[img]1048|left|Jim Clarke||no_popup[/img]Fifth in a series
Re “For Good and Ill, Los Angeles Is No. 1”
More than most people in Los Angeles, Jim Clarke sat up straight on the night of the mid-term elections last month when Republicans swept to majority status in the House of Representatives. As Mayor Villaraigosa’s Man Who Knows Washington Best, Mr. Clarke, the Director of Federal Relations, is responsible for currying favor with Washington and winning major dollars for the second largest city in the country. Negotiating with the Other Party complicates his strategizing. How will his job change?
“One of the selling points we would make to Democrats,” said Mr. Clarke of Culver City, “is, ‘We are an urban area. This is where the unemployment is. This is where the foreclosures are. We are No. 1. We don’t have the highest per capita foreclosure rate. But in raw numbers, we are No.1, about 28,000 foreclosures out of a base of 1.4 million housing units.’
“We can appeal to Democrats on those kinds of subjects, putting people to work, people losing their homes.
“With Republicans coming into power, we have to change up that strategy. We talk about small business investment, about other types of economic engines, development kinds of things. We need to shift the argument.”
The Power of Research
There also is the matter of getting acquainted with new people, Mr. Clarke said.
“You try to do a little research on members of Congress. When I was working for Diane Watson, she was very concerned about dental amalgams (silver fillings).
“About 50 percent of the material in fillings is mercury, and mercury is one of the most carcinogenic items around. She tried for years, from the state Senate on, to get labeling in dentist’s offices, and also to try and remove it. The problem was: It is the cheapest, easiest way to do fillings.
“When it comes to the federal government paying for indigent people to have fillings, they will get the fillings that have mercury.
“Diane had a great deal of success in the state Senate with this plan. And so she took the idea to Congress to see if the Food and Drug Administration would declare these fillings to be hazardous.
“Interestingly, a person she ended up working with on this was Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana, who was one of the house managers for the impeachment of President Clinton, a pretty conservative guy. He had a niece, I believe, who developed autism that he felt came about from mercury that was put in as a preservative to the vaccine.
“Here we were working with on this with one of the most conservative people, along with Diane Watson, who at that time was the most liberal member of Congress.
“So a lot of (getting along and legislatively effectively),” said Mr. Clarke, “is doing research and finding out if there is a way to reach someone on a particular issue. Is there something personal in one’s life that you can relate about to get that person interested in what you are doing?”
(To be continued)
