David Zahniser

ROUND 1 IN THE FIGHT over mayoral control of the Los Angeles Unified School District wasn’t much of a contest. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has talked for nearly a year about taking over the school district, saw his candidate, Mónica García, roar into first place — less than three points......

NOTHING QUITE GRABS THE ATTENTION of a prosecutor like a politician carrying a package full of cash. And in the criminal investigation of former Los Angeles City Councilman Martin Ludlow — now the ex-head of the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor — Ludlow’s delivery of $1,300 quickly became......

SCHOOL BOARD CANDIDATE CHRISTOPHER ARELLANO tested the loyalty of the city’s powerful teachers union this week like few candidates ever have. First, he failed to apprise the union — which poured nearly $250,000 into his campaign — of a shoplifting conviction in Echo Park in 1992 and a grand theft......

THE FAREWELL ORATORY of Martin Ludlow, the former Los Angeles City Councilman who reached the peak of the county’s labor union hierarchy only to be toppled by an ethics investigation, was in many ways a public relations triumph. Ludlow — dogged by a multi-agency probe of his 2003 council campaign......

THE STATE’S TWO MOST POWERFUL teachers unions turned up the volume in the final days before the March 7 school board election, pouring more than $286,000 into the campaign of Christopher Arellano, one of four candidates seeking to replace Jose Huizar on the seven-member board. Arellano — a foe of......

Endorsement THE LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT in many ways resembles a sinking ship. Yes, there have been hard-fought increases in test scores at the lower grade levels. And, yes, the district is building schools, lots of schools. But the $19 billion construction campaign has distracted the district from its......

IT’S FITTING THAT THE MARCH 7 election for an open school-board seat is in the neighborhoods surrounding Belmont Learning Complex, a cavernous, half-built high school that sits next to downtown Los Angeles. After all, the school board shuttered ill-fated Belmont — now a ghost campus of textured cinder block and......