David Zahniser

Veteran San Fernando Valley pol Richard Alarcón irritated quite a few people last year by jumping into the March 6 race for the Los Angeles City Council, just days after he won a seat in the California State Assembly. After all, special-interest groups across California had ponied up $415,000 for......

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is not a guy who takes no for an answer. He pushed hard for passage of a bill in Sacramento to strip the school board of most of its power. Then he convinced business leaders to give him money to defend that bill in court, where a......

Huizar bought the home on La Calandria for $157,000 in 1999, just before the region’s real estate market went through the roof. Yet finding the house in the city’s planning database is not easy. Type in the home’s address on ZIMAS, the city’s zoning mapping system, and no results show......

FROM THE MOMENT HE WADED into the issue of public schools, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s push for power at the Los Angeles Unified School District was packaged as a highly inspirational event. The mayor took questions at town-hall meetings, striding across various stages like a self-help guru at a motivational seminar......

THE POLITICAL CULTURE THAT GOVERNS ?Los Angeles is in many ways like a teenager clutching a remote control, zipping from channel to channel every few seconds and finding little capable of holding his or her attention. The city and its leaders race distractedly from issue to issue, unveiling upbeat proposals......

RULING? What court ruling? Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa started the new year by putting plenty of miles between himself and the politically disastrous court decision handed down last month by Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs, who shit-canned his bid for power over the Los Angeles Unified School District as a violation......

MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA had reason to worry from the moment his legal team stepped into a courtroom to defend its plan for L.A.’s public schools. For one thing, the judge reviewing the legality of Villaraigosa’s mayoral takeover law had an uncanny rapport with L.A. Unified’s legal team. “You’re awfully good......

How does that phrase from the playground go again? Quitters never win, and winners never quit, right? It’s a good concept to keep in mind when following Los Angeles politics these days, since so many candidates are dropping out of so many political races — and almost always in a......

LOS ANGELES CITY COUNCILMAN Jose Huizar made a major name for himself at City Hall this year, in large part by joining Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s push to take over L.A.’s public schools. Standing at the mayor’s side, the affable Princeton graduate told anyone who would listen that L.A. Unified is......