This is the dessert that Mark Ridley-Thomas has been priming for ever since he decided to make community politics his life almost 30 years ago.
The quintessential hometown politician, the essence of populism who knows voters by name and by trait. He gets things done, and voters remember. State Sen. Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City) believes in retail.
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Sen. Ridley-Thomas wades into the community.
He knows how, where and why everything works. Each time he runs, the voters of a broad cross-section of Los Angeles city and/or County reward him.
It only took him a few months into his first office, on the Los Angeles City Council in the early ‘90s, to create his showcase legacy, the neighborhood-boosting Empowerment Congress, a smartly devised two-way vehicle that has enthusiastically fueled his long public run.
Winning one of the prized but rarely available chairs on the County Board of Supervisors in Tuesday’s election will crown the state Senator’s grand career, capping a steadily progressive climb from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to the City Council, to the state Assembly, to the state Senate and then to the Board of Sups.
He treasures the autonomy, the unusual and much-envied independence, that Supervisors enjoy even though they belong to a five-person team. Politically, the stretch and the depth of their freedom probably is unrivaled.
Separated by a Generation
An unapologetic progressive, it almost sounds excessive to tab Sen. Ridley-Thomas a member of a new generation, but closer examination supports the claim. The retiring Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, whom he hopes to succeed, broke numerous barriers for black — and women — politicians. He is her junior by a full generation. She enrolled at Berkeley five years before the Senator even was born.
The 2nd Supervisorial District spans Westwood to South L.A., and virtually every darned neighborhood in between, which covers about every face, taste, language and culture available in the metropolitan area.
An intellectual by training and by practice, he is the master teacher, and you may call him The Professor. Make no mistake, his rival, Bernard Parks, is no slouch. But it is a cinch Sen. Ridley-Thomas is the only player in this perspiringly conducted campaign who casually inserts the term “praxis” into random conversations.
If he defeats Mr. Parks, and Sen. Ridley-Thomas is favored as he has been from the start of the campaign a year ago this week, he figures to be positioned to remain in power for as many four-year terms as he desires. Supervisor Mike Antonovich, the most conservative member of the board, has, for example, logged 28 years, seven terms. The late Kenny Hahn seemed to have served for two centuries, having been sponsored by Father Junipero Serra.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is somewhat analogous to the Supreme Court — the selectees come to stay until they decide to do something else, namely retire to a more pastoral life.
The Days of Yore Are Still to Come
Turning 54 years old two days after the election, Sen. Ridley-Thomas is in his prime. These are the salad days. And he will regale his grandchildren-to-be with tales of these adventurous times after his college-age twin sons, Sebastian and Sinclair, marry — as long, of course, as he repeats his impressive, clear-cut 5-point triumph over former LAPD Chief Parks in the June 3 primary election.
Sen. Ridley-Thomas is engaged in a tough, teeth-grinding campaign for the first time since leaving Dr. King’s SCLC and running for the City Council in 1991. That was the year the undefeated Senator launched his streak of seven consecutive winning campaigns.
When the iconic four-term Supervisor Ms. Brathwaite Burke last year declared her intention to retire, at the age of 75, the ambitious, tightly focused Senator’s course, his destination, was obvious, 500 W. Temple St. The Board of Sups’ chair offers Sen. Ridley-Thomas what he covets most at this stage of his career, pure autonomy, an orbit of authority that makes many politicians drool, an opportunity to burnish the varied forms of politics he has been learning and studying throughout his adult life.
Even though the Senator has won every election, he has encountered roadblocks, or as he puts it, “a little cabal” of opponents that notably includes two of the city’s longest serving politicians, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters and Ms. Brathwaite Burke, plus the celebrated basketball player Magic Johnson. They lined up against Sen. Ridley-Thomas in ’91 when he was bidding for the City Council, and they returned in ’02 when he ran for the state Assembly for the first time.
How Are They Different?
Deducing what separates Ms. Waters’ side from his own baffles even the Senator. Philosophically, they are not so different, ranging from moderate Democrats to liberal. “It’s irrational in some respects, especially in regard to Maxine Waters,” he said. “Everyone knows that with her, it’s either her way or the highway. I don’t do business like that. I respect others and their opinions. I believe in mutual respect as well as mutual accountability. Maxine neither understands nor appreciates that. She is not built in a collegial manner; therefore the conflicts with the late (Long Beach Congressperson) Juanita Millender McDonald; the conflicts with (South Bay Congressperson) Jane Harman; the conflicts on and on. Even the disrespect she showed to the late, great Mayor Tom Bradley. All of his is wrong.
“I built my career on the politics of empowerment,” he said. “Maxine & Co. have built their careers, her career, in particular, on the politics of intimidation.”
Mr. Parks, with whom he has exchanged strongly worded charges, is aligned with these partisans who have so acerbically opposed the senator.
Expounding with the deep, measured, microscopically exquisite locution that is a distinguishing trademark, Sen. Ridley-Thomas said he is entirely different and separate from them and from their attitudes.
“I happen to be of another generation,” he said, “of those who wish to provide quality leadership to the people I represent. I will not allow anyone to get in the way of that. The reason they have been unsuccessful in preventing me from winning is because my base is broad and it is deep. I have worked very hard. A new generation is on the horizon.
“My sphere of influence continues to expand. My record and history are different. After all, I have been a school teacher. I have headed a civil rights organization. I have served in local government and state government. I have advanced training.”
Pausing, the eclectic Sen. Ridley-Thomas dipped his quill into an inkwell of irony. “You may appreciate this,” he said. “The buzzword of this time happens to be ‘change.’ In the language in which I have been trained, it would be the ‘ethos of the moment is change.’”
Ready from Day One,He Says
The Senator’s point: If you elect him, you will be gaining a supervisor who is intellectually rigorous, communally sensitive, and, some would say, best of all, well ahead of the curve.
“In 1980,” he said, “I completed my career in teaching high school at Immaculate Heart High, and I chaired the Religious Studies Dept. there. I had just finished my graduate education in Religious Studies, with an emphasis on ethics. Then I went to the University of Southern California and enrolled in a social ethics program, with a subset in moral philosophy. The specific area in which I concentrated was Social Criticism. This is almost 30 years ago. The current discussion about change is something about which I have been reflecting for almost three decades.
“Now I happened to be relatively young (26) when I began this reflection, but it is both reflection and action, the word being praxis. To the extent I understand it, these concepts, these notions, informed the way in which I do work.
“I am trying to build empowerment in communities. And all communities are not the same. After all, I represent a very diverse group of people, from, frankly, the heart of South Los Angeles over to Westwood, and many of the communities in between, mid-Wilshire, Koreatown, Hancock Park, all the way through Beverly Hills, Century City, Leimert Park, Baldwin Hills, Ladera, Green Meadows, Vermont Knolls.”
It is Sen. Ridley-Thomas’s contention that the geographical patchwork and the diversity of his district is reflected back onto him with the unusually broad portfolio he will bring to his next stop, perhaps 500 W. Temple St., the heart of community power in Los Angeles.
