Arrest Takes Rungs From Torres’ Ladder

It is a sign of how respected state Sen. Art Torres is among this state’s political leadership that even his potential rivals took no pleasure in his arrest last week on suspicion of drunk driving, his second such brush with the law in just over two years.

That’s saying a lot when you consider how hyperactive, hypersensitive and hypercritical political activists in this state can be, especially in the Latino community. California Latinos don’t always work together well, but they are exquisitely skilled at finding fault with each other.

By and large, Torres (D-East Los Angeles) has managed to avoid that problem. For example, he has successfully straddled the line between the two biggest Latino factions in the city of Los Angeles. He works well with Councilwoman Gloria Molina, who was once his staff aide, and also with her wary rival on the council, Richard Alatorre, who is one of Torres’ closest personal friends.

More than the other politicos whose base is the large Latino community surrounding downtown Los Angeles, Torres has made an effort to cultivate contacts in other barrios--in the San Fernando Valley, the Harbor area, Orange County, even as a far away as San Jose. That stands him in good stead with those Latinos who justifiably resent the fact that too many political activists think Chicano politics in California begins and ends in East Los Angeles.

Most important, Torres has well-established contacts with other ethnic groups around the city and state--Asian Americans, Jews and Anglos. He belongs to national organizations like the Council on Foreign Affairs. He even gets on well with Republicans. Conservative Assemblyman Patrick Nolan of Glendale has spoken at fund-raisers for Torres.

So it was not surprising that the universal reaction to Torres’ arrest has been sadness, rather than the cynical winks and nudges that would have greeted the news if it had been almost any other politician. Torres was taken into custody by Sacramento police after being stopped for driving his state-leased car with the lights off about 1 a.m. Police reports said that he walked unsteadily, had alcohol on his breath and refused to take a field sobriety test.

The last time Torres was arrested for drunk driving, in 1987, he was fined and placed on probation. A second conviction would mean a bigger fine, plus loss of his driver’s license and mandatory treatment in an alcohol rehabilitation program.

The timing of the incident could hardly have been worse. It happened hours before the Senate voted for a bill that would lower the statutory blood-alcohol level for drunk driving from .1% to .08%. That guaranteed additional statewide publicity about the arrest, a damaging prospect for the Latino politician most often mentioned as a potential candidate for statewide office. A major political consultant who has urged Torres to consider running for mayor of Los Angeles, Joseph Cerrell, was quoted in news reports as saying, “I’d like to say he still has a great future, but that’s bs.”

It is hard to dispute that assessment. Even if Torres wanted to fight it, the conventional wisdom that he is damaged goods spread so widely, so fast that it may be irreversible by now.

But if Torres’ career has hit a temporary dead end, he can still redeem himself politically and personally. To do it, he’ll have to be painfully honest with himself.

Politically, he must face the fact that a run for statewide office in 1992, or for mayor of Los Angeles a year later, is indeed out of the question. That’s not so terrible, because Torres has enough support in his district to remain in the state Senate. There he can still have an impact on issues important to the Latino community, like education, insurance reform and the reapportionment of legislative districts after the 1990 census.

Personally, Torres must face the fact that he obviously has a problem with alcohol. But if seeks help for it, he could provide as valuable a service to Latinos as anything he might do in the political arena.

The terrible effects of alcohol abuse in the Latino community are well known to health professionals, who report higher incidences of diseases like cirrhosis of the liver among Mexican Americans than other population groups. It is also common knowledge among the social workers and police who see first-hand how often alcohol abuse is linked to violence and suffering in Latino neighborhoods, from wife beatings to gang shootings to traffic accidents.

Alcohol abuse never gets the attention other social problems do from Latino activists, probably because, like all people, they prefer to deny unpleasant realities rather than face them. That might change if someone as well-known and well-regarded as Torres faced up to the effect alcohol abuse has had on him, and did something about it.