Labor Puts Its Clout to Work in 2 Council Contests

Tuesday will be labor day in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor’s money and manpower may well decide who will occupy the three City Council seats to be filled in runoff elections this week.

Pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of volunteers into two of the council races--on the Eastside and the northeast San Fernando Valley--may lock up victories for organized labor’s favored candidates, Alex Padilla in the 7th District and Victor Griego in the 14th.

That effort also may have an important side effect in the Mid-City 10th District. Because the labor federation has steered its resources to the other two races, incumbent Nate Holden will not have the number of union volunteers who helped him win his runoff four years ago.

Organized labor might tip the contest in the 14th, where political consultant Griego is in a tight race with prosecutor Nick Pacheco.

The labor federation will spend up to $100,000 on Griego’s behalf, according to the group’s officials.

“If Victor wins or loses, it will be based on labor’s efforts,” said Rick Taylor, a political consultant running Padilla’s campaign in the 7th District. “I think they can make that kind of difference in a race that’s close.”

About 200 volunteers from the federation will also be walking precincts for Griego. “We’re going to be working all the way up to 8 p.m. on election day,” federation head Miguel Contreras said. “This is about putting the debate on working-family issues. That’s why it’s worth the investment.”

Labor federation support helped make Padilla, a legislative aide, the front-runner in his campaign against health agency director Corrine Sanchez. Padilla nearly won the April primary outright, capturing 48% of the vote. Sanchez came in a distant second, with 25%, in a field of six.

The political arm of the federation has spent $100,000 on an independent mail and phone bank effort aimed at the 13,000 union members who live in the district. Labor has also provided hundreds of foot soldiers to complement the large field force sent out by Padilla.

Although Sanchez has won the endorsements of Richard Alarcon, who left the seat for the state Legislature, and all five members of the county Board of Supervisors, she has struggled to match the field forces mounted by the Padilla campaign and the labor federation.

The amount of money spent on the Padilla and Griego campaigns dwarfs the usual spending levels of so-called independent expenditure campaigns. Groups like the federation can legally put money and workers behind political candidates as long as they do so without working directly with the individual campaign organizations.

Most independent expenditure campaigns in Los Angeles in the last 10 years have spent $1,000 to $5,000. The only amount larger than what labor has put into this year’s campaigns was the $118,000 spent by the Democratic National Committee in 1993 in support of then-Councilman Mike Woo’s unsuccessful mayoral bid, according to the Los Angeles Ethics Commission.

The labor federation is the umbrella organization for nearly 400 unions with a reported membership of 700,000 workers--8% of the work force in the county. It is the nation’s second largest central labor council, after New York’s.

The federation’s leading role in Tuesday’s elections is the latest sign of its importance in local electoral politics. Labor’s political strength in the city was also crucial to former Service Employees International Union official Gilbert Cedillo, who was elected to the Assembly in 1997.

He prevailed in that race against longtime Los Angeles Unified School District board member Victoria Castro despite being considered an underdog. Cedillo has acknowledged that labor federation support--including mailers targeted at immigrant voters--was decisive.

Those running against federation-backed candidates have taken only mild swipes at their rivals’ union support. Sanchez and Pacheco have both stressed their independence without leveling many direct criticism at the unions.

Sanchez, Pacheco and 10th District challenger Madison Shockley are all likely to take pro-labor positions on most issues because of the heavy union presence in their areas. About 13,000 labor federation members are registered to vote in the 7th District, with the same number in the 14th and about 8,000 in the 10th, Contreras said.

The federation’s importance in the 10th District race, however, is not its presence but its absence.

After Holden was forced in 1995 to face lawyer Stan Sanders in a runoff, federation volunteers blanketed the district on Holden’s behalf.

“Organized labor helped with a major mobilization right before the election. If they were not out walking precincts, I think it might have turned the other way,” said Frederic MacFarlane, who worked on Holden’s 1995 campaign and is now a paid consultant to Holden opponent Shockley.

Although Holden again has the federation’s endorsement, labor has chosen to place all of its chips on the two other races. Contreras said the federation has focused on the 7th and 14th districts because Holden “is an incumbent who got 49% of the vote in the primary.”

Holden said the lack of federation help in this election will not be significant and is a sign of his strength. “They’re putting more of their resources elsewhere because they think I’m in,” he said.