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LOS ANGELES (AP) - District Attorney Steve Cooley said Friday his office was looking into questionable out-of-state donations to Antonio Villaraigosa, one day after the mayoral candidate announced he was returning $47,000 from workers of two Florida-based companies. "In response to extensive media coverage, I believe an inquiry is warranted and have instructed our Public Integrity Division to take the necessary first steps," Cooley said in a statement. There was no political motivation to the move, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office. "His job is to enforce the law," she said, referring to Cooley. "He's here...

LOS ANGELES - Sen. John Kerry hasn't been on the campaign trail this spring with his friend Antonio Villaraigosa, but their relationship is paying off for the city's front-running mayoral candidate. Activists and major donors with ties to the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee have been making calls around the country to raise money for Villaraigosa, tapping into the senator's extensive national fundraising network. Their involvement is another sign that the Massachusetts senator could soon get personally involved in the race. He is expected to endorse Villaraigosa, one of his national campaign co-chairs in last year's presidential campaign, possibly as soon...

Poll: Villaraigosa Leads L.A. Mayor Race By Associated Press April 13, 2005, 5:06 AM EDT LOS ANGELES -- Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa has pulled ahead of Mayor James Hahn in the race to lead the nation's second-largest city, according to a Los Angeles Times poll. Voters would oust Hahn for Villaraigosa by a margin of 53 percent to 35 percent if the election were held today, according to a survey the newspaper published in Wednesday's editions. Twelve percent were undecided. The poll held few positive signs for Hahn, with nearly two-thirds of likely voters saying they believed his policies have left...

Analysis: 5 weeks to the 5/17/05 L.A. Mayor runoff election, (4/9/05 - 4/11/05) a rematch of the runoff election from 4 years ago, Antonio Villaraigosa leads incumbent James Hahn 2:1. Hahn leads only among Republicans and Conservatives.

The federal investigation of City Hall corruption will lead to a second indictment soon in connection with alleged overbilling of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power by the Fleishman-Hillard public-relations firm, Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam D. Kamenstein disclosed in court Monday. Kamenstein told U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess that there would be a superseding indictment, which would add one other individual as a defendant, in the 11-count wire-fraud case against John Stodder, a former senior vice president at Fleishman-Hillard. Kamenstein offered no other details beyond indicating that the indictment could come down before the May 17 runoff...

LOS ANGELES - Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa's mayoral campaign was endorsed Friday by former Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican with close ties to the governor who could help Villaraigosa make inroads with the moderates and conservatives he needs to win. Riordan endorsed former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg less than two months ago, but Hertzberg was ousted in the primary last month. Villaraigosa was not his first choice, but Riordan, now the state education secretary, said the councilman was the clear pick over incumbent James Hahn. "What we need is somebody who is electric, somebody who is a leader, somebody who will...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The two candidates for mayor relentlessly attacked each other Monday in their first televised, one-on-one debate and wrangled over issues from trust to traffic in caustic and sometimes personal terms. Mayor James Hahn repeatedly questioned whether Angelenos could trust city Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, depicting him as an indecisive, pandering leader with a record of damaging decisions in his days as Assembly speaker. "This campaign is about trust," Hahn said. Referring to Villaraigosa, he said bluntly, "People don't trust you." The councilman, in turn, said Hahn's City Hall was the most investigated administration in modern times, alluding...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Rep. Maxine Waters, one of the city's most prominent political voices, labeled Mayor James Hahn a failure Thursday and endorsed his rival in the May runoff, Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa. Hahn's campaign shrugged off the defection - Waters supported the mayor four years ago - but it came as the latest reminder of the incumbent's unsteady relationship with the black community. Hahn was elected with overwhelming black support but saw his popularity fade after the ouster of the city's black police chief, Bernard Parks. With Villaraigosa at her side at a Wilshire district hotel, Waters, who is...

Hahn, Villaraigosa to fight rematch in LA mayoral runoff - By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer Wednesday, March 9, 2005 (03-09) 10:47 PST Los Angeles (AP) -- Incumbent Mayor James Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa will fight for leadership of the nation's second-largest city in a May runoff after mayoral candidate Bob Hertzberg conceded defeat Wednesday, "I called Mayor Hahn this morning and congratulated him on his victory," Hertzberg said during a morning news conference. Nearly 24,000 absentee and other ballots remained to be counted, but Hertzberg trailed by Hahn by 5,800 votes, a margin his campaign concluded was too...

LOS ANGELES - A Hispanic city councilman broke out of a crowded field of mayoral candidates early Wednesday, capturing one of two spots for a scheduled May runoff. The vulnerable incumbent James Hahn was battling for the other slot. With city officials counting votes slowly, Antonio Villaraigosa’s win put him within striking distance of becoming the first Hispanic to win City Hall in more than a century. Mayor James Hahn, in danger of losing his job despite a drop in crime and a growing economy during his first four years in office, was battling a third Democrat, Bob Hertzberg, for...

Ahead of Tuesday vote, two fellow Democrats gain. Mayor James Hahn sought re-election Tuesday in a wide-open race in which his biggest vulnerabilities were corruption allegations at City Hall and his own drab image in the most star-studded city in America. Twelve candidates were on the ballot in the nonpartisan contest, but polls showed the race had narrowed to Hahn and two fellow Democrats. No candidate was expected to receive the 50 percent needed to win outright, meaning a runoff May 17 between the top two vote-getters. Hahn, whose family has been active in Los Angeles politics since the 1940s,...

The race for mayor of America's second-largest city is down to the wire and after months of tough campaigning, the three leading candidates are in a virtual dead heat. So with his career on the line, the incumbent, Mayor James Hahn, put everything into his closing swings at the final debate this week: "If you want leadership in this city, I'm your guy!" In the most recent Los Angeles Times poll, Villaraigosa, 52, a former state Assembly speaker and labor organizer who narrowly lost to Hahn four years ago, was the choice of 24 percent. He was followed by Hertzberg,...

Los Angeles - With his job on the line, Mayor James Hahn grappled with his four major rivals Monday over issues from illegal immigration to transportation to gang violence in their final televised debate before next week's primary election. As he has throughout the campaign, Hahn faced a steady stream of criticism from his challengers, who described Los Angeles as a city adrift where little has been done to address urban problems from gridlock to troubled schools to corruption allegations at City Hall. But Hahn, who has anchored his campaign to a falling crime rate, said changing leadership would slow...

LOS ANGELES - Outrage over alleged police brutality is shaking up a wide-open contest for City Hall in which an influential, if relatively small, black vote could determine whether Mayor James Hahn keeps his job. The death of 13-year-old Devin Brown, who was shot by police after driving a stolen car into an LAPD cruiser, galled black residents who see the killing as the latest example of Police Department abuse. The Feb. 6 shooting came three days after prosecutors declined to file charges against an officer who was videotaped hammering black car-theft suspect Stanley Miller with a metal flashlight -...

LOS ANGELES - Police Chief William Bratton on Friday proposed a new policy that would ban officers from firing at moving vehicles, less than a week after the fatal police shooting of a 13-year-old suspected car thief. The change would prohibit officers from firing at a moving vehicle "unless the officer or another person is being threatened with deadly force by means other than the moving vehicle," Bratton said in a memo to police commissioners. He asked the civilian Police Commission to approve the policy at its meeting Tuesday. Police departments in major cities, including Boston, Cincinnati and Detroit, in...

The Los Angeles Ethics Commission on Tuesday imposed a record $270,000 fine against Westside developer Mark Alan Abrams after the panel concluded that he hatched a scheme to launder political contributions to benefit James K. Hahn's 2001 mayoral campaign and the campaigns of two Hahn allies. The fine is the largest penalty assessed against an individual by the ethics panel in its 15-year history. "The actions of Mr. Abrams here really strike at the heart of democracy," said Gil Garcetti, president of the Ethics Commission. "It's simply not right." No one has said that Hahn knew the contributions were tainted,...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Mayor James K. Hahn has issued an order to clarify ethical standards for city commissioners and ensure that contracts are awarded through a competitive bidding process, following recommendations by a panel that reviewed allegations of pay-to-play city contracting. "I will accept nothing less than assuring that public funds are being spent in the best interest of Los Angeles residents," Hahn said during a news conference Friday to announce the order. Hahn, who is in a tight race for re-election, issued the order days after the panel issued its report. The mayor established the panel on the...

Public relations bills submitted to the Port of Los Angeles by a Fleishman-Hillard executive who is now Mayor James Hahn's press secretary were marked up by more than $1,700 in 2003 without documentation that extra work was done, according to records and interviews. Shannon Murphy, who left the firm less than two months later to replace Matt Middlebrook, who joined Fleishman-Hillard, declined to be interviewed but said in a statement that the handwritten additions to her billing statements were "outrageous." A company official said the "write-ups" lacked supporting documentation that the extra work was ever performed. The paperwork appears to...

Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn has raised at least $11,000 for a legal-defense fund in response to investigations of "pay-to-play" contracting in his administration -- a sign, his opponents said, that the mayor is deeply worried about the joint local and federal probes. Hahn established the fund on Nov. 18 without fanfare and raised $1,000 each from 11 donors through Dec. 31, according to City Ethics Commission records. In creating the fund, Hahn is tapping many of the same donors who have contributed to a separate legal-defense account to pay a $53,523 fine over violations in his 2001 mayoral campaign....

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Having backed the loser over a fellow Democrat the last time, the county Democratic Party is pondering again which way to throw its support in the March 8 mayoral election primary. Although Los Angeles elections are nonpartisan, the endorsement brings financial support from the party as well as symbolic weight in a heavily Democratic city. But it is no guarantee of success, as the 2001 election showed when the party's anointed candidate, former state Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, lost in a runoff to City Attorney James Hahn. The current primary pits Hahn, now the mayor, against...