Inglewood Voters to Settle 2-Year Election Dispute

Culminating a two-year battle in the courtrooms and on the streets, Inglewood voters go to the polls today for a court-ordered special election that will decide whether an activist policeman or one of the mayor’s allies will take a seat on the City Council.

What began in 1987 as a routine race between candidates Garland Hardeman and Ervin (Tony) Thomas has grown into a lingering dispute that could help determine the balance of power in this ethnically diverse city of 104,000 residents.

In October, 1987, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge overturned Thomas’ apparent June runoff victory and ordered a new election after Hardeman alleged illegal conduct involving absentee ballots. Thomas left the 4th District seat this summer after serving almost half the four-year council term during the appeal process.

Judge Leon Savitch’s decision was the first election annulment in Inglewood history. Although records are not complete, election officials say it may have been the first in Los Angeles County in three decades.

One of the key players in the controversy is not on the ballot. Mayor Edward Vincent--the first black mayor in this city, which is 55% black and 30% Latino--is Thomas’ political sponsor.

Vincent, 55, is a burly, gregarious former college football star who for seven years has dominated Inglewood’s small-town politics. He gets credit even from rivals for his role in the city’s progress. But Vincent’s involvement in the Hardeman-Thomas battle has damaged him politically and the outcome will represent a test of his power.

Judge Savitch ruled in the 1987 election trial that Vincent and other Thomas campaign workers intimidated voters and invaded their right to ballot secrecy during a house-to-house absentee ballot drive.

Vincent, who plans to run for a third term next year, says the judge erred. What happened on the days leading up to the election was aggressive, not illegal, campaigning, he said.

“The essence of a politician at this local level is to knock on doors, be helpful, let people know who I am,” Vincent said in a recent interview. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Hardeman, 32, a potential mayoral candidate in 1990, is a Los Angeles police officer who has a master’s degree in public administration. His allies say he represents a new breed of sophisticated young politicians. His critics call him a renegade and a radical.

The mayor threatened to have Hardeman arrested after a confrontation with Vincent at a City Council meeting; Hardeman has taken heat for supporting Don Jackson, the former Hawthorne police sergeant who carried out a “sting” against Long Beach police to expose alleged racism; and he opposed a ballot measure for Inglewood voters to tax themselves to pay for 20 new police officers, which passed with an overwhelming 78% of the vote.

Hardeman said: “I think some people’s perceptions of me have changed unfavorably. But more people’s perceptions have changed favorably. . . . I’m addressing issues no one else has had the courage to address.”

Thomas, 47, a tall, taciturn merchandise analyst for the 7-Up Bottling Corp., has tried to shed the image of the man in the middle of a larger Hardeman-Vincent feud. Although he concedes that Vincent dominated the last campaign, Thomas says he is not a puppet of the mayor.

“This time I have experience and I know what I have to do,” Thomas said recently. “I’m not using this job as a steppingstone. I’m doing it because I enjoy doing it. I’m not in it for the money. I don’t want to be mayor.”

Thomas says the voters prefer his low-key style to what he calls Hardeman’s divisiveness. He takes credit for physical improvements in a district that has tough urban problems, and for supporting the police tax along with other council members. He says voters are more concerned with drug dealers and gang members in their neighborhoods than with Hardeman’s legal maneuvers.

While Thomas has tried to downplay his defeat in the courtroom, Hardeman has used it to his advantage. His campaign literature centers on it. When the candidates met in their first debate earlier this month, Hardeman waved a thick copy of the Superior Court ruling in the air.

Hardeman also won an injunction that banned Thomas from portraying himself as an incumbent, and this forced Thomas to send a campaign brochure back to the printer.

Another dispute between Hardeman and Thomas has a racial element, though both candidates are black.

The city won the National Civic League’s All-America City Award this year for its fight against drugs and crime, although the violent crime rate remains three times the national average. Observers praise the combined leadership of a predominantly black five-member City Council and a predominantly white group of veteran administrators.

Hardeman has called for increasing the power and pay of the council and has said the city administration needs to be reorganized to better represent minorities.

Hardeman is considering a possible mayoral bid against Vincent next year. He says Vincent has been damaged by the election case and by a state attorney general’s suit alleging that he billed both the city and his campaign for the same travel expenses. Vincent recently settled the suit by paying about $5,000 in fines.

In April of 1987, after a council campaign dominated by the Vincent-Hardeman rivalry, Hardeman won 48% of the primary vote in the 4th Council District. During the June runoff against Thomas, a deluge of absentee ballots wiped out Hardeman’s 544-233 edge in votes at the polls. Thomas won with 626 votes to Hardeman’s 610.

Hardeman cried foul, and went door-to-door with a legal pad questioning voters to prove it. He filed a lawsuit contesting the election.

The five-day trial featured decisive voter testimony about Thomas campaign workers in action. One woman and her daughter testified that Mayor Vincent told them Thomas was the better candidate and punched their ballots for them in their home.

The mother, Nancy Armstrong, said of the mayor: “He took my rights away.”

In an interview, Vincent denied pressuring anyone to vote for Thomas.

Judge Savitch threw out 14 absentee ballots that bore no postmarks.

In all, he threw out a total of 31 illegal votes for Thomas and annulled the election. But instead of seating Hardeman on the council, the judge ordered voters to decide between the candidates again.

Lawyers for the city and Thomas say Savitch’s decision will produce a wave of frivolous lawsuits and unnecessary meddling in elections by the courts.

Attorneys for Hardeman call the ruling a step toward restoring the sanctity of the ballot, pointing out that the Legislature has subsequently tightened absentee voting laws and prohibited campaign workers from being present when voters cast absentee ballots.

“I think this case proves that the election contest system is truly the only system that protects against this kind of abuse,” said Hardeman attorney Mark Borenstein, lamenting the length of the appeal process.

In March of this year, a state Court of Appeal panel upheld the order of a new election and rejected Hardeman’s petition to be declared the winner. The state Supreme Court refused to hear a final appeal.

The case has been an obsession for Hardeman, Thomas, Vincent and other insiders, but in the rematch, both campaigns may face voter apathy.

“The case has turned off some people who believed in the electoral process,” said Councilman Daniel Tabor, a Hardeman supporter. “You never know what might happen.”