.

It is an odd predicament for a man whose family occupies an almost mythic place in Los Angeles history.

Hahn’s father, Kenneth Hahn, bestrode local politics for nearly 50 years, shaping not just Los Angeles but also the man who became its mayor.

The elder Hahn, whose own father immigrated to Los Angeles from Canada after World War I, served a record 10 terms on the county Board of Supervisors between 1952 and 1992.

Legendary for his common touch and folksy manner, he was the kind of politician who would greet the janitor at the county building by name -- and then inquire about the man’s wife and children, also by name.

Kenneth Hahn pressured then-Gov. Pat Brown to put emergency call boxes on the county’s freeways after he saw a woman stranded with her children on the Harbor Freeway. He helped build a county hospital in South Los Angeles after the 1965 Watts riots. He took Dodger owner Walter O’Malley up in a helicopter to help select a spot for the team’s new ballpark when it moved west from Brooklyn, N.Y.

But the elder Hahn also melded the sensibility for what his constituents wanted -- a talent that earned him the title “pothole king” -- with acts that made him a pioneer at a time when Los Angeles was first struggling with racial integration.

In 1952, when the police and fire departments were still segregated, he appointed an African American, Gilbert W. Lindsay, who later served for 27 years on L.A.’s City Council, as his deputy. And in 1961, Hahn was the only official to greet the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when he came to Los Angeles.

Moves like those won the supervisor the fierce loyalty of African Americans in his district, which stretched across South Los Angeles.

They also made a profound impression on his son, who often tells crowds that it was his father who inspired him to go into politics. “There will never be another Kenny Hahn,” Hahn said when his father died. “He was the absolute epitome of a local politician.”

‘Father-Son Thing’

Growing up in a bungalow in the heart of what was then a middle-class, mixed-race neighborhood near Crenshaw Boulevard and Florence Avenue, the younger Hahn learned politics at its roots.

He visited constituents with his father, greeted presidents and governors, cruised the streets on Saturday mornings looking for potholes and posed for the cameras as a Dodger batboy during the team’s inaugural season in Los Angeles.

“It was a real father-son thing,” said Hahn’s younger sister Janice, now a Los Angeles city councilwoman. “Politics is what we talked about at the dinner table, in church, when we went out to restaurants.... It meant someone coming to our door on a Saturday morning asking my dad for help.”

But even if Hahn soaked up an appreciation for the virtue of elected office, he inherited fewer of his father’s natural political instincts. The elder Hahn used to tell people that it was “too bad” that Janice was a girl, given that she was more like him and James Hahn more like his reserved mother, who brought a deep religious faith to the family that her son still shares.

As a young man, Hahn would shake his head at his father’s uncanny political skills, said Robert Horner, Hahn’s closest friend in the late 1970s.

Horner recalled watching the news with his friend one evening when Hahn and other politicians flashed onto the screen. The younger Hahn turned to Horner and told him to watch how his father would position himself to be in exactly the right place for the camera shot. Sure enough, the supervisor did.

“I think there were some things that he wouldn’t have minded being able to do,” Horner said. “But Jim has always been a loner.”

Still, in 1981 -- just past his 30th birthday and with only a few years of experience as a deputy city attorney and in legal practice with Horner -- Hahn went into the family business.

He did not run for city councilman or county supervisor, jobs that demand the constant tending to constituents. With his father providing counsel, Hahn ran for city controller, an office whose primary responsibility is watching over the city’s books. Running as James Kenneth Hahn to emphasize his lineage, he eked out a win.

Four years later, the rising politician won the first of his four terms as city attorney. Thirtysomething, with an apartment in Westchester under the flight path into Los Angeles International Airport, Hahn became the city’s lead counsel and the head of an office of hundreds of lawyers.

A year later, Hahn moved to San Pedro, into the ranch house where his second wife, Monica, had grown up. (Hahn’s first marriage had ended in divorce after two years.)

Hahn -- who stayed out late at concerts and laced his discussions of public policy with new wave rock lyrics -- was the talk of the political town. There was speculation he could someday be governor.

Instead, he remained city attorney for 16 years, leaving four years ago when term limits forced him out.

Hahn still speaks proudly of his four terms there. But when he ran for mayor in 2001, he was repeatedly criticized for failing to stake out bolder positions as city attorney on issues as diverse as police misconduct and the environment. Hahn responded that his hands were tied by his advisory role as the city’s lawyer.

There was nothing timid about his first mayoral campaign.

After finishing second in the general election to Antonio Villaraigosa, who is challenging Hahn again this year, Hahn mounted an aggressive assault in the runoff. In one ad, controversial because of its image of a crack pipe, he blistered Villaraigosa for seeking clemency for a convicted drug dealer.

Hahn glided to victory in the runoff by seven points, demonstrating his skill as a campaigner.

In campaign mode, observers say, Hahn sheds the languid affect that can let him fade into the background of almost any room he enters. His campaign bearing, salt-and-pepper hair and conservatively tailored suits allow him to come across -- particularly on television -- as a commanding chief executive. And as he rattles off statistics -- on topics such as gang crimes and low-income housing -- he makes even seasoned opponents look unprepared for the job, displaying a focus that can elude him as mayor.

“He’s a phenomenal campaigner,” said veteran local political strategist Rick Taylor, who is not working for any mayoral candidate. “I don’t know if it’s in the genes or what. But it’s like campaigns are a test, and he rises to the occasion every time.”

Yet after four years as mayor, Hahn continues to be confronted by criticism that his leadership is lackluster.

By many measures, the criticism seems unfounded; under Hahn’s watch, Los Angeles has remained largely on course.

Early in his tenure, he led the successful fight against Valley and Hollywood secession. More affordable housing is being built. More after-school programs are being funded. The city’s public utility is more environmentally sensitive. Business taxes are being reformed. LAX is moving toward modernization.

And the city treasury is more secure in part because of Hahn’s work to stop state leaders from using local property taxes to balance the state budget.

“When you look it over, the track record is impressive,” said George Kieffer, a longtime Hahn supporter who is the influential president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “He chooses to do things more quietly and without as much fanfare. That is a different style, but in some ways a more effective one.”

Campaign Against Parks

Perhaps no move has been as central to Hahn’s tenure -- or as illustrative of his contradictions -- as his campaign to remove Bernard C. Parks as chief of police three years ago.

To supporters, it showcased a leader with uncommon faith in himself, courageous enough to make a politically unpopular decision to make Los Angeles safer. To detractors, it demonstrated how the mayor’s isolation and political insensitivity undermined even well-intentioned acts.

Parks -- appointed chief under Hahn’s predecessor, Richard Riordan -- and Hahn have a history of antagonism dating to Hahn’s tenure as city attorney.

The repeated clashes between the two over the handling of police misconduct culminated with their public disagreement over the city’s response to the Rampart scandal, during which police officers were accused of lying, planting evidence and physically abusing suspects.

As city attorney, Hahn pushed Parks and Riordan to accept the Department of Justice demand for a consent decree outlining needed reforms. Parks fiercely opposed the decree, arguing that the Police Department could reform itself.

During his 2001 mayoral campaign, however, Hahn did not say he wanted to replace Parks. And given Hahn’s historic ties to the city’s African American community, few expected the new mayor to oppose Parks’ bid for a second term.

He did.

At the start of Black History Month in 2002, the mayor convened a meeting of the city’s African American leaders at the offices of retired Laker star Earvin “Magic” Johnson and told stunned listeners he wanted a new police chief.

The backlash was swift and severe. Community leaders who had nurtured Hahn’s political career refused to even shake his hand. (Lingering resentments are fueling Parks’ current mayoral campaign.)

Amid the uproar, however, the mayor could rely on few African American leaders to help diffuse the potentially volatile situation because he had few deep relationships with any of them. Several leaders said Hahn actually exacerbated tensions by telling them he would let them try to broker a compromise with Parks, only to abruptly announce later that he had already made his decision.

“People put their reputations on the line to support him,” said one African American leader who asked not to be identified. “In the end, many of us felt he betrayed us.”

Yet to this day, Hahn points to the decision as one of his proudest moments.

“Here’s Jim Hahn, son of the legendary Kenny Hahn, who enjoyed enormous political support in the African American community.... I knew this would cause a lot of people not to be as enthusiastic about Jim Hahn,” the mayor said.

“But at the end of the day ... you’ve got to make the calls on what’s in the best interests of the city, not what’s in the best interests of you as a political candidate,” Hahn said, explaining that he knew Parks would never accept the reforms Hahn believed were necessary to turn around the department.

Hahn followed with another decision that his admirers say a less-secure politician could not have made. He hired William J. Bratton, a police chief whose affection for attention caused him to clash with the last mayor he worked for, New York’s Rudolph Giuliani.

Janice Hahn said people warned her brother about Bratton’s scene stealing. “Jim said, ‘It doesn’t matter,’ ” Janice recalled. Indeed, as crime rates have fallen over the last two years, Hahn has appeared more than willing to yield the spotlight.

Few Close Friends

The go-it-alone style and personal reserve have, on other occasions, complicated Hahn’s job.

An intensely private man, Hahn often eschews the company of civic leaders to spend time with his children -- 15-year-old Karina and 12-year-old Jackson -- who have lived with him since he and his wife separated two years ago. Monica Hahn, an artist, didn’t like the political life, according to people who knew the couple. Hahn does not comment on the breakup; the couple still share parenting duties.

The mayor has few close friends or advisors. And he struggles with the glad-handing and deal-making that help many politicians advance their initiatives.

Hahn often confounds other city leaders by striking out on new initiatives with little warning or by simply failing to act. Many city leaders complain that they cannot get their calls returned. Even his supporters concede that his weak relationships have handicapped efforts to build consensus around proposals to hire more police officers. Hahn also floundered for more than a year to rally support for his plan to modernize LAX, though a plan has since been approved by the City Council.

In his biggest test -- the criminal probes into allegations that city contracts were traded for campaign contributions -- Hahn has had few vocal defenders.

“Jim Hahn behind the scenes is charming and likable,” said Councilman Eric Garcetti, who has endorsed the mayor. “He could make more use of that by picking up the phone and reaching out more regularly. The calls would be well received.”

Hahn occasionally confesses some frustration at his lot.

“I’ve never figured it out,” he said recently. “I thought I was doing what I needed to do as city controller. I thought I did what I needed to do as city attorney to turn that office around. I think I’ve done what I needed to turn city government around as mayor.”

But the city’s 47th mayor firmly rejects the notion that he should be more of a showman, as are some of his political rivals.

Hahn says he’s confident that his record of improving the lives of his constituents -- reducing crime, cleaning up parks, even filling potholes -- will be enough to persuade voters to give him another term. Either way, he has said in the past, this will be it: He has no plans to seek higher office.

“I’m on this great and grand quest to somehow prove you can be normal and be in public life,” Hahn once said. “To show that an ordinary guy with a family can be the mayor of the second-largest city in America and still be a guy who lives in a middle-class neighborhood and has kids who ride their bikes to their friends’ house.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

James K. Hahn

Born: July 3, 1950, Los Angeles

Education: Pepperdine University, bachelor’s degree in English (1972); Pepperdine University Law School, law degree (1975)

Personal: Separated from his second wife, Monica; two children

Party: Democrat

Career: Mayor 2001-present; city attorney 1985-2001; city controller 1981-1985

Strategy: Hahn says he deserves a second term because he has improved the lives of residents; he particularly cites the falling crime rate. As mayor, he alienated two elements of his electoral base by opposing the reappointment of black police chief Bernard C. Parks and by successfully fighting San Fernando Valley secession. Hahn has been aggressively courting those constituencies again, even as he defends himself against ongoing criminal probes into city contracting.