Robert Hertzberg - 2005 Campaign For Mayor

2005 Campaign For Mayor

Assemblyman Hertzberg retired from the Assembly in 2002. At the time, he said he had no plans to run for any other office, expressing a desire to "take care of my kids."

But a steady series of fundraising scandals where members of Mayor James Hahn's Administration were investigated by a grand jury for allegedly awarding city contracts to campaign contributors and the general drift of Hahn (some critics called him "Mayor Yawn") created an opening. In a LA Times poll, 48% of voters considered Hahn honest.

Antonio Villaraigosa, who lost to Mayor Hahn in 2001, had been elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 2003 while promising not to run for mayor, something he quickly reconsidered when Hahn proved vulnerable. Bernard Parks, the African-American City Councilman who had not been rehired as Police Chief by Hahn and State Senator Richard Alarcon also jumped in, as did a number of minor candidates. Hertzberg's allies convinced him to run, and in 2004, he started a web site ChangeLA.Com to promote his candidacy.

Hertzberg advocated a "boroughs" system to make city government smaller, more efficient and more accountable to the grassroots, plus giving the Mayor's office more power, especially over the school system. He also opposed raising taxes, while favoring synchronizing traffic lights to ease congestion. Hertzberg's campaign platform consisted of four main planks:

• Break up the Los Angeles Unified School District to make it smaller, more responsive and more efficient. (Hertzberg called the District's 50% dropout rate the biggest threat to the city's future).
• A "Commuters' Bill of Rights" to help ease traffic woes.
• Using 25% of new revenue to hire at least 500 more police officers.
• Using revenue bond money to build "green" infrastructure immediately.

He told the LA Times that it was more than ambition that caused him to run, but a sense of duty as well:

Could I go out and make a ton of money in my businesses and law firm? Sure. But when I'm 70 years old, I look in the mirror and I watched this place crumble and knew I could have done something about it. I just couldn't let that happen. Believe me, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. The sacrifices to me and to my family are extraordinary.

Over half of LA city voters did not know much about Hertzberg. To boost his public standing, he launched a TV campaign that featured a giant image of him towering over a city full of problems. He also unveiled an endorsement from former Mayor Richard Riordan. The LA Times expressed a preference for a Villaraigosa-Hertzberg run-off, while the Los Angeles Daily News endorsed Hertzberg. The African-American newspaper, The Los Angeles Sentinel, also endorsed Hertzberg, the first time they had ever endorsed a white candidate against a serious black candidate.

Hertzberg efforts paid off as a second LA Times poll found the primary too close to call. Meanwhile, Hahn's supporters fought back with a hardball negative campaign through the mail.

Analysis by the LA Times showed that Hertzberg ran best in the San Fernando Valley and West LA, among white middle class voters and Jews. Hertzberg also won twice as many precincts as Hahn, but fell short when Hahn's negative ads decreased his support in the Valley. A lead editorial after the election in the LA Times, "Paging Bob Hertzberg," claimed a debate between Hahn and Villaraigosa made them "miss Bob Hertzberg and his outsized ideas."

After just missing the run-off, Hertzberg endorsed the eventual winner Villaraigosa, helping the first Latino Mayor in the San Fernando Valley, plus the Jewish and business communities where Hertzberg had run particularly strong in the primary. Villaraigosa ended up winning the run-off by 59–41%.