Special Reports

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s LGBT Legacy

Karen Ocamb — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:55:00 GMT

(Editor’s note: This is an expanded version of “Villaraigosa Leaves Office But Not His LGBT Friends” in the current print edition of Frontiers, including much more from the June 3 interview with the mayor on why he’s so LGBT-friendly —Karen Ocamb)

Before and after his enthusiastic participation in the LGBT Heritage Month/L.A. Pride kick-off weekend, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa engaged in intense “friendship diplomacy” with new Chinese President Xi Jinping. Chinese TV reported that Villaraigosa’s visit to Beijing last month was “to lay the groundwork for President Xi Jinping’s meeting with Barack Obama in L.A.” The two presidents met in Palm Springs June 7 and 8.

Villaraigosa told CCTV that President Xi “called Los Angeles the epicenter of the sub-national relationship between the United States and China.” China is the top trading partner for the Port of Los Angeles, which sees imports and exports to the tune of $120 billion, according to the Daily Breeze. And yet when reporting on that business trip—paid for by the Port of L.A. and the Los Angeles World Airports—KPCC’s blog headline read, “Lame duck L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa travels to China on a trade mission.”

That headline is an example of how the press has often derided Villaraigosa since his 2007 affair with a Telemundo reporter and the subsequent end of his 20-year marriage. Villaraigosa has often acknowledged that affair as a personal “failure,” and he is aware of how much it hurt people who expected more from him as the tough kid from Boyle Heights who got elected in 2005 as L.A.’s first Latino mayor in 130 years.

“I think that disappointed a lot of people,” Villaraigosa told the New York Times last year. “I think that was probably the biggest thing. People just felt let down. I had to work to regain their trust.”

Many in the LGBT community were also disappointed, and some even agreed with critics who claimed the mayor had been seduced by the glamour of Hollywood. But when Villaraigosa’s legacy is finally written in the context of the worst economy since the Great Depression and the disinclination of President George W. Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to help cities, his accomplishments may find greater acclaim.

“We grew our police force, tackled our gang problem and made L.A. safer than it’s been since the 1950s,” says Villaraigosa’s gay senior advisor and deputy chief of staff Matt Szabo. “We doubled the size of our rail network and are putting 410,000 people to work over the next 30 years. We cleaned up our port, greened our city and opened 650 acres of new parks. We took on education reform and have seen tremendous improvement. We pushed for changes at LAUSD and have doubled the number of schools reaching the state's academic goals."

So far stories about Villaraigosa’s legacy have not included his substantial work on behalf of the LGBT community. He came to LGBT attention in 1994 as a candidate for the California Assembly (A.D. 45) seeking the Stonewall Democratic Club endorsement. Once elected, Villaraigosa, who was soon appointed Democratic Assembly Whip and Majority Leader, and Shelia Kuehl—the first openly gay person elected to the state legislature—joined forces to form the first Gay and Lesbian Legislative Caucus. That year he also announced his support for the freedom to marry.

In his interview, Villaraigosa said:

“I had been president of the ACLU and we represented the LGBT community in many, many battles, but I can’t say I was an activist per se. I was generally a progressive, so I was tangentially involved with those issues—very supportive. But I can’t say I was someone known to take up that cause. But I remember going to Stonewall and being asked about—at the time, civil unions and anti-gay discrimination—all the things that were happening. This was 1994 and I was running for the Assembly. And I was supportive, of course, of all of the issues they raised. And then, as I was walking out, someone said, ‘What would you think about marriage?’ And I stopped for a second and said, ‘You know, I never thought about it. But, yeah, I’m for it.’

And I think why I’ve been so strongly in support has a lot to do with my upbringing, this notion of right and wrong, tolerance, embracing all people—that my mother gave us. So, if it was a new issue, it wasn’t difficult for me to resolve. Even issues of first impression. And I remember saying on the floor [of the Assembly] a number of times that this was the last frontier—that racism, sexism are mostly frowned upon. But that homophobia and discrimination against the LGBT community is still encoded in our laws and tolerated by some elements of our society. So early on I joined Shelia and the LGBT Caucus when she asked me to. I think at the time we called it the Gay & Lesbian Caucus.”

1994 was also the year in which Newt Gingrich achieved his Republican Right Wing Revolution impacting Congress and Republicans everywhere. For instance, seeing the turning tide of GOP conservatism, Gov. Pete Wilson broke a 1990 campaing promise to Log Cabin Republicans to sign the gay rights bill AB 101 by vetoing it when it came to his desk in 1991. After their elections, Villaraigosa co-authored AB 1001, which was introduced by Kuehl, prohibiting discrimination against gays in employment and housing. Villaraigosa also fought for HIV/AIDS funding formularies against legislators who thought it was OK for gays to die.

In 1995, Kuehl introduced a bill that would ban discrimination against gay students by adding sexual orientation to the state Education Code’s list of protected categories: race, sex, religion and disabilities. It failed but was not forgotten. With the election of pro-gay Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 1998 and with the election of Villaraigosa as Assembly Speaker, there was an opportunity to advance LGBT civil rights.

Kuehl brought back the Dignity for All Students bill—AB 222—which was greeted with a torrent of anti-gay hysteria about how children would be taught that “traditional marriage” is “discriminatory” and parents would face “unimaginable problems.” Villaraigosa put his personal prestige on the line, but in June 1999, the anti-gay forces convinced eight Assembly Democrats to join the almost unanimous Republican caucus in killing AB 222. It failed by one vote. Stonewall Democratic Club President Eric Bauman condemned the Democratic deserters as “The Spineless Eight.”

“I only lost the first vote on two bills in my Speakership, and that was one of them,” Villaraigosa recalled. “And I swore to Sheila that I would get the votes—and I did. You know, when I was Speaker, I respected people’s right to have different views but obviously when they came to civil rights and human rights, I made sure that the Assembly was a place where we honored the civil rights and human rights of all people. And so the Dignity for All Students Bill was actually a war, and we won, and thank God we did.”

But Villaraogosa was termed out, so it fell to new Speaker Bob Hertzberg to secure passage of the Dignity for All Students Bill under a new maneuver, a name and number: AB 537, the California Student Safety & Violence Prevention Act of 2000, which prohibited “discrimination and harassment in education on all the same bases used in the definition of hate crimes under Penal Code Section 422.6 (a).”

Before being termed out, Speaker Villaraigosa stepped up in a major way to fight Prop. 22, the Knight Initiative. He even donated $10,000 of his own money to fight the initiative that defined marriage as only between a man and a woman. On March 7, 2000, California voters went to the polls and passed Prop. 22 by a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent—setting up the excuse Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used to twice veto marriage equality bills passed by the California Legislature.

In 2001, Villaraigosa tried to unseat L.A. Mayor Jim Hahn but lost. Two years later, however, he defeated L.A. City Councilmember Nick Pacheco to represent the 14th C.D. on the City Council.

“If you represent Hollywood and Silver Lake and Echo Park, being for these issues wasn’t necessarily politically risky, any more than representing San Francisco,” Villaraigosa said. “But from the beginning, what I did that was different from anyone else is that I did all my press conferences in Spanish, too. I’m the first to do that at the level that I did. In fact, I would get invited to all the big press conferences around Prop. 22 because people wanted me to speak in Spanish, too. I’ve been part of every battle since the 1990s.”

In 2005, Villaraigosa ran for mayor and this time he won overwhelmingly. At an event thanking the LGBT community, he said that, second to the Latino community, it was the LGBT community that helped get him elected. He also noted—as a national campaign co-chair for Sen. John Kerry’s unsuccessful bid for President in 2004—that the gay community did NOT cause Kerry to lose as many Democrats argued at the time, with 11 anti-gay marriage initiatives on state ballots, thanks to “Bush’s Brain” Karl Rove. Villaraigosa told the LGBT community that Kerry just ran a bad campaign.

Some things did change in the first years after Villaraigosa became mayor—in particular, he stopped including the LGBT press in his regular meetings with LGBT leaders—an appreciated practice he had during his years as Speaker. He also seemed to take personally and hold a grudge against his critics, though he continued to be popular in appearances before LGBT audiences.

Everything changed again when the California Supreme Court ruled in May 2005 that same-sex couples had the fundamental right to marry. Villaraigosa officiated at 11 marriages—including that of entertainment producer Bruce Cohen and Gabriel Catone—at L.A. City Hall on June 23, 2008.

Villaraigosa was very active in the effort to defeat Prop. 8 at the polls—including speaking at protests in the pouring rain. After Prop. 8 passed in Nov. 2008, he was constantly visible—at the initial big protest in West Hollywood and the also sizable protest outside City Hall Downtown. He also “welcomed” protesters to the Equality Summit at the LA Convention Center when the LGBT community was trying to figure out why the No on Prop. 8 campaign failed.

But as mayor, many of Villaraigosa’s appearances were ceremonial and fun at LGBT events—including introducing the roster of elected officials at the Equality California galas—a roster that soon included his cousin, John A. Pérez, who quickly became the first openly gay Speaker of the California Assembly.

In June 4, 2011, Villaraigosa hosted the first annual LGBT Heritage Month, a somewhat somber occasion that also noted the 30th anniversary of HIV/AIDS. Six months later, Villaraigosa helped launch Freedom to Marry’s “Mayors for the Freedom to Marry” during the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C.

"I organized ‘Mayors for Marriage Equality,’ where there were four of us [Vilalraigosa, Houston Mayor Annise Parker, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders]. I called individual mayors and got them on. There are now 349 mayors. I won’t say who, but there were folks who said ‘no,’ initially, and when we started to get all the names, then they came on but didn’t want to go to the press conference. And then when they saw all the people coming to the press conference, they actually came.”

When he was selected to be the chair of the National Democratic Convention, Villaraigosa told Politico he supported putting marriage equality in the party platform. “I think [marriage equality] is basic to who we are, he said. “I believe in family values and I believe we all ought to be able to have a family and marry if you want to. I don’t think the government should be in the business of denying people the fundamental right to marry.” The DNC adopted the Gay Marriage Plank on Sept. 6, 2012, with Villaraigosa gaveling down the vote.

“It has been the privilege of a lifetime to hold the gavel at this historic convention,” he said, referring to the re-election of America’s first African-American president and the passage of the marriage equality plank. “For the first time in history, a major party platform recognizes every American’s freedom to marry the person they love as a fundamental right. This is a reflection of our values as a party and what a growing majority of Americans in this country believe.”

In a 45-minute interview at City Hall on June 3, Villaraigosa attributed his profound commitment to social justice is attributable to his mother.

“I’ve been involved in the movement for social justice since I was 15 years old,” Villaraigosa said. “My mom was a very embracing, very progressive woman for her time. In the 1950s and early ‘60s, we would have whites and blacks, Japanese-Americans—and, looking back, a gay couple—over for dinner pretty frequently. She was in a co-op for kids and there were a lot of progressive Jews who were there in that co-op. She always had this very diverse groups of friends. My mom taught us about sexism and racism and homophobia. I think that sense of humanity—that sense of right and wrong, those values of tolerance and understanding—were inculcated in us when we were kids.”

Additionally, Villaraigosa said, the gays in his own family have influenced him deeply. “I have three nephews—two of them are gay. I have five cousins on my mother’s side—one is gay, one is bi and a niece from one of my five cousins is a lesbian. So my family, when you think of it, is such a small family, we’ve always been more than tolerant, embracing of all of our family members. I remember fighting for adoption for gay couples in the late 1990s, and I remember talking about my cousin John (Pérez). He wasn’t elected yet—no one knew who he was—but I remember thinking he was such a great uncle to his nieces and nephews. He always talking them out to eat, always doing things with them. What a great dad he would make! Who are these people to deny gay people fatherhood or motherhood?”

During the 2013 Mayor’s Garden Party for LGBT Pride at the Getty House, both CSW/L.A. Pride President Rodney Scott and Villaraigosa spoke movingly about being fatherless children. During our June 3 interview, Villaraigosa elaborated on his abusive father’s leaving when he was five resulted in him growing up in a world of women.

“He was an alcoholic and he terrorized us, so I never would have grown up with this strong sense of self that I developed—because I had a loving mother who gave us unconditional love and support,” Villaraigosa said. “I would have been very different if he had stayed in my life.”

Rather, he was brought up by women—his single mother Natalia Delgado, who raised four children, two girls, two boys, with the help of Villaraigosa’s aunt. Villaraigosa said:

“I was mostly with women. So I grew up—I had a very strong feminine side and as a boy, I would get teased about it. And I grew up in and around the projects, so over time I got very tough because I would get teased and because I had to go walk through there. I went to Catholic school and the projects … in Ramona Gardens so I had to walk through the projects every single day. I actually became—I think because of the ‘no dad’—I was very angry and I was always fighting. So I became tough but I grew up with and I still have a very strong feminine side. I cry at movies because we all did. I cried at The Lion King—no, seriously, when King Mufasa died—I was with my kids and I just started crying. People crack up. In my past, I’ve gone with women who don’t cry at the movies and I’m crying. I have a very strong feminine side. But I think it—I have a very tough side, too. And I’ve been in a tough job and I think as a kid I was very angry. My cousin John is 15 years younger, my brother is 10 years younger so the boys were kind of afterwards. I was mostly around girls.

Everything good about me is because of my mom. She was the wind beneath my wings in every sense of the word. I think over time that unconditional love of hers helped turn me around. I think I stopped being angry some time in my late teens. I realized when I went back to school [after having dropped out of high school] that anger only hurts you and over time I just lost that anger. I worked on it, but I lost it and now I’m very much driven by love, by wanting to do good.”

There is a gray pall of sadness hovering like a pall over Villaraigosa as he nears the end of many years of public service. But he may return. He said, “This has been a real honor for me to be mayor, to be Speaker of the Assembly, councilmember—mayor of the city my grandfather came to 100 years ago. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever believe I’d be mayor of this great city and it’s been an absolute honor. I’m very grateful. I do believe in public service and I would like to one day serve again. Restoring luster to the California Dream is something I’m very interested in, which is why I’ll probably affiliate with a think tank or a university, kind of think through how we can set ourselves on a more sustainable path forward as a state. But we’ll see.”

No doubt the LGBT community will be there to welcome him back to public service when and if he decides to return.

CLICK HERE to view a photo timeline of Villaaigosa's commitment to the LGBT community. Captions below:

1. Antonio Villaraigosa running for Assembly with his kids and Stonewall President Eric Bauman in 1994 CSW Pride Parade

2. Villaraigosa and Gil Cedillo

3. Villaraigosa as Speaker holding LGBT community leaders meeting—including Jackie Goldberg and Frontiers publisher Bob Craig (third from right)

4. Villaraigosa as Speaker meets with L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s Lorri Jean and Sky Johnson

5. Villaraigosa and longtime supporter Sheila Kuehl

6. Newly elected mayor Villaraigosa hugs newly elected gay city councilmember Bill Rosendahl

7. Villaraigosa when his cousin John A. Pérez is elected to the Assembly

8. Villaraigosa at Equality California gala when Pérez is honored as openly gay Assembly Speaker

9. Villaraigosa on stage with elected officials

10. Villaraigosa marries entertainment producer Bruce Cohen and Gabriel Catone at L.A. City Hall on June 23, 2008

11. Villaraigosa at No on Prop. 8 rally

12. Villaraigosa at post-Prop. 8 protest downtown

13. Villaraigosa Frontiers cover

14. Prop. 8 declared unconstitutional—American Foundation for Equal Rights celebrates at rally in WeHo

15. Villaraigosa with AFER Prop. 8 challengers Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami

16. Villaraigosa thanked by AFER at going away party for Chad Griffin

17. Villaraigosa with Deputy Mayor Torie Osborn at Garden Party

18. Villaraigosa with deputy chief of staff Matt Szabo

19. Villaraigosa with Suzy Jack and Justin Gonzales at Garden Party

20. Villaraigosa with the late Frontiers publisher Mark Hundahl and David Stern

21. Villaraigosa dancing

Anxiety Reigns Awaiting the Supreme Court Ruling on DOMA and Prop. 8

Karen Ocamb — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 03:08:00 GMT

David Boies thinks the U.S. Supreme Court will issue its ruling on the constitutionality of Prop. 8 by late June, though it could come any Monday before then. However, like most Americans, Boies—the prominent liberal Democrat attorney who joined prominent conservative Republican attorney Ted Olson in fighting Prop. 8 under the auspices of the American Foundation for Equal Rights—doesn’t know how the Supreme Court will rule.

There is confusion and anxiety, too, over how the court might rule in the constitutional challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act brought by Edith Windsor, who was forced to pay a $363,000 estate tax bill when her wife Thea Clara Spyer died—considerably higher than a married heterosexual widow would have to pay. New York State recognized their 2007 legal marriage in Canada (after being together for 40 years), but the federal government did not, just as it does not recognize more than 1,000 other federal benefits denied same-sex couples under DOMA.

Will the court bow to the antiquated anti-gay (Catholic-infused) values of Justice Antonin Scalia and uphold federalism and the states’ right to define marriage, or will the court recognize the trend toward more individual freedom for America’s gays and lesbians and the basic fundamental right for individuals, not the states, to choose whom they might marry?

As the brilliant legal journalist Linda Greenhouse pointed out in the New York Times last April, federalism was also at issue in Loving v. Virginia in 1967, when the Supreme Court overturned the law banning interracial marriage in Virginia and 15 other states. Greenhouse wrote, “But Chief Justice Earl Warren’s unanimous opinion didn’t buy it (the federalism argument). ‘Marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man,’ the court said. ‘The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.’ The right, in other words, belonged to the individuals involved, not to the state.”

Greenhouse noted that during the March 27 oral arguments in the Windsor/DOMA case, U.S. Solicitor General Verrilli refused to comment on federalism, saying the case was purely about discrimination. “I think it’s time for the court to recognize that this discrimination, excluding lawfully married gay and lesbian couples from federal benefits, cannot be reconciled with our fundamental commitment to equal treatment under law. This is discrimination in its most very basic aspect,” he said.

But Greenhouse also wondered if the case might turn out to be “a constitutional Trojan horse,” bringing an end to the “spiteful federal statute, enacted by an opportunistic Congress and signed into law 17 years ago by a cowardly Bill Clinton”—and give a boost to federalism. “A ruling that left the states to their own devices when it comes to marriage would take the equal protection guarantee out of the picture. It would, of course, provide the full benefits of marriage to those living in states that chose to recognize same-sex marriage. But it would snatch away the promise for those living elsewhere, particularly if the decision was based not only on the asserted absence of federal authority but on exaggerated notions of state sovereignty anchored in the Tea Party’s favorite constitutional amendment, the 10th. (“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”)”

Shannon Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, is nonetheless positive. “Having Section 3 of DOMA off the books would dramatically hasten the day when we do have marriage equality in all 50 states—it would still take some time but would provide such a huge incentive for states to stop discriminating,” he told Atlanticwire.com.

Some analysts suggest that the court might be more interested in preserving the states’ initiative process than eliminating discrimination, and others have questioned whether the court might restrict its ruling to the two couples—Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami—who brought the federal challenge with AFER.

AFER offers six possible outcomes for how the Justices might rule:

1. 50-State Ruling: Prop. 8 and all other state marriage bans are unconstitutional. Gay and lesbian couples will be able to get married in all 50 states.

2. 7-State Ruling: Civil unions and domestic partnerships are separate and unequal. Gay and lesbian couples will be able to get married in California and the six other states with relationship recognition, in addition to the 12 states currently with marriage equality (and Washington, D.C.).

3. 1-State Ruling: California cannot eliminate marriage equality. Gay and lesbian couples will once again be able to get married in the state.

4. No Standing: The Court could conclude that it does not have jurisdiction to decide the case because the proponents of Prop. 8 do not have standing to defend in place of the governor and attorney general of California, who agree with AFER that Prop. 8 is unconstitutional and have refused to defend it. If this happens, the August 2010 decision of the federal district court that struck down Prop. 8 is made permanent, and marriage equality will be restored in California.

5. Dismissal: The Court could decide that it should not have granted review. If this happens, the February 2012 decision of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that struck down Prop. 8 is made permanent, ending four years of marriage inequality in California.

6. Prop. 8 is constitutional. States may exclude gay and lesbian couples from the institution of marriage.

“No change in the issuance of marriage licenses can occur until action is taken by the appellate court,” says Elizabeth Knox, Public Information Officer at the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. “We have a contingency plan in place to accommodate any potential volume increases.” Knox also notes that marriage licenses can be obtained online (at marriage.lavote.net/OMLS). There is more information at lavote.net.

Meanwhile, some observers foresee “an administrative nightmare” if Prop. 8 is overturned in California alone and DOMA is narrowly struck down—neither of which expands the federal right to marry. “Given the combination of these two cases,” Douglas NeJaime, law professor at Loyola University, told Atlanticwire.com, “if the outcomes are what was hinted at, we're going to have a very administratively difficult situation that's going to produce a lot of political and legal conflicts.” For instance, Minter explained, if a same-sex couple is legally married in New York and then moves to Florida, which does not recognize marriage equality, and one of the spouses dies, the survivor would not be eligible for Social Security benefits.

And what of all those same-sex couples who don’t have the means to move to a marriage equality state? The Williams Institute just published a new report (tinyurl.com/kkwrhqz) indicating that “post recession, LGB Americans are more likely to be poor than heterosexual Americans,” especially women, children and African-Americans. And those couples probably live in states without discrimination laws to protect LGBT workers from being fired at whim, without the federal protections that would be provided by the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

But when it comes to official federal second-class citizenship, rich and poor gays share the same boat of humiliating discrimination. This was eloquently pointed out by entertainment attorney Steve Warren as he accepted his GLAAD Media Award in April.

“Every American has the right to a life of meaning with the liberty to choose who we want to spend that life with and to pursue happiness through our sexuality and soulfulness,” Warren said. However, despite having been born five years and 60 miles apart in northern New York, both sharing the same backgrounds—Ivy League schools, Harvard Law School, the Harvard Law Review, building a thriving private practice and spending their lives protecting family, friends and clients—Warren’s “greatest joy” is his adopted daughter Katie with George, his partner for 26 years; Roberts has two adopted daughters—their lives are vastly different because Warren is gay.

“Only one of us,” Warren said, “was told by their state that their home was not fit for a child! Despite all the childproofing and security measures in the world, only one of us was subjected to the humiliation and the degradation of being forced to appeal to a family court judge with a power to overturn that hate-filled judgment mandated by then-Gov. Pete Wilson. How did this happen? It happened because Chief Justice John Roberts was accorded the protections of the U.S. Constitution and I was not. He was allowed to marry the person of his choice and adopt the children who rightly belong in his care. No one could stop him and his wife from their pursuit of happiness. A narrow decision in June by the U.S. Supreme Court overturning DOMA and Prop. 8 but not extending the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to protect against the hatred and prejudice that still exists in so many states throughout our country will perpetuate this gross miscarriage of justice over and over, leaving tens of Katies and Stevens and Georges vulnerable to the whims of the states in which they live their lives—irreparably harmed. It is not acceptable for LGBT Americans to live in 50 different Americas while the John and Jane Roberts of the world live in one America. Crossing the border from California to Arizona should not mean that I lose my civil rights.”

The old website DayOfDecision.org has been revived to encourage people to act when the Supreme Court decision comes down to let the court and the world know that the fight is not yet over.

LGBT Heritage Month Kicks Off

Karen Ocamb — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 22:32:00 GMT

As I noted last Friday, this year’s kick-off for LGBT Heritage Month has been bittersweet, with the exiting from the political stage of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and L.A. City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl after eight years of serving the residents of L.A., and most especially the LGBT community.

But there has also been the promise of the future with three openly gay elected officials—L.A City Controller Ron Galerpin; 11th Council District’s Mike Bonin; and Mitch O’Farrell, councilmember-elect for the 13th Council District—in positions of power and 9th grader Madison Zavala of Notre Dame High School, whose poem ”Stand Tall, Stand Proud” earned her recognition as the top participant in the LGBT Heritage Month Youth Creative Writing/Video Contest and a symbolic representative of new pro-equality attitudes among the city’s youth.

At the May 31 City Hall Heritage Month launch, Villaraigosa presented the Hope, Dream and Spirit of Los Angeles Awards, respectively, to singer Adam Lambert; trans defense attorney and LGBT activist Mia Yamamoto; and Rodney Scott, President of CSW/L.A. Pride, with whom Villaraigosa started Heritage Pride Month.

Rosendahl used his last opportunity as councilmember (he and Villaraigosa leave office on July 1) to honor David Reid, who created the broadcast art project AIDSWatch.org in part as an homage to Rosendahl’s late life partner Chris Blauman; ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, with the honor received by curator Joseph Hawkin; and Cathy Salser, founder of the nonprofit organization A Window Between Worlds that helps victims of domestic violence use art to regain their sense of empowerment. Salser accepted with her wife and two kids.

Finally, on Sunday, CSW and Mayor Villaraigosa held their annual Garden Party, where the mayor was among many to cut loose and dance. Rosendahl, recipient of CSW’s Lifetime Achievement Award, was also in attendance. Please check out the list of LGBT Pride activities and events at culturela.org or check out Facebook at facebook.com/HeritageLA. Please see my 'exit interview' with Mayor Villaraigosa in the next print edition of Frontiers, with an expanded version on FrontiersLA.com featuring photos of Villaraigosa over the years.

View the LGBT Heritage Month Kick-Off Photo Album here.

All photos by Karen Ocamb, except the Lavender City Hall and the four-shot of Mayor Villaraigosa, Rodney Scott, Adam Lambert and Mia Yamamoto, which are courtesy of the City of Los Angeles Heritage Celebration on Facebook. facebook.com/HeritageLA

CAPTIONS FOR THE LGBT HERITAGE MONTH KICK-OFF PHOTO ALBUM:

1. City Hall by Day

2. Lavender City Hall, Thursday night, May 30

3. L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa with his Hope, Dream and Spirit of Los Angeles Awards recipients Mia Yamamoto, Rodney Scott and Adam Lambert at Thursday night kick-off on the South Lawn.

4. Mayor Villaraigosa, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, Councilmember Rosendahl and honorees Rodney Scott, David Reid, Mia Yamamoto and Adam Lambert

5. Rosendahl poses with Cathy Salser (A Window Between Worlds) and her family and Joseph Hawkin (ONE Archives) before the ceremony

6. ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives photo from 1980—that’s ONE Magazine writer and Archives founder Jim Kepner in the white shirt.

7. ONE photo of lesbian feminists in the park Downtown across from the U.S. Court House in 1977, the year of anti-gay Anita Bryant and the Briggs Initiative.

8. Rosendahl and David Reid who founded the World AIDS Day art project (AIDSWatch.org) 18 years ago in honor of a friend and Rosendahl’s life partner, Chris Blauman.

9. Rosendahl and Villaraigosa share a moment before going into Council Chambers on Friday, May 30.

10. Rosendahl and Villaraigosa enter City Chambers leading the honorees

11. Vox Femina entertain

12. Villaraigosa praises Rosendahl as Mia Yamamoto looks on.

13. Villaraigosa honors trans defense attorney Mia Yamamoto, whom Villaraigosa knew during his days heading the ACLU/Southern California.

14, Villaraigosa honors American Idol star Adam Lambert, who is now using his fame for good.

15. Adam Lambert and Chief Beck listen as L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson gushes over American Idol and Lambert, who he thinks was robbed of the win because Lambert is gay.

16. Villaraigosa honors longtime friend, CSW/L.A. Pride President Rodney Scott.

17. Councilmember Paul Koretz among those who applauded LGBT Heritage Month

18. 9th grader Madison Zavala of Notre Dame High School, whose poem ”Stand Tall, Stand Proud” earned her recognition as the top participant in the LGBT Heritage Month Youth Creative Writing/Video Contest

19. Rosendahl invites Fire Chief Brian L. Cummings to speak

20. Councilmember Dennis Zine congratulates his successful opponent in the L.A. City Controller race, openly gay attorney Ron Galerpin

21. Villaraigosa’s LGBT liaison and legislative deputy, Suzy Jack, among the many LGBT staff on hand

22. After the ceremony, elected gays pose: Ron Galperin, Mike Bonin, Bill Rosendahl, Mitch O’Farrell

23. Mike Bonin shows where he will sit when he assumes office after July 1.

24. Villaraigosa and Scott exchange kisses at the Mayor’s L.A. Pride Garden Party, the original idea for which was suggested by Scott.

25. CSW/L.A. Pride 2013 Person of the Year Rep. Mark Takano with Villaraigosa and West Hollywood Mayor Abbe Land, who is also CEO of The Trevor Project.

26. CSW Connie Norman Spirit Award recipient Richard Zaldivar and friend

27. CSW Outstanding Youth Leader and transgender champion Zoey gets a big hug from the mayor.

28. Married marriage advocates Robin Tyler and Diane Olson.

29. Lambda Legal Legal Director Jon Davidson and his longtime partner Syd Peterson.

30. Latino Equality Alliance co-founder Ari Gutierrez with her fiancé Connie Arambula and their daughter Emma.

31. Longtime LGBT activist MCC/L.A.’s Rev. Neil Thomas and friends

32. Villaraigosa and his much-honored trans friends Karina Samala, Bamby Salcedo and Maria Roman.

33. Here! Media kingpin Paul Colichman and his longtime partner actor David Milbern with Trevor Project CEO Abbe Land.

34. 2012 Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger and friend Joe Wagner

35. California State Sen. Ted Lieu

36. Post Prop. 8 Equal Roots activists Mike Ai and Matt Palazzolo

37. L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa dancing the Salsa—well

Gays Turn Out for Garcetti Big Time!

Karen Ocamb — Mon, 27 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

For almost two years, LGBT allies Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel waged an expensive battle over who would succeed outgoing Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In the May 21 runoff election, City Councilmember Garcetti won with 54 percent of the vote versus 46 percent for City Controller Wendy Greuel. And, according to an exit survey conducted by the Center for the Study of Los Angeles, gays and lesbians turned out in a major way for Garcetti.

“More than seven in 10 gay men and lesbians in L.A. supported Garcetti,” said Gary Gates, the distinguished scholar at the Williams Institute who helped the center craft its survey question on sexual orientation. “Heterosexual and bisexual support for the mayor-elect was not nearly as lopsided—55 percent and 53 percent, respectively.”

The Center for the Study of Los Angeles, based at Loyola Marymount University, interviewed 1,227 voters through random exit polling questioning at 25 polling places and via a telephone survey of permanent vote-by-mail registered voters in L.A. Of all voters questioned, 92 percent identified as heterosexual or straight, while 4.4 percent identified as gay or lesbian, 1.3 percent identified as bisexual and 2.4 percent answered as “other,” which Gates construes as a group that probably did not understand the question or didn't want to answer it.

Combining the survey’s numbers for gay, lesbian and bisexual voters yields a voter turnout of roughly six percent. What that might mean is difficult to say. “We don't have a survey that can directly tell us the percentage of the LGBT population in the city of L.A., which would allow us to assess LGBT voter turnout,” Gates says. “In the absence of that data, it's very difficult to determine the meaning of the six percent LGBT vote.”

The center’s survey breaks down the numbers as: Garectti with 71.8 percent of gay and lesbian voters; 53.1 percent bisexual and 51.7 percent “other”; for Greuel, the numbers dropped dramatically with 28.2 percent of gays and lesbians voting for her, though she won 46.9 of the bisexual vote and 48.3 percent of “other.”

Though Gates points out there is no baseline data on the LGBT population in L.A. against which to measure the voting percentages for statistical meaning, it is not hard to extrapolate a political meaning—especially when considering that the roughly six percent LGB turnout is somewhat comparable to the survey’s Asian turnout of 6.3 percent.

In other words, during the historically low 19 percent voter turnout for the runoff elections, gays and lesbians turned out in a significant way for their ‘brother’ Eric Garcetti, the Harvard Law School grad and Rhodes Scholar who has been so ubiquitous in the LGBT community, he is considered an ‘honorary gay person.’ It will be interesting to see how the new mayor now acknowledges that family-of-choice support.

“We have our challenges before us as a city. Big challenges,'' Garcetti said at a May 23 meeting with Villaraigosa at Getty House, City News Service reported. “But there's no challenge in Los Angeles that cannot be met by the immense wellspring of talent and people and passion that's here in Los Angeles. Those folks who believe in Los Angeles, the people who are the most diverse, committed, creative human beings ever assembled on the face of the Earth—together we will make this not just a big city but a great city once again.''

And that “together” includes Greuel, Garcetti said, “my former opponent and my continuing friend,” with whom he vowed to “continue to work together very closely.”

Greuel was gracious in defeat. “After going toe-to-toe with him as political opponents for two years now ... you really get to know a person,” she said, adding that Garcetti “cares deeply” about L.A. and “will work tirelessly to be the strong and innovative leader we need at this critical moment in our history.” Greuel also took note of her almost historic achievement of being L.A.’s first female mayor. “You showed the daughters, sisters, wives and mothers of Los Angeles that one day we will have a woman mayor of Los Angeles,” she told a crowd of her supporters in her farewell news conference.

Garcetti is “a true leader,” Villaraigosa said. “I know I am leaving Los Angeles in good hands.”

Those good hands will have a lot to handle—including Villaraigosa’s $7.7 billion budget the City Council unanimously approved on May 23. But setting aside for a moment the looming battles over pensions and labor concessions, what the 42-year-old mayor-elect brings in with him is a sense of youth vigor, creative vision, a smart and current sense of innovation and possibility. Some have even dared utter the word ‘hope.’

The campaign promises and record posted on his election website give a sense of what direction Garcetti will lead the city. For instance, he “[a]uthored the nation's widest-reaching green building ordinance, the nation's largest local clean water initiative and legislation leading to the nation’s largest solar rooftop program to create healthier neighborhoods and position L.A. for clean technology and energy jobs. ... Created the DWP ratepayer advocate and a ballot initiative to ensure transparency and accountability at the nation's largest public utility,” and “[d]eployed the city's first constituent services ‘smart phone app,’ which allows residents to snap a picture of graffiti or a pothole and report them for city action anytime, anywhere—no waiting on hold and no call center infrastructure. The phone's GPS automatically sends location information.”

And presumably Garcetti will continue to engage in social media via his Twitter account @ericgarcetti and on Facebook, where he has posted a slew of photos from his election night at the Palladium (tinyurl.com/q3ar2sw).

That youthful spirit of change also seems to have impacted other citywide races, sweeping in low-key gay Century City attorney Ron Galperin as City Controller and former Assemblymember Mike Feuer as City Attorney and sweeping out Councilmember Dennis Zine and one-term City Attorney Carman Trutanich, respectively. Galperin stomped Zine 56 percent to 44 percent, while Feuer trounced Trutanich 62 percent to 38 percent.

Interestingly, according to the Center for the Study of Los Angeles survey, more gays and lesbians voted for Trutanich than straights—43.1 percent to 35.6 percent, with bisexuals voting for Trutanich by 66.3 percent. Straights voted 64.4 percent for Feuer to 56.9 percent of gays and lesbians and 33.7 percent of bisexuals.

In the City Controller race, Galperin pulled in 47.4 percent of straights and 52.7 percent of gays and lesbians, with 36.9 percent of votes from bisexuals. Zine secured 52.6 percent of the straight vote, but garnered 47.3 percent of the gay and lesbian vote and 63.1 percent from bisexuals.

There were also four City Council races on the ballot, and strong LGBT allies won. Former Assemblymember Gil Cedillo won his race for the 1st Council District, and state Sen. Current Price beat his opponent for the 9th C.D. In a special election to replace current Congressmember Tony Cárdenas, former Assemblymember Cindy Montañez came in first but will wind up in a runoff on July 23 with LAUSD school boardmember Nury Martinez to represent the northeast San Fernando Valley. Additionally, Prop. D, a medical marijuana measure supported by Councilmember Paul Koretz bested two other pot measures to allow 130 dispensaries that will be heavily taxed and regulated.

But the race that mesmerized and at times riled the LGBT community was the race between openly gay Mitch O’Farrell, a former field deputy to Garcetti in the 13th C.D., and John Choi, a former Public Works commissioner and labor organizer who aspired to be the first Korean-American elected to the L.A. City Council.

With the election results posted by the L.A. City Clerk early on May 23, O’Farrell had 11,556 votes (53 percent) to Choi’s 10,224 votes (47 percent). However, as Frontiers goes to press, Choi has not yet conceded and may contest the absentee ballot count, according to his gay manager Shaun Daniels, who hopes that the District Attorney’s investigation continues into allegations of voter fraud.

“It remains our suspicion that the initial wave of votes that was heavy with absentee ballots may not have been fair, legal or even cast by a voter,” Daniels told Frontiers. “This has implications beyond just Mitch and John. We must consider the long-term integrity of voting by the entire immigrant community. I would hate to think that whomever might have done this thinks they got away with it and can do it again as if it does not matter.”

The allegations to which Daniels is referring involves charges of voter fraud and illegal electioneering in Little Armenia, which Choi’s campaign filed with the District Attorney’s Public Integrity Division. Supporting evidence includes witness statements charging voter manipulation, intimidation, coercion and ballot theft with such head-scratching photos as the one above apparently showing roughly 75-100 ballots strewn on someone’s bed.

LA Weekly forwarded the photo to the L.A. City Clerk’s office to verify if they were city ballots. “Holly Wolcott, the clerk’s executive officer, said the photo does appear to show vote-by-mail ballots in their original envelopes— though she could not be certain of that. In other words, it appears the ballots were collected before they got to the voters,” The Weekly reported. “‘We don't know of any reason why—if they are in fact ballots—they would be on somebody's bed,’ Wolcott said. ‘The appearance in and of itself is cause for concern.’ Wolcott said she forwarded the image to the LAPD.”

Absentee ballots must either be mailed in or personally turned in by the voter, so the photo suggests something illegal is going on. If so, by whom and on whose behalf? And was the apparent ballot theft random or coordinated by a campaign or independently by a campaign supporter? And, since ballots are mailed to voters who request them, will the federal government investigate to see if there was interference with the U.S. mail?

O’Farrell’s campaign countered the Choi campaign’s official complaints with a cease-and-desist letter demanding the Choi campaign immediately stop “distributing false and defamatory statements”; violating the L.A. Times copyright laws (Daniels said they never received a similar complaint from The Times); and stop “violating state and local election laws by encouraging your agents to complete vote-by-mail ballots for unsuspecting voters,” among other demands.

In a subsequent formal complaint, O’Farrell’s attorney Cary Davidson writes, “John Choi and John Choi for City Council (“Choi”) have engaged in a systematic attempt to disenfranchise the Armenian community of Los Angeles and deny these citizens their right to vote. This conduct violates federal, state and local laws, as discussed below. ... Choi has specifically targeted the Armenian community in Council District 13 for a campaign of voter fraud and intimidation. The Choi campaign has illegally filled out ballots for voters, illegally collected absentee ballots, lied to voters and intimidated voters.” They, too, offered testimony from witnesses, including those who claim that Choi campaign canvassers were telling Armenian voters not to vote for O’Farrell because he is gay—a charge Choi vehemently denied.

“I’ve been very clear on this issue. I’ve told my staff, and I’ve said it publicly—if anyone in this campaign has been found to be spouting this kind of hate, they’ll be instantly gone—they’ll be gone that day. They will no longer be affiliated with this campaign,” Choi said.

Given these and other questions, Choi’s campaign wondered if the city clerk might pull any vote-by-mail ballots from specific Little Armenia neighborhoods for further scrutiny. (See the Frontiers story on this here: tinyurl.com/ppejnz4). The L.A. Times reports that “the city clerk's office still has about 82,000 ballots to count over the next few weeks.” D.A. spokesperson Jane Robison tells Frontiers that the D.A.’s investigation into the allegations of voter fraud is continuing.

Meanwhile, Choi supporter L.A. City Councilmember Paul Krekorian has also pledged to get to the bottom of the incident, no matter who’s to blame or what the outcome. “It's clear that in Council District 13, voter fraud and intimidation have taken hold in a clear attempt to steal this election. As someone who has worked for two decades to increase voter turnout and democratic participation, I will never tolerate anyone attempting to trick voters or subvert democracy. The public deserves an honest and open discussion on the issues affecting our neighborhoods. Instead, some especially vulnerable voters in C.D. 13 clearly have been swindled and defrauded, and I will not rest until all of the culprits are brought to justice, no matter who or where they may be.”

GSA Network on Implementing the FAIR Education Act

Karen Ocamb — Mon, 27 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

On May 17, California Gov. Jerry Brown went to Humphreys Avenue Elementary School in East Los Angeles to push his new “Local Control Funding Formula,” a plan to shift resources to the state’s neediest students and restore local control over how money is spent in schools, according to a press release from Brown’s office.

“We’re here because we want to see California prosper, and we prosper by how we treat and invest in our kids,” Brown said. The plan outlines how the $70 billion allocated for K-12 in the budget’s May Revision (go to tinyurl.com/anhf5j6) would be used to increase flexibility and accountability by giving local bodies control over money earmarked for state-mandated programs and strategically adding funding for needy kids—specifically low-income students, English learners and foster youth.

“Now is our chance to make progress towards the promise of equal opportunity,” said LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy in announcing his support.

Fulfillment of that promise largely depends on updating school instruction, a framework for which must be developed for history and social science by June 30, 2014,” according to U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism’s online publication, Oakland North.

“The current standards are from 1998,” Rebecca Baumann, a legislative aide in the office of Sen. Loni Hancock, who first proposed the bill, told Oakland North. “In basic textbooks, there is no mention of 9/11 or Barack Obama. Teachers have to use supplemental materials.”

Before the history textbooks can be revised, however, codes and standards must be brought up to date. “GSA [Gay Straight Alliance] Network and Our Family Coalition are working with the California Department of Education to ensure that updated curriculum frameworks and standards comply with the updates to the education code under the FAIR Education Act,” Carolyn Laub, Executive Director of GSA Network, told Frontiers. “In the meantime, we have urged the California Department of Education to distribute a list of supplemental curricular materials and lesson plans that schools can use to comply with the FAIR Education Act. These resources have been compiled at gsanetwork.org/fair and faireducationact.com.”

Apparently the state board listened, because on May 8 it unanimously passed an update to the Social Content Standards to include a section on sexual orientation and gender identity. (Go to tinyurl.com/b5xmogh). The key passage reads, “In addition to providing positive school experiences and encouraging students’ aspirations, instructional materials should reflect a pluralistic, multicultural society composed of unique individuals. The Education Code sections referenced in this document are intended to help end stereotyping in instructional materials by showing diverse people in positive roles contributing to society. Instructional materials used by students in California public schools should never portray in an adverse or inappropriate way the groups referenced in the laws. The laws require that instructional materials portray accurately and equitably the cultural and racial diversity of American society; the male and female roles; and the contributions of minority groups, the disabled, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals and males and females to the development of California and the United States."

But compliance with the FAIR Act requires persistence, watchdog vigilance and plans to push for local agencies to allocate funding for programs under Brown’s new budget plan.

“GSAs across the state have been working with teachers and administrators to ensure that the FAIR Education Act is implemented in their schools,” Laub said. “Our Statewide Advocacy Council, a group of approximately 20 youth leaders, has made implementation a priority this year and helped in the development of several resources for students to use in their schools.”

Laub cites Caitlin Owens-Garrett, a student on GSA Network’s Statewide Advocacy Council, as an example. “A junior at Sanger High School in the Central Valley, Caitlin strategized with her GSA advisor at the beginning of the school year about how they could ensure Sanger followed the updated education guidelines. They started by publicly celebrating LGBT History Month, educating teachers about the law and showing them that LGBT people are a part of American history. Soon Caitlin’s U.S. History teacher approached her and asked for her help in putting together a presentation for the class about LGBT people in history. Her teacher not only gave the presentation in class but also sent it out to the entire history department to use.

“We’re at a pivotal moment in the LGBT movement, and it is essential that we invest in our young people now. While attitudes are changing and youth are leading the way, we’re still failing our young people on the most basic levels,” Laub concluded. “LGBTQ youth—and particularly low-income LGBTQ youth and LGBTQ youth of color—face enormous challenges simply to stay in school and get an education. We must address the lack of funding for education, biased policies and administrators and the systemic criminalization of youth if we are to continue the movement for social justice and equality for all LGBTQ people.”

Immigration Reform Clears Committee Without Gay Protections

Peter DelVecchio — Mon, 27 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

A comprehensive immigration reform bill cleared the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee May 21 on a bipartisan vote, but the measure does not include protections LGBT activists had sought for binational same-sex couples, BuzzFeed reports.

Immigration reform efforts, in limbo for years, gained momentum after Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney lost the Latino vote in the 2012 election by a margin estimated to have been more than 40 percentage points.

Committee Chair Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had proposed an amendment that would have treated married same-sex couples the same as their straight counterparts with respect to the acquisition of green cards, and would have permitted gays to sponsor foreign same-sex partners for U.S. residency, as straight people are permitted to do under existing law.

Leahy withdrew his amendment, however, shortly before the committee voted on the bill when it became clear that Republicans would scuttle the entire package if it included gay protections. Leahy said he was withholding his amendment “with a heavy heart,” after having offered it a half-hour earlier, saying, “I don't want to be the senator who asks Americans to choose between the love of their life and the love of their country. Discriminating against people based on who they love is a travesty.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called Leahy's amendment “the fairest approach,” but added, “here's the problem—we know this is going to blow the agreement apart. I don't want to blow this bill apart.” Feinstein urged patience, noting that the U.S. Supreme Court might strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, DOMA, which could make the issue moot, and pointing out that she is sponsoring a bill to repeal DOMA.

Another Democrat, Illinois Sen. Dick Durban, praised Leahy, but said, “I believe that this is the wrong moment; this is the wrong bill.”

Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said his vote was “one of the most excruciating decisions [he has] had to make ... in Congress,” adding, “Not to do this is rank discrimination.” But, Schumer went on, “If we make the effort to add [gay protections] to this bill, [the Republicans] will walk away. They've said it publicly, they've told me privately—I believe them. The result: no equality, no immigration bill. Everyone loses.” Schumer vowed to continue pressing for LGBT immigration protections, saying, “I will be here. This is far from our last battle together.”

“This is the definition of a Hobson's choice,” said Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken. “It's wrong to discriminate against people, but I do not want the LGBT people who would be hurt by this bill not passing ... to be hurt by this falling apart.”

It was indeed clear the bill would fall apart if the amendment were not withdrawn. Republican opposition was clear and adamant. “If you redefine marriage for immigration purposes, the bill would fall apart because the coalition would fall apart,” said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Leahy's amendment “certainly would mean this bill would not move forward,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

President Barack Obama is on-record supporting equal immigration treatment for LGBT people, but sources said to be familiar with immigration negotiations in the Senate reportedly told the AP that the president urged Leahy to postpone any dispute over marriage equality until the bill reaches the Senate floor.

Obama praised the committee vote in a White House press release, calling the reform bill “largely consistent with the principles of common sense reform I have proposed,” and adding that nobody “got everything they wanted.”

LGBT response to the bill ranged from measured to harsh. “This [Republican] take-it-or-leave-it stance with regard to same-sex binational couples is not helpful. We all share the same goal of passing comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship,” said a statement from LGBT advocacy groups, including the National Center for Lesbian Rights, GLAAD, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Transgender Equality. The statement added, however, “Beyond the issue of same-sex binational couples, the bill addresses many issues that will particularly benefit LGBT people, such as eliminating the one-year bar on applying for asylum, providing protections for DREAMers and improving conditions for people held in detention facilities.”

Rachel Tiven, Executive Director of the Immigration Equality Action Fund, however, lambasted Democrats in a statement for having “caved to bullying by their Republican colleagues,” adding, “There should be shame on both sides of the political aisle today for lawmakers who worked to deny LGBT families a vote. Despite widespread support from business, labor, faith, Latino and Asian-American advocates, Senators abandoned LGBT families without a vote.”

“California is home to more LGBT binational couples—7,100—than any other state in the nation, and today those couples and their families were abandoned,” Equality California said in a statement, adding that the group was “appalled” by the withdrawal of the amendment.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated that Republicans will permit an up or down vote on the bill without a filibuster.

Will the 13th C.D. Race Screw Up the L.A. Elections?

Karen Ocamb — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:43:00 GMT

It’s Election Day in L.A.! City Controller Wendy Greuel and Councilmember Eric Garcetti have been campaigning for almost two years—spending more than $33 million—to succeed Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and lead the city’s 3.8 million residents. But most political observers think election fatigue will keep voter turnout so low, the outcome will basically be decided by a relatively few—perhaps even lower than the 21 percent of the 1.8 million registered voters who cast ballots in the March primary.

The L.A. Times thinks the election for mayor, city attorney, city controller and four city council seats “is likely to be decided by an older, whiter and more educated fraction of the city's population.” While Latinos make up about 44 percent of the city’s population, a sizable percentage are immigrants ineligible to vote. “Non-Latino whites, by contrast, at 32 percent of the city's population, are likely to total 51% of the vote, giving them an outsized role in choosing the next mayor,” according to a recent USC/Times survey.

But for all the millions spent on micro-targeting different demographics and neighborhoods—the final election results might actually hinge on absentee ballots from Little Armenia in the 13th City Council District. And counting those ballots might take much longer than usual, given the investigation into voter fraud by the District Attorney’s Public Integrity Division and possibly the LAPD. With an eye to capturing LGBT history, herewith is a take on the race between gay former Garcetti field deputy Mitch O’Farrell and former Public Works commissioner, labor organizer and gay ally John Choi which has become so heated, both sides have leveled formal allegations of voter fraud and illegal electioneering. Supporting evidence includes witness statements charging voter manipulation, intimidation, coercion and ballot theft with such head-scratching photos as the one above apparently showing roughly 75-100 ballots strewn on someone’s bed.

The LA Weekly forwarded the photo to the L.A. City Clerk’s office to verify if they were city ballots. The Weekly reported:

Holly Wolcott, the clerk's executive officer, said the photo does appear to show vote-by-mail ballots in their original envelopes— though she could not be certain of that. In other words, it appears the ballots were collected before they got to the voters.

"We don't know of any reason why—if they are in fact ballots —they would be on somebody's bed," Wolcott said. "The appearance in and of itself is cause for concern."

Wolcott said she forwarded the image to the LAPD.

Absentee ballots must either be mailed in or personally turned in by the voter so the photo suggests something illegal is going on. If so, by whom and on whose behalf? And was the apparent ballot theft random or coordinated by a campaign or independently by a campaign supporter? And, since ballots are mailed to voters who request them, will the federal government investigate to see if there was interference with the U.S. mail?

Given these and other questions, will the City Clerk pull any vote-by-mail ballots from Little Armenia neighborhoods for further scrutiny? What if a batch of ballots reflects a similar handwriting style, time-stamp and zip code and contains the name of one candidate for the 13th C.D. with no other marked designation for other offices? Will that be considered “evidence” of possible untoward interference or will investigators consider a possible cultural explanation that older immigrant Armenian voters asked for and received help filling out their ballots?

The Instagram photo was apparently posted April 25 on the account of Mamikon Sargsyan, a 19-year-old who is Facebook “friends” with O’Farrell and Manny Kbushyan, brother of Sam Kbushyan, who placed third in the March primary out of a field of 12 candidates. The Kbushyan name is well known in Little Armenia and his primary campaign registered roughly 3,000 new voters. Sargsyan apparently volunteered for Kbushyan during the primary, but attempts to contact Sargsyan to verify his connection to Kbushyan and to find out more about those absentee ballots were unsuccessful.

“I have no doubt left that the Mitch O'Farrell campaign has not only been misleading voters and taking completed ballots from voters which is against the law, but they have actually been stealing people's unopened ballots from their mailboxes,” Choi’s gay campaign manager Shaun Daniels told me. “Based on anecdotal information obtained from various individuals in the community, we believe that these ballots were removed from the mail boxes of residents living at an apartment complex located at 1428 N. Normandie Avenue, Los Angeles, and that individuals connected with Sam Kbushyan and his brother Manny fraudulently cast these ballots and delivered them to the Los Angeles City Clerk’s office. We understand, again based on anecdotal information, that Mr. Sargsyan’s mother may be the building manager at that apartment complex.”

That address—1428 N. Normandie Avenue—is serving as a polling place this Election Day. “It’s my understanding that there are an unusually high number of provisional ballots at these polling places, including Normandie,” Daniels told me Tuesday afternoon.

Kbushyan, who is now backing O’Farrell, has become the focus of two formal complaints to the DA’s office lodged by the Choi campaign. As I reported earlier, the Choi campaign alleges that O’Farrell campaign workers “fraudulently misrepresented the candidates on the ballot” and were “shown” how to vote. The complaint reads:

In numerous cases, voters reported that O’Farrell campaign workers physically took possession of the VBM ballots, filled them out and then left with those ballots in hand. In other cases, voters were told to deliver their completed ballots to O’Farrell campaign workers.

“In one particularly brazen occurrence, the campaign was told that O’Farrell campaign workers went to an Armenian senior home, told the elderly residents that they should vote for Sam Kbushyan and then proceeded to fill out each of the seniors’ vote-by-mail ballots individually. ... These actions threaten to sabotage the democratic process and may very well affect the outcome of this election.

In their supplemental complaint letter sent to the DA’s office on May 13, Choi attorney Stephen Kaufman identified people working on behalf of O’Farrell’s campaign who “came to their residences and either filled out their ballots or collected them from the voters”—including a former field coordinator for Sam Kbushyan, Kbushyan’s brother Manny and an “individual identified as Sam Kbushyan’s father has been reported traveling to VBM voters’ residences to pick up VBM ballots.”

O’Farrell’s campaign sent a cease and desist letter to the Choi campaign on May 10 from their attorney Cary Davidson. The campaign demanded the Choi campaign immediately stop “distributing false and defamatory statements;” violating the L.A. Times copyright laws (Daniels said they never received a similar complaint from The Times); and stop “violating state and local election laws by encouraging your agents to complete vote-by-mail ballots for unsuspecting voters,” among other demands.

In their formal complaint, Davidson writes: “John Choi and John Choi for City Council (“Choi”) have engaged in a systematic attempt to disenfranchise the Armenian community of Los Angeles and deny these citizens their right to vote. This conduct violates federal, state, and local laws, as discussed below…..

Choi has specifically targeted the Armenian community in Council District 13 for a campaign of voter fraud and intimidation. The Choi campaign has illegally filled out ballots for voters, illegally collected absentee ballots, lied to voters, and intimidated voters.”

The complaint offers statements from nine Armenians as evidence of these allegations. The statements include allegations that the Choi campaign “unlawfully cast” Albert Cheshmejyaan’s vote by mail ballot for Choi; that Choi campaign staff lied to Aida Muradyan about their identity “in an effort to induce her to vote for Mr. Choi. The Choi campaign falsely claimed to be representing Sam Kbushyan;” and Tamara Azatyan alleged that the Choi campaign “used intimidating tactics to induce her to vote for Mr. Choi. The Choi campaign attempted to persuade Ms. Muradyan to vote for Mr. Choi because Mr. O’Farrell “is a homosexual.”

O’Farrell said he was “disgusted” by the alleged effort to turn Armenian voters against him because he’s gay. He told me via email:

John Choi and his campaign have shown that they will use any tactic, spread any lie, and spend any amount of money to buy this seat. I've lived through the LGBT movement. I remember when identifying as a gay man was synonymous with shame. We've come a long way since then, but for a campaign to use these means of dehumanizing an entire community just to get votes? That's what's shameful.

Choi got angry over the charge that he was gay-baiting, telling me:

I’ve been very clear on this issue. I’ve told my staff and I’ve said it publicly—if anyone in this campaign has been found to be spouting this kind of hate, they’ll be instantly gone—they’ll be gone that day. They will no longer be affiliated with this campaign. Meanwhile, my opponent continues to dismiss what was the brandishing of a gun, saying ‘It didn’t happen; there’s no police report’ and now, ‘It’s not our issue; it wasn’t affiliated with our campaign.’ I’ll say again—if anyone in my campaign is caught doing that, they’ll be gone—and I haven’t heard the same type of response and responsibility from Mitch.

Rather, O’Farrell’s campaign often asks what Choi has done for the LGBT community, suggesting that with such a strong gay population in neighborhoods such as Silver Lake and Echo Park, the seat belongs to a gay person. However, Choi’s gay supporters such as Eric Bauman, chair of the L.A. County Democratic Party that endorsed Choi, former 13th C.D. candidate Matt Szabo and former Assembly candidate Torie Osborn disagree. They wrote a letter to Friends of Equality noting that “John Choi faces a glass ceiling of his own” in striving to become the first Korean-American to be elected to the City Council. They also wrote:

“John Choi has also been a fighter for our community in an important way. As a staunch supporter of LGBT rights, John has stood firm and sought to educate socially conservative members of the Korean-American community when his support for marriage equality was questioned. He has initiated a dialogue about equality in a community where we, admittedly, have a lot of progress still to make.”

But the back and forth over labor and the gay vote pale compared to the sniping over voter fraud—which has now hit YouTube. A Choi supporter shot these allegations on his iPhone:

Renee Nahum, spokesperson for the Mitch O'Farrell campaign, sent me this response to the video:

"This is just another tired fabrication from John Choi and [Choi consultant] Mike Shimpock, and a pretty weak one at that. This follows exactly the same playbook that Shimpock and his team have used in previous races, and now they're importing it to the 13th District. Our campaign has hundreds of voters who have made the same allegations of the Choi campaign, but we don't have millions of dollars and nine super PACs to help fund a movie about it complete with overwrought music. The truth is that John Choi has no record to run on, so he is trying to scare voters, mislead the public, and invalidate the Armenian vote."

Sosseh Der-Minassian, an apparent O’Farrell supporter, posted this video as if in response:

O’Farrell campaign spokesperson Marco Meneghin said they’d never seen the video before, didn’t know who produced it and therefore wouldn’t comment. Daniels challenged the statements, noting that they have no female campaign workers with black hair, as the woman stated in the O’Farrell supporter’s video.

If there is anyone in the campaign whose name is being tossed around as much as O’Farrell and Choi, it’s Sam Kbushyan. He and his brother Manny have both served as paid consultants for the O’Farrell campaign—but Sam Kbushyan does not appreciate how his “brand” has been tarnished by the allegations of voter fraud leveled by the Choi campaign. In a 52-minute interview late Monday night, May 20, Kbushyan called allegations of voter fraud by the O’Farrell campaign “nonsense” and accused the Choi campaign of being a “machine” that “terrorized” non-English-speaking senior Armenian-Americans, who, as a well known community leader, he regards as his followers. He sees O’Farrell as “a I saw natural fit for this area.” I asked if he was an old-time Chicago Mayor Richard Daley wanna-be or a nice guy trying to get Mitch O’Farrell elected. Kbushyan laughed and said:

I’m the nice guy trying to get a very honest person who has been in the neighborhood get elected. I’m going against a political machine to do everything I can – less rumors and scandals – to help this person become the next council representative for this very diverse district. Other than that, anything you hear is, I think, fabricated in a very well-tailored manner. Things like appeared today in the news (ie the photo of the ballots on the bed)– I think that’s totally nonsense. It’s a good allegation – it’s a good accusation, if it sticks, because they’ve been talking about this for quite a while – including things that were filed – complaints, fake reporters calling Armenian seniors, seniors being intimidated, seniors being manipulated. This is something I analyzed myself and I think it’s absolutely unacceptable in a world where I live today. I’m a locally raised kid in the neighborhood. Everybody knows me, my family. Everybody has a lot of respect for my family and hopefully, after this is over, a lot of people have to answer to these allegations….

I created a movement among the Armenian-American immigrants who voted for myself, who learned how to vote themselves – because they had never voted, they had never participated, they did not have a civic trust in this country because of – specially those Armenian-Americans who came from Soviet Union and how the system was practiced back in the old country. I built that. I re-ignited that inspiration for these people to participate. I managed to bring together over 3,000 people – and you see that 3,000 people didn’t vote for me. I got 2,700 votes during the primary but I registered over 3,000 people - so different candidates managed to take those votes, too. But I did not complain about that.

Kbushyan was keen to distance himself from Mamikon Sargsyan and the absentee ballot photo, though he wound up suggesting that it may have been planted by the Choi campaign. He said:

I honestly cannot comment. I think everything is possible from the Choi campaign…. they’ve practically pulled every trick from the hat. Specifically with the photo – it can be anybody. It can actually be Choi’s people, I think. I know the kid from the neighborhood. He never worked for me or Mitch O’Farrell. He’s just a neighborhood kid who’s a newcomer who I don’t think it’s possible in this world that he would collect all those ballots unopened, because I looked at the picture – unopened – and take a photo of him in this hotel bedroom and then put it on Instagram. This does not make sense. I think this is another good tactic that the Choi campaign would use like the gun and my father.

How could the Choi campaign post an Instagram under this kid’s account? Kbushyan responded:

“It hasn’t been validate that it was on his Instagram. It’s just accused of him having it….. I personally think it’s nonsense. Everything is possible because people can hack into your system and send messages and post pictures….This kid did not work for me at all. He came around a few campaigns. That’s one thing. There was tons of kids in my neighborhood who showed up to my office. That doesn’t make them directly involved with me. That’s one thing. Second is – he does not work for Mitch O’Farrell campaign or volunteer…. I have no knowledge of how it got there. I’m assuming it’s possible that the Choi campaign had prepared this [as a political ploy]….I doubt it he put it or has anything to do with it . I’m assuming – because how would you collect all those ballots unopened?”

Kbushyan dismissed the police report filed after a Choi campaign canvassing team were confronted by several O’Farrell-Kbushyan supporters, including a man with a gun. “Actually, these people were trespassing at this apartment building and were using my name—Choi’s volunteers. They entered a voter’s home and then—everything from there on—they turned it around and the Choi campaign does have the machine. This is the establishment. ... This is the unions you’re talking about. This is just about everything you can understand that’s trying to be king-maker in this process. I don’t think a group of people like us, who are community organizers, who strongly believe in grassroots values and believe in people will spend money to create something that is fable and fake in order just to get media attention. ... There was never a gun, The report was filed in the first incident that took place 36 hours later and the kid named in that report was actually a kid who lives in that building where they were trespassing using my name.”

Kbushyan explained that because he’s on Armenian television and has a long family history with the area, his name literally opens doors. And he insists that the Choi “machine” was created “to manipulate, to sabotage a community. This is exactly what John Choi’s campaign is doing. He has the money, he has the resources, he has the right people in the arsenal and he’s doing it really great. …Why would this kid put this photo on social media and then connect it with me? This kid has nothing to do with me. ... I don’t think it’s possible that this kid could have ever put this online. It’s impossible. Either his account was hacked—because he has friends who have friends who know friends—it’s possible. I think you can upload some things if you’re a hacker,” citing the hacking of his email account two years ago.

Kbushyan thinks the DA should investigate. “I really want the answers myself because I’m tired of being the victim of every time they use my name. ... If the kid is responsible, that is nothing to do with me or Mitch O’Farrell. I think it came directly from Choi. ... The John Choi campaign is victimizing people, using my name and they’re doing everything they can and they’re blaming the Mitch O’Farrell campaign and yes, they do have the money to keep things going.”

Kbushyan accused the Choi campaign of holding people “hostage,” claiming they are “terrorizing a group of people consistently” with 80 phone calls a day and constant manipulation. “They’re using my name one second, they’re telling them you have to say who you voted for and if you didn’t vote for John Choi, your vote’s not going to be counted because John Choi’s a union guy and if you do get long term care - they’re going to cut your benefits. This is just a few of those things.”

He recalled how during the primary, he would talk to seniors who might not grasp the nature of your conversation. “If you talk to a 70-plus year old woman who’s suffering through different kinds of illnesses, you spend two minutes time talking to her—once she turns her head, she forgets what you were talking about. They’re so old and vulnerable and fragile. And this [Choi] team because they have the luxury of having an army of volunteers and paid staff, he’s using every resource he has, along with some of the other people involved with him, in order to practically instill kind of a terror—sabotage people left and right and this is documented. So it’s not like this is my personal opinion on some issues. Ever since I endorsed Mitch O’Farrell—[Choi’s] been sending allegations—he’s been using every other arsenal he has in his political machine to turn things around.”

Kbushyan then got even more serious. “I’ve been insulted and he should hear from my attorney very soon because I think this is unethical, this is undemocratic, from my perspective, and its untrue. There’s no merit in this. He’s using the people, the Armenian Americans’ right here in the heart of East Hollywood—he’s using everybody in order to create chaos and in order to win attention and in order to divide people in order to get these people to vote for him. There’s nothing like that going on. Whatever is going on—whether it’s voter allegation, brandishing a gun, intimidating—it’s all his fabrication.”

I pointed out that I had interviewed Hrag Kitsinian, 24, the deputy field director for the Choi campaign who reported being intimidate by a man brandishing a gun, as he was talking to voters along with his 16 and 17 year old fellow canvassers. Kitsinian explained what happened, including what he said in the police report and how he identified the man with the gun. I also told Kbushyan that I had interviewed the LAPD detective who took the report and searched for the suspect—but didn’t find him. Kbushyan offered an entirely different version of the story. The suspect apparently lives in the building.

“These canvassers, 16 and 17 year olds, were in his house,” Kbushyan explains. “His father has a stroke so he’s practically handicapped. They had lied to the mother saying they were with Sam Kbushyan’s campaign. So he told them to get out of here and if there was a gun, and this kid lived in that building—how come the police didn’t come and arrest him or maybe they were trespassing and lying to his mother and this is what happened? They went back to the campaign office, turned the whole story around.”

Another person dragged into the conflict—thanks to a May 18 story by Ron Kaye in the Glendale News-Press is Choi supporter L.A. City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, whose office sent me this statement:

"It's clear that in Council District 13, voter fraud and intimidation have taken hold in a clear attempt to steal this election. As someone who has worked for two decades to increase voter turnout and democratic participation, I will never tolerate anyone attempting to trick voters or subvert democracy. The public deserves an honest and open discussion on the issues affecting our neighborhoods. Instead, some especially vulnerable voters in CD13 clearly have been swindled and defrauded and I will not rest until all of the culprits are brought to justice no matter who or where they may be."

While the DA investigates and the L.A. City Clerk counts or re-counts or decides how to validate the L.A. elections given this miasma, perhaps some insightful political scientist will study what happened in the 13th C.D. to provide guidelines for progressive candidates who wish to court diverse constituents with an eye to cultural competency and strict legality.

Vote for L.A. Mayor, City Attorney and Controller Tomorrow!

Karen Ocamb — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:33:00 GMT

On Tuesday, May 21, Los Angeles is expected to make history for having the lowest voter turnout ever for a mayoral election. Ironically, that could prove a boon for the LGBT community if LGBT voters turn out and get quizzed by an exit polltaker, indicating that the LGBT community in the nation’s second largest city indeed has some political clout. Outgoing L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa often cites the fact that, second to Latinos, it was the gay community that voted him into office in 2005.

Like Villaraigosa, who championed the LGBT community as Assembly Speaker and nationally as mayor, the two candidates seeking to replace him—City Controller Wendy Greuel, wendygreuel.org, and City Councilmember Eric Garcetti, ericgarcetti.com—have been so involved in our community for so long, they are essentially “honorary” gay people. Greuel, for instance, was the first LGBT liaison out of Mayor Tom Bradley’s office (see my interview with her here), and Garcetti has been ubiquitous at LGBT events since he succeeded Jackie Goldberg in representing the 13th Council District in 2001. (See my interview with him here.) Neither, however, has the big personality of a Villaraigosa or Richard Riordan, but both are smart, caring, have records of achievement and have solid LGBT endorsements.

As Jim Newton writes in the LA Times, “those mayors didn't arrive with the stature they later enjoyed. They accumulated it over the course of their terms. A year from now, the winner of this week's mayoral race will feel like a mayor. The office will enlarge the winner. It generally does.”

Newton also points out the office is not ideological but rather geared to problem-solving. He writes:

“Both candidates this time have real strengths, but they are far from identical people. Garcetti would, I think, be a more creative and daring leader, willing to try new things in areas such as technology and community organization. Greuel would be a more reliable mayor, a solid, dependable steward of the government and a determined advocate for residents.

Both would struggle to please their backers, though Greuel may have the tougher job there, as her coalition contains irreconcilable elements—she supports a proposed increase in the minimum wage for some hotel workers, for instance, which endears her to their union, but she also has run with the support of the Chamber of Commerce, which will fight that idea when the time comes.”

And that, Greuel suggests, is why she would be better for the job since she understands both sides, while others believe she’ll be stuck between a rock and union demands. And while Garcetti at times has called unions “special interest” groups, he, too, has backing from some private unions. Harold Meyerson, who used to write so brilliantly about labor for the old LA Weekly, has an insightful column in The American Prospect, where he is editor-at-large, saying labor is the loser in Tuesday’s elections. Here’s an excerpt:

“With other polls showing a closer outcome than the Times’, it’s not clear who tomorrow’s winner will be. But labor’s image in Los Angeles is definitely the loser, as the city’s attention has drifted from L.A. labor’s innovative efforts to raise living standards for many thousands of working-class and immigrant workers, union and otherwise, to the campaigns that the city employee unions (including the cops and the firefighters) have so lavishly funded for Greuel.

The damage is anything but irreparable. Labor’s battle for underpaid hotel and sanitation workers, its work with environmental organizations to clean the air around the harbor, and its campaign to require that the rail cars and buses bought by the local transit agency are manufactured in the United States—these are more representative of the fights that Angeleno labor picks, and more often than not, wins. L.A. labor federation chief Maria Elena Durazo made that very point in a recent LA Times op-ed column. But other L.A. labor leaders—most especially the leaders of municipal employee unions—need to remember that it’s those fights, and not their defense of their own members’ interests, that have made the Los Angeles union movement that all too rare success story at a time when American labor is embattled nearly everyplace else.”

KNBC Channel 4's Conan Nolan conducted extensive interviews with Wendy Greuel (here) and Eric Garcetti (here) that are really worth watching to get the candidate's positions on the issues and the negative campaigning.

There are two other city-wide races that should matter to LGBT people—the race for City Attorney and for City Controller—and unlike the mayor’s race, there are seriously distinct differences between the candidates. LA Weekly spells out some of the difference between openly gay controller candidate Ron Galperin and his opponent, Councilmember Dennis Zine. Here’s an excerpt:

5. Ron Galperin is the good government favorite Galperin, an attorney and longtime fiscal activist, finished first in the primary and has been endorsed by both the L.A. Times and the L.A. Daily News. Galperin recently led the city council's Ad-Hoc Commission on Revenue Efficiency, which the Times praised for identifying more than $100 million in savings for the city, writing that Galperin showed "his persistence by keeping the pressure on officials to implement a number of these recommendations, as well as other money-saving changes he's suggested over the years." Galperin has also been endorsed by the still-popular Laura Chick, who served two terms as controller.

4. Dennis Zine is in the City Hall insider. Zine served 33 years at the LAPD and then represented part of the San Fernando Valley on the L.A. city council for 12 years, while the closest Galperin has come was an unsuccessful bid in 2009.

"I know how the system works. I don't need to be trained,'' he said at a candidate's debate, according to the Times. "I don't need to learn how to deal with the City Council, the mayor and the other departments within the city of Los Angeles." The flip side, of course, means Zine has to answer for the actions of the city council -- which are not always popular.

3. Galperin is a Democrat; Zine officially has no party affiliation. The Democrats have all lined up with Galperin, perhaps because up until quite recently, Zine was a registered Republican -- he only changed his affiliation to "declined to state" last year. He told the Times that he's tired of partisan gridlock and out of step with the party on social issues.

However, it's worth noting that it was Galperin who earned the endorsement of L.A.'s favorite Republican, former mayor Richard Riordan, while Zine has been endorsed by outgoing mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat -- proving, perhaps, that in L.A., connections at City Hall trump party affiliation….

2. Zine has more baggage. In December 2010, the Daily Breeze reported that he was dating a lobbyist -- and, it turned out, he hadn't recused himself from votes involving her clients.

And way back in the day, when he was still with the LAPD, Zine was accused of sexual misconduct. He was ultimately found not guilty of all charges -- but not before the news broke that he'd (allegedly) put "a container of urine and a dozen condoms" in the suitcase of a woman who'd turned down his advances. Classy. (Galperin, in contrast, is happily married to a new Jewish boy -- the rabbi at Temple Akiba in Culver City.) “

While Frontiers does not endorse electoral candidates, I do want to note that having such a well-qualified gay candidate in the highest ranks of municipal government matters as opposed to a candidate who has sometimes voted sympathetically but only shows up for the Christopher Street West parade.

The other citywide election of note is for City Attorney. Frankly, for LGBT people this should be a no-brainer. Mike Feuer, votemikefeuer.com, has been a very strong LGBT ally since he directed the important public interest law firm, Bet Tzedek Legal Services. The Harvard Law School grad has also represented the Westside area that includes West Hollywood in the California Assembly and on the L.A. City Council. In fact, Feuer is only equal to Councilmember Paul Koretz in his participation in LGBT events. He is also a genuinely nice guy who actually listens to people when they speak, while his opponent, Carmen Trutanich, tends to glance around for someone more important to talk with than the person in front of him. Just a personal observation.

Please contact the candidates’ campaigns if you are inclined to help get them elected. Additionally, Stonewall Democratic Club will be phone banking tonight for their endorsed candidates. (RSVP on their Facebook page.)

For more information about the City Elections—including finding your polling place—go to the City Clerk’s website. But please, VOTE!

Historic Catch One Disco Celebrates 40th Anniversary

Karen Ocamb — Tue, 14 May 2013 21:47:00 GMT

I’ve known Jewel Thais-Williams since the late 1980s when I first started in the LGBT press. From day one, the respect for Jewel was palpable; people would part and make way for her when she and her wife, Rue, walked in a room. It was respect that she had earned over years of creating spaces for LGBT people of color to feel safe, welcome and loved. It is almost hard to fathom that it’s been 40 years since Jewel opened her Catch One Disco in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles—and that The Catch continues today, despite harassment from the LAPD back in the day and the AIDS crisis that took so many open and closeted African American same-gender-loving men to whom Jewel became “mother.” Jewel continues to be honored by such luminaries as L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at last year’s launch of LGBT Heritage Month.

But she has always felt more at home in the community she loves and serves. And from May 24 to May 27, Jewel will celebrate the 40th anniversary of her historic Los Angeles gay nightclub and disco with four days of parties, awards and activities over the Memorial Day Weekend at the famous disco and LAX Hilton Hotel. Catch One Disco is one of the oldest and longest running LGBT discos in America and has served as a community center and cultural institution in much the same way as Harlem Renaissance nightclubs served New York’s African Americans and progressives in the 1920s. It is for good reason that Jewel Thais-Williams is considered an icon and inspiration in the L.A. LGBT community.

The country was mired in a recession in 1972-73 when Thais-Williams decided to get out of the women’s clothing business. “When economic times are bad, women stop buying things for themselves, so I started looking for a recession-proof business” Thais-Williams says, “My brother suggested I buy a liquor store – but that was too impersonal. But then as I was looking in the L.A. Times, I saw there was a neighborhood bar for sale. I knew about the bar because I worked across the street four years earlier and later kept passing by it looking for opportunities. I didn’t think much about it because it didn’t allow black folks in. And now it was for sale.”

Thais-Williams borrowed and hocked possession to buy the bar. But other problems quickly became apparent: she had no bartending or bar business skills and, in 1973, California did not allow women to tend bar. “But business is business,” Thais-Williams, a UCLA graduate, says. “So even though I walked in cold, I still took action based on core business principles.”

What happened next surprised Thais-Williams and grounded her in what would become a core principle of her own: to serve humanity, no matter race or status. “When I walked in, the bartender walked out. But then an old red neck from Texas offered to help and took me under his wing. Eventually, he became my mentor and close friend. And then the wine and liquor sale distributors helped out, giving me advice on how to run the bar and how to work with employees. Pretty soon, everything started to fall into place.”

The neighborhood bar patrons were mostly old white guys during the day, then blue collar African American workers who’d stop in before going home – and then at night, with word getting out that the bar was owned by a black lady, more and more black gays started frequenting the bar at night. “It didn’t matter what I intended the bar to be,” she says, “gay is what it became.”

In 1975, Catch One Disco—named for the promise of “catching” a partner or lover—became an “underground” oasis for gays, progressives, artists, and people who appreciated mixed diversity and singers such as Etta James who would perform live. Eventually, she bought the entire building, affording her the opportunity to provide three dance floors, DJ-run disco music, and themed-events in the smaller rooms. And at a time when white gay discos and bars would demand three pieces of identification and other gender and racially-specific restrictions, The Catch was a retreat where LGBT African Americans could feel free, respected, dance and network—and where TV and pop stars from Sammy Davis Jr. to Warren Beatty and Madonna could safely hang out and have fun. Madonna held an album release party at The Catch, and several TV and film scenes have been filmed there, as well.
Catch One also symbolized Black empowerment, especially during the depression of the AIDS crisis when Thais-Williams provided space for different “Houses” of style to stage runway shows and contests in a manner considerably more upbeat—but just as catty—as Paris is Burning. And even though she ran a bar, Thais-Williams always put her patrons, her family, her “kids” first; helping them get clean and sober, helping them deal with their AIDS diagnosis and helping resolve “family” issues.

Indeed, during the AIDS crisis, Thais-Williams co-founded the Minority AIDS Project and the Imani Unidos Food Pantry in South L.A. and she joined the AIDS Project Los Angeles Board of Directors to bring the services they provided “down to the hood.” With her wife Rue, Thais-Williams also founded Rue’s House, the country’s first housing facility for women with AIDS and their children, most of whom were poor and black. During the L.A. Riots in 1991, the neighbors protected Rue’s House, which is located on 39th and Normandie, near the epicenter of the riots. After the life-saving AIDS medications became available in 1996, they transitioned the house into a sober-living facility.

Catch One Disco was also threatened during the L.A. Riots. When the rioters set fire to the Korean grocery store across the street on Pico Boulevard – a scene watched live on TV – Thais-Williams was at an APLA board meeting and dashed from Beverly Hills to Mid-Wilshire. She intended to stay and defend the building, but Rue convinced her to leave. As they were driving away, Thais-Williams looked out her window and saw rioters breaking in. She thought all was lost. But when she called the disco the next morning, not expecting an answer, former Army Sgt. Teresa Brown picked up and told her all was well. She had worked at the club and had run over to see if she could help. When she saw the rioters, “I told them to get the f-ck out,” she told Thais-Williams, “and they did!” For the next couple of days, Jewel and Rue Thais-Williams provided water and food for local neighbors in need.

In the late 1990s, Thais-Williams had a spiritual experience after an appointment with a culturally incompetent doctor. “So many of the illnesses African Americans get – like hyper-tension and diabetes – are preventable. But instead of helping us with prevention education – the medical profession treats us with pills and cuts us open,” Thais Williams says, still angry by the frustrating doctor’s visit. “I wanted to change that.”

Thais-Williams went back to school and even went to China to study Traditional Chinese Medicine to learn safe alternative medical treatments. In 2002, she opened The Village Health Foundation as a low-cost, sliding scale health clinic that not only provides alternative care for her mostly minority clients but also tends to their health education, and emotional, mental and spiritual well-being.

The four-day 40th anniversary celebration of Catch One Disco is a fundraiser for the Village Health Foundation to enable Thais-Williams to continue serving her family of LGBT folks - and anyone who needs help. The event features:

* Friday, May 24th - VIP Platinum Welcome Reception followed by the Black Party and Catch One Talent Night Reunion hosted by L.A.’s Finest Promoters with All-Star Catch One Diva’s Concert with live performances by local artist and the city’s best DJ’s.

* Saturday, May 25th – SWEAT Retro Disco Ball featuring special guest recording artist Yolanda “YoYo” Whittaker and music by former and now iconic Catch One DJs. Invited DJs include the incredible Bobby Martin, Sexy Claudette, Sidney Perry, and DJ Ben.

* Sunday, May 26th, continues the celebration with the Catch One 40th Anniversary Banquet & Awards Dinner hosted by the hilarious and talented actor/singer TC Carson of the hit TV show Living Single and a live performance by legendary actress, Jenifer Lewis. Invited guests include: Congressperson Maxine Waters, 9th District Councilmember Jan Perry, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Congressperson Karen Bass.

* Monday, May 27th, the Catch One Happy Hour will round out the festivities with live music and a traditional Catch One Lip Sync Contest and Dance Party, hosted by the legendary Al Von.

The Catch One 40th Anniversary celebration will be held at both the Catch One Disco and the LAX Hilton where Thais- Williams has reserved a block of rooms for $95 a night. For information about tickets and other details, please visit: www.catchone.org or call (424) 24 Catch (424-242-2824).

Accusations of Intimidation and Voter Fraud Mar 13th C.D. Race

Karen Ocamb — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Heading into the final stretch of the L.A. Elections on May 21, a new poll by the Pat Brown Institute shows City Controller Wendy Greuel and Councilmember Eric Garcetti in a virtual tie, with Greuel leading by one point. The poll reflects a dramatic drop from a USC/LA Timespoll one month ago showing Garcetti with a 10-point lead. But no snapshot of voters’ preferences can take into account the unforeseen consequences to Garcetti’s campaign as the nasty battle over who will replace him in the 13th Council District threatens to rob him of votes he might have assumed were locked up.

On May 1, Stephen J. Kaufman, attorney for 13th C.D. candidate John Choi, filed an official complaint with the Public Integrity Division of the L.A. County District Attorney’s office alleging “illegal electioneering and vote tampering by Mitch O’Farrell campaign workers.”

The complaint says the Choi campaign “has received disturbing reports from permanent vote-by-mail voters that campaign workers associated with Mr. Choi’s opponent, Mitch O’Farrell, have come to their homes to manipulate them into voting for Mr. O’Farrell, physically complete their VBM (Vote-by-Mail) ballots and collect them for return to the City Clerk. The details of these incidents show a concerted effort to defraud these voters and tamper with the vote-by-mail process, in direct violation of the penal provisions of the California Elections Code and the Election Code of the City of Los Angeles.”

The complaint alleges that O’Farrell campaign workers “fraudulently misrepresented the candidates on the ballot. These voters, who are of Armenian descent, were in many cases told they should vote for Sam Kbushyan, a candidate of Armenian descent who ran but lost during the primary election and has since endorsed Mr. O’Farrell. Mr. Kbushyan is not actually on the general election ballot, but voters were nonetheless fraudulently “shown” by O’Farrell campaign workers how to mark the spot on their VBM ballots to vote for him.

“In numerous cases, voters reported that O’Farrell campaign workers physically took possession of the VBM ballots, filled them out and then left with those ballots in hand. In other cases, voters were told to deliver their completed ballots to O’Farrell campaign workers.

“In one particularly brazen occurrence, the campaign was told that O’Farrell campaign workers went to an Armenian senior home, told the elderly residents that they should vote for Sam Kbushyan and then proceeded to fill out each of the seniors’ vote-by-mail ballots individually. ... These actions threaten to sabotage the democratic process and may very well affect the outcome of this election.”

The complaint provides names, addresses and a transcript of an interview with one of the voters who alleges this happened to him. The campaign has since supplied the District Attorney’s office with a long list of additional names, with one Choi campaign staffer telling Frontiers, “In one day we encountered 110 people on one street that had their ballots taken.”

If the allegations are true and the VBM ballots were filled out with the intention of only yielding O’Farrell votes in the Armenian community—where there are 3,000 registered voters—it is likely that no other names were marked on the ballot, even though voters might have wished to vote for their current Councilmember Eric Garcetti for mayor.

“I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I’ve never seen such widespread and brazen vote fraud as we have here,” Kaufman told Frontiers. “We expect the D.A. to fully investigate this and get to the bottom of it sooner rather than later. And we expect city election officials to take appropriate action to make sure no fraudulent votes are counted in this election. The bottom line here is there are ways to see what’s going on and verify how people intend to vote. We still have time to go through the names and ample opportunity to get it right.”

Jane Robison, a spokesperson for the D.A.’s office, told Frontiers, “We are reviewing allegations.” Robison would answer no further questions.

On May 9, the LA Times reported that the O'Farrell campaign refuted the allegations, saying Choi’s campaign was actually to blame. “These are Choi people who are doing this,” O’Farrell spokesperson Renee Nahum told The Times. She said the O’Farrell campaign intends to file a complaint of its own with testimony from voters “who said they gave their ballots to Choi campaign workers who falsely claimed that they were representing Kbushyan.”

The Times followed up. “Interviews with several voters listed in the Choi complaint suggest improper activity occurred, although it was unclear who was responsible. Eighty-two-year-old Raffik Hambardzumyan told The Times that an Armenian-speaking woman came to his house and helped him and his wife fill out their vote-by-mail ballots about a week ago. Hambardzumyan, who doesn't speak English, said the woman told them they were voting for Kbushyan,” The Times reported.

“Galust Khachatryan, 65, said he was recently visited by the same young man and woman, who stopped by his home on behalf of Kbushyan in the primary campaign,” The Times reported. “Khachatryan said they didn't help him vote but did take his ballot. Election law prohibits campaign workers from returning voters' ballots. Khachatryan said he couldn't remember the name of the person he voted for, but said it was ‘for the candidate Kbushyan supported’ and whom he had seen on television with Kbushyan. O'Farrell has appeared on a TV show hosted by Kbushyan that airs on an Armenian-language station.”

The allegations of voter fraud and illegal electioneering are just the latest in a string of exchanges between the Choi and O’Farrell campaigns, including allegations from both sides that campaign workers have told Armenian voters not to vote for a candidate because he is gay.

“I don’t think [Choi]’s homophobic, and I have not ever said that,” O’Farrell told Frontiers after a debate in Silver Lake. “But there are allegations that in the Armenian community—we’ve received letters—that the Choi campaign has indicated that I’m a gay man in Little Armenia. And that’s a cultural flashpoint in some neighborhoods. So that I’ve heard, but I’ve not complained about that.

“We’ve received letters from voters who are upset because they feel some of Choi’s campaign has used that in a way that is divisive and has turned people against me,” O’Farrell continued. “Look, ugly things get said. He has no direct way of necessarily connecting what might have been said—he wasn’t there. So I’m not making a big deal out of it.”

O’Farrell’s campaign provided two letters. One was from April 24 from Mnatsakan Vardesyan, who lives on Carlton Way. The translated note says, “On April 23, around 7 p.m., they called me regarding the elections. I do not remember the name, but he was a young Eastern Armenian and offered me to vote for John Choi and told me not to vote for Mitch O’Farrell, because he is a ‘homosexualist.’”

The other translated note from April 28 reads, “I, Tamara Azatyan, residing at [Heliotrope Dr.] am one of the voters of District 13 in Los Angeles. On April 27 around 4-5 p.m., an Armenian-speaking young person came to our home and presented himself as a John Choi election campaign staff member and started to convince me that I give my vote to #99 John Choi, since I voted for Mitch O’Farrell, who is homosexual.”

(You'll find the O’Farrell letters and the Choi complaint below.)

Choi is still unforgiving about the fliers put on the chairs at the Stonewall Democratic Club endorsement meeting (which O’Farrell won by one vote) identifying a pro-Prop. 8 Korean-American pastor and two others who donated to Choi’s campaign. As soon as Choi and his gay campaign manager Shaun Daniels found out about it, they donated the money to the LGBT youth group GLSEN. The check for $2,100 cleared on May 2.

As to the allegations that his campaign has tried to turn voters away from O’Farrell because he’s gay, Choi said, “I’ve been very clear on this issue. I’ve told my staff and I’ve said it publicly—if anyone in this campaign has been found to be spouting this kind of hate, they’ll be instantly gone—they’ll be gone that day. They will no longer be affiliated with this campaign. Meanwhile, my opponent continues to dismiss what was the brandishing of a gun, saying ‘It didn’t happen; there’s no police report’ and now, ‘It’s not our issue; it wasn’t affiliated with our campaign.’ I’ll say again—if anyone in my campaign is caught doing that, they’ll be gone—and I haven’t heard the same type of response and responsibility from Mitch.”

What about the letters? Frontiers asked. “I have not seen them,” Choi said. “It’s obviously concerning, but at the same time, I’ve been very clear with my staff that every single one of my staff reports to my campaign manager, and they’ve said to me they’re not participating in that type of language and that type of behavior. Meanwhile, we have dozens and dozens and dozens of people saying someone came and picked their ballot up and someone filled out the ballot for them, and it’s that type of voter fraud that’s happening every day in this race, and I think it’s a real shame to try to turn that around on me. In fact, I’ve been told that I’m gay by several folks in the community. So this type of divisive language is happening on and on. It’s really unfortunate that it’s gotten to this, and I think Mitch needs to take responsibility.”

Inexplicably, little attention is being paid to the allegation of a man allegedly brandishing a pistol to apparently intimidate young Choi campaign workers.

Hrag Kitsinian, 24, the deputy field director for the Choi campaign who has worked on other political campaigns—including Luis Lopez’s recent race for the Assembly—feels that what happened to him and his 16 and 17-year-old canvassers is an issue of public safety. Kitsinian told Frontiers that on April 22 he was supervising a team of canvassers when one called him to say he was being harassed by older O’Farrell supporters while door-knocking near 1632 N. Normandie. They apparently asked the Choi workers how much they were being paid, offered them cigarettes and asked why they were working for Choi because “he hates Armenians and only likes Mexicans and Koreans.” They allegedly also said, “Don’t canvass these neighborhoods. They belong to Mitch O’Farrell.”

Kitsinian said that one of the older men was former 13th C.D. candidate Sam Kbushyan’s father, who tried to intimidate Kitsinian as well—“What kind of Armenian are you? You’re going against the Armenian candidate?”—and handed him a piece of literature with a photo of Kbushyan and O’Farrell. Kitsinian asked in return, “Where do you see the Armenian candidate running for the 13th district?”

Kitsinian said the harassment continued, with Kbushyan’s father allegedly saying in Armenian, “Don’t canvass this neighborhood. These are our seniors and our voters”—meaning the voters Kbushyan had registered in the primary. Kitsinian then said he felt Kbushyan’s father threatened him. “He said, ‘Canvassing is very dangerous. If [I] slip and fall, it wouldn’t be anyone else’s fault but my own. At this point, I felt very threatened.”

Then, Kitsinian said, one of the people whose door the young canvassers knocked on came out and told the older men to “leave these boys alone. Shame on you.” Then, out of nowhere, another man with tattoos approached Kitsinian, got in his face and said, “Do we have a problem here?” Kitsinian said he tried to avoid a confrontation but the man “turned his back to the Mitch O’Farrell canvassers, pulled out a gun and chambered a bullet, cocked it back and he looked at me.”

At that point, he felt he should get the young canvassers out of the area. “It was a public safety issue.” Kitsinian said he called 911, subsequently filed a report with Detective Joe Rios at the Northeast Division of LAPD and identified the man from a six-pack of photos.

Rios confirmed that he took “a signed crime report from the victim, who was out soliciting votes for the John Choi campaign.” Rios noted the gun was never pointed at anybody, and that while Kitsinian might have thought the man was part of an Armenian gang because of his tattoos, there is no documentation in the LAPD files indicating the suspect is part of a gang, nor does he have much of a rap sheet. Rios said he went to look for the suspect but couldn’t find him and subsequently turned the crime report over to the city attorney to determine if it should be filed and followed up.

For the most part, these fights have been behind the scenes, not evident during the public debates, though the “insider vs. outsider” theme has raised hackles. O’Farrell has lived in the district for 31 years and knows the neighborhoods, while Choi has only lived in Echo Park officially for one year, though he lived within one mile of 13th C.D. in Koreatown and Downtown for years. That led to a heated exchange during a debate inside the Karapetian Hall at St. Garabed Armenian Church on May 8.

“My opponent has continued to attack me from day one, using language like ‘new arrival,' ‘outsider’ and ‘not one of us,’” Choi exclaimed, barely able to contain his frustration. “That type of language has been used for decades to raise xenophobic fears of outsiders and immigrants.”

Choi cited a Communist-suggestive red campaign mailer with a grainy picture of him under the words “not from our community.” O’Farrell said he didn’t like the mailer either. “I thought it was a terrible picture,” he said. “Any sort of hint of discrimination has no place in a campaign.” But, O’Farrell added, “The fact is my opponent is new to the district.”

O’Farrell and Choi also clashed over labor. O’Farrell said that while he had come from a union household, “you need to stand up to them as well at times. It's time for leadership to put what is now some out-of-control power in check,” though he said he was not talking about the janitors but the “union bosses.”

Choi found it “hard to swallow” that O’Farrell came from a union household but was nonetheless “demonizing” unions, which, he said, are “nothing more than average people fighting for a decent lifestyle.” Choi said, “It sounds like you’re taking talking points from Scott Walker,” referring to the Republican Wisconsin governor who successfully curtailed the power of unions in his state. Choi said he thinks his experience and union support enables him to be a better negotiator. “I’m going to be able to sit across the table and be an honest broker.”

Interestingly, not once during the 90-minute debate in Hollywood was the word “gay” ever mentioned. Indeed, O’Farrell said that, if elected, he’d emulate his friend and mentor City Councilmember Tom LaBonge rather than his lesbian predecessor Jackie Goldberg or his former boss, Eric Garcetti. To be sure, however, whoever wins will have an agenda full of community fence-mending.

Read the Complaint filed with the DA's office by John Choi's campaign - "Illegal Electioneering and Vote Tampering by Mitch O'Farrell Campaign Workers" - here.

HERE ARE THE TWO LETTERS SUPPLIED TO FRONTIERS BY THE MITCH O'FARRELL CAMPAIGN: