Kuehl, Solis: In labor's pocket?

There was something admirably contrarian about the way Sheila Kuehl successfully campaigned for Los Angeles County supervisor against her more dynamic, sometimes explosive opponent Bobby Shriver.

Shriver was eager to overwhelm audiences, opponents and reporters with his points, delivered in a bang-bang manner. During an interview, he was so eager to convince me of his accomplishments that he pointed a finger at my nose, stopping just short of touching it. “That’s raising ‘in your face to a new level,’” commented a colleague.

Kuehl also wanted to sell herself to journalists and audiences. But her real interest was digging into complex issues—foster children, mental illness and others. I could imagine her saying, “the hell with sound bites and entertaining audiences. Let them eat statistics.”

In the end, their styles and personalities--on display at candidate forums, debates and editorial boards--weren’t the most important factor in the campaign. As Maloy Moore reported in the Los Angeles Times Friday, smart, end-of-the-campaign spending was what mattered. Overall, Shriver outraised Kuehl $4,888,760 to $4,717,904. But as a fascinating graphic accompanying Moore’s story showed, a rush of contributions from union-affiliated donors brought Kuehl almost even with Shriver and financed a final days wave of mailers, television and other advertising.

Now the big question is this: Did all that money put her in the county employee unions’ pockets? The same goes for the other new supervisor, Hilda Solis, the only Latino on the board. Solis has been invisible during the campaign. Anointed by the local labor chiefs to be the successor to outgoing Supervisor Gloria Molina, she cruised to victory in the primary and hasn’t been heard from since. Before that, she was in Washington in the low- profile cabinet post of labor secretary. Solis, a former state legislator, has offered no idea of what she’ll do in county government. What kind of leadership, for example, will she provide in increasing Latino representation on the board, such as enlarging it?

As is always the case with the secretive county government, finding out what the new board is doing will be a challenging job for the only watchdogs around, the news media. It’s a great challenge to the Los Angeles Times, with its revived California section, to lead the way.