Katz Should Accept Apology

There is no doubt that a campaign mailer sent by Richard Alarcon supporters in the last days of his tight primary race for the state Senate against Richard Katz in the San Fernando Valley was irresponsibly wrong. Without a shred of evidence, the material tied Democrat Katz to various anti-Latino acts, including apparent intimidation at the polls in a 1988 Orange County election. There is also no doubt that Alarcon’s apology for the mailer, which had been paid for with funds controlled by powerful state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), was belated.

But that said, Katz knows better than most that politics is not square dancing and that much worse has been done in the name of seeking victory. Katz’s refusal to accept Alarcon’s apology is worsening the tension between Latino and Jewish residents in the Valley, and hard feelings are spreading to Sacramento. This week Katz declined the offer of Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) to use party funds for a recount in the race--which Alarcon won by a spare 31 votes--if the two candidates would let bygones be bygones. Of course it’s easier for the victorious Alarcon to extend a hand, but Katz should suck it up and do the same. To continue this spat risks a new round of unnecessary, damaging ethnic political division in Los Angeles.

Like so many political enemies, Katz and Alarcon have a lot in common--both are progressive Democrats who have long courted minority votes. Recent history offers an example of a similar situation: the 1992 U.S. Senate primary race between Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Gray Davis, whose platforms were quite similar. Davis wound up the campaign by running a TV ad that compared Feinstein to the rich tax evader Leona Helmsley, who was in jail at the time. The Feinstein campaign was not much more civil, and it took the two of them years to make up. For the good of all, Katz and Alarcon cannot afford to do that. Their conflict, which at this point is being prolonged by Katz, has dangerous implications for future elections in this most ethnically diverse state.

Most of the Alarcon-Katz campaign was straightforward and issue-oriented, a fair fight between two political talents. All the more reason to regret the ugly, continuing ethnic fallout that resulted from its last days. Alarcon’s apology for the mailer is about as good as they come in politics. Katz should accept that and move on.