Voters in California’s 35th Senate District may have a hard time choosing between Democrats Michelle Chambers and Laura Richardson, who each present their fair share of drawbacks.
The race between them has been marked by bitter recriminations of the type that tend to sour residents on politics. The district, which includes areas of great wealth close to neighborhoods of deep poverty, needs a hardworking and savvy legislator with an ability to understand thorny urban problems and craft long-range solutions.
Between the two, The Times recommends Chambers as the candidate most likely to fit the need.
The district includes Inglewood and Watts and runs south to the harbor. The incumbent, Steve Bradford, is leaving after a 14-year career, first in the Assembly and then in the Senate.
Chambers served for two years on the Compton City Council before taking a job with Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta as a liaison with officials in four Southern California counties, including Los Angeles, dealing with hate crimes, homelessness, drug sales and other problems.
She wants to step up housing construction to shrink the population of people living on the streets. She has supported efforts to safely and constructively reintegrate people into the community after they leave prison or jail. She is wary of efforts to roll back necessary criminal justice reforms.
Her tenure with Bonta’s office no doubt offered valuable perspective beyond Compton. But choosing her would be easier had she stayed on the council through at least her first term to establish a longer record of accomplishment. Richardson puts it differently. She describes Chambers as having abandoned her post. That’s an unfair characterization.
It’s also ironic, given the fact that Richardson served an even briefer time in the state Assembly before leaving to take a seat in Congress. It’s certainly frustrating to voters to elect someone who then moves on before completing a term, and it’s fair game to consider that when deciding whether to vote again for the candidate. But Chambers and Richardson each continued to serve their constituents, although in other positions.
In Richardson’s case, though, her tenure in Congress was marked by controversy. There was a mess over her handling of residential properties she owned in Sacramento. Neighbors of one house complained that it was abandoned and a blight on the neighborhood, and that Richardson failed to respond to their pleas to fix things up. Sacramento officials declared the house a public nuisance. She failed to make timely payments on more than one house. The House Ethics Committee cleared her of wrongdoing, but its investigation and 87-page report focused attention on financial mismanagement in her personal affairs.
But in a separate investigation and ruling two years later, the committee found her guilty of seven ethics violations and fined her $10,000 for forcing her congressional staff to work on her 2010 reelection campaign.
Janice Hahn, who was also serving in Congress, later defeated Richardson when redistricting pitted the two against each other.
The ethics violation was more than a decade ago, and Richardson should be acknowledged for admitting and apologizing for the violation, and she should be permitted to move on, as should anyone who makes amends after being penalized for a mistake. But that doesn’t mean voters are required to disregard the mistake when deciding who they want to represent them in another office.
Of even greater concern may be Richardson’s approach to the issues with which she would be presented in the Senate. On housing, for example, she blames the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety for being too slow to grant permits. The agency may indeed be too slow, but it would not be under Richardson’s purview in the Senate, and it obviously is not responsible for inadequate housing construction in Inglewood, Compton, Carson or other cities in the district besides L.A.
She wants treatment facilities where sick and addicted people on the street can get help, but then, don’t we all? What’s missing is a workable plan to locate such facilities despite neighborhood opposition and a budget to build and operate them. A Senate candidate should provide some ideas about how to get there.
Chambers is not full of specifics either. But she appears to have a better grasp of the complicated nature of the problem. It’s fine to work with residents to get sick people off the street, for example, but Chambers understands that that must go hand-in-hand with getting the same residents to understand that those people will be back — unless they allow homeless and supportive housing in their communities.
Richardson’s camp has made several claims against Chambers, including that she is alleged to have used an ethnic slur against the child of a colleague in a closed council session.
To be honest, residents of the 35th Senate District deserve a candidate who is better suited for the job than either Chambers or Richardson. But Richardson finished first, and Chambers second, of eight candidates in the March primary. Richardson has a longer record in office, and it’s not a distinguished one. Chambers has shown a capacity to learn and to grow into a job. She’s the better choice.