Pitzer in the News 2005-2006 Academic Year

Pitzer Alumnus in Sacramento Bee

July 30, 2006 Sunday

Campaign 2006: Latino politics more diverse: As their numbers grow in Capitol, varied viewpoints are emerging
Aurelio Rojas, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Jul. 30--LOS ANGELES -- Children of Mexican immigrants, Alex Padilla and Kevin de Leon share similar backgrounds -- and vastly different political pedigrees.

Both grew up in poor barrios, which in an era of Latino population growth and term limits have become breeding grounds for the Legislature.

After winning tough primaries in June, the two Los Angeles Democrats face nominal Republican opposition in November -- Padilla for the Senate and de Leon for the Assembly.

Both men have strong connections in the 27-member Democratic Latino Caucus. Both bear watching in future leadership contests.

Three of the last five Assembly speakers have been Latinos, and a Latina, Martha Escutia, nearly won the last election for Senate president pro tem.

As their numbers have multiplied in the Capitol, Latinos, like other ethnic groups that gained political power after having little, have become less monolithic.

Padilla, 33, and de Leon, 38, are prime examples. While both of their mothers cleaned homes for a living, the sons embarked on different paths to the Legislature -- Padilla as a business-friendly centrist and de Leon as an immigrant rights activist and union organizer.

Padilla, who holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, worked within the political establishment from the start.

"He was a Latino 'Good Will Hunting,' " said Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, referring to the movie in which Matt Damon plays a prodigy from a working-class neighborhood who is discovered while working as a janitor at MIT.

Padilla was running political campaigns at age 23, including Cedillo's first race. He was an aide to Assemblyman Tony Cardenas and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1999. Two years later, at age 28, his colleagues made him council president.

At the same age, de Leon was organizing immigrant workers, making minimum wage and sleeping on an office floor in Santa Barbara.

Padilla, a protege of former Republican Mayor Richard Riordan of Los Angeles, represents the same working-class San Fernando Valley district where he grew up.

"I have a fundamental belief that government can help people," said Padilla, whose father is a short-order cook. "It's a wonderful position to wake up in the morning, talk to constituents and be in a position to make their lives better."

In 2003, he was included in the list of "100 New Democrats to Watch," by a publication of the Democratic Leadership Council.

The DLC, which helped propel former President Clinton onto the national stage, argues the party needs to shift away from traditionally populist positions to the center to remain viable.

De Leon, who graduated from Pitzer College with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, took on the political establishment from the start.

Like Nunez, de Leon cut his teeth working for One-Stop Immigration, teaching English, U.S. history and citizenship classes to former illegal immigrants under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

De Leon and Nunez were among the chief organizers of the first large public demonstration in support of illegal immigrants, a march through the streets of Los Angeles that drew more than 70,000 people in 1994.

"We never thought that electoral politics was the panacea for all our ills," said de Leon, who changed his mind after realizing his work was being undermined by members of the Legislature.

As a former organizer for the National Education Association who now works for California Teachers Association, de Leon is the latest union organizer to run for the Legislature.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a one-time speaker of the Assembly, charted the same path when he arrived in the Capitol in 1994.

As recently as 1993, there were only seven Latinos in the 120-member Legislature. Today, thanks to the increasing clout of labor, there are more than four times that many, including two Republicans.

Latino lawmakers don't agree on all issues. Those from rural areas, for example, are generally more moderate than those from urban areas.

"You have your moderate Dems, you have progressive Dems, you have some Latinos who don't know who the hell they are -- they're just happy to be an elected official," said de Leon, who as a CTA official is a familiar figure in the Capitol.

Even in Los Angeles, the birthplace of the Chicano power movement, Latinos rarely march in lockstep.

Through the early 1990s, two main factions ruled: one led by former Assemblyman Richard Alatorre, the founding chairman of the Latino caucus, the other by former Assemblywoman Gloria Molina, the first Latina elected to the Legislature.

Today, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which endorsed de Leon and Padilla's Senate challenger, Assemblywoman Cindy Montanez, wields the most power.

But because most Los Angeles Democrats are pro-labor, alliances are based more on personal relationships than the rivalry that drove Alatorre and Molina factions.

Villaraigosa and Nunez have long relationships with the labor federation; both endorsed de Leon and Montanez.

"I don't think (factions) exist like they did once upon a time," said Padilla, who was endorsed by federation when he ran for City Council. "I've always prided myself in being able to work with lots of different people."

In the Senate, Padilla would replace one of his mentors, Richard Alarcon, D-Sylmar, who is leaving because of term limits. As the federation's political director, Nunez learned firsthand that Padilla will not be typecast.

"He got to the council and on his first vote, he showed his independence," Nunez said. "He abstained on a living-wage vote that was important to us."

Nonetheless, Nunez said, he likes and respects Padilla.

"He's formidable," Nunez said. "He runs for the Senate, against the labor federation, against the mayor, against the speaker, and he beats us."

Nunez's longtime relationship with de Leon, whom he calls "my boy," transcends politics. The two met in the ninth grade in the San Diego barrio of Logan Heights and have been best friends since and de Leon managed Nunez's first Assembly campaign.

Nunez and de Leon learned of the cleavage between rich and poor by accompanying their mothers to work in the tony seaside community of La Jolla.

"There my mother would spend the majority of her days cleaning other people's homes," recalled de Leon, whose mother died at 54 never having made more than $6.75 an hour.

The mansions she cleaned bore little resemblance to the home with an outhouse where he lived, fatherless, with his mother, his aunt, grandmother and two half-sisters.

Determined to improve the lives of other poor immigrants, de Leon dabbled with radical politics before learning protest has its limits.

To win the Democratic nomination for the Assembly seat being vacated by Jackie Goldberg, de Leon beat Christine Chavez, granddaughter of the late Cesar Chavez, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, and a candidate endorsed by Goldberg.

The seat has a rich Latino legacy: Before Villaraigosa, it was represented by Richard Polanco, who as chairman of the Latino Caucus tripled its membership.

Polanco and Villaraigosa were Chicano activists before they learned they could achieve more in the Capitol -- a lesson that resonates with de Leon.

"As a legislator, you have to deal with issues that don't exclusively deal with the issues you care deeply about," he said. "But that doesn't mean you stop caring about them."

They each won primary contests for the Legislature.

Copyright 2006 Sacramento Bee
Sacramento Bee (California)

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