Remembering Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan (May 1, 1930 – April 19, 2023)

Childhood Memories of Los Angeles and a Democrat's Praise for the Legacy of a Republican Mayor, one of our Greatest

Richard Riordan, who served as Los Angeles Mayor from 1993 to 2001, passed away Wednesday night at the age of 92. While he lived a good long life, I still find myself saddened over his passing. Many Angelenos will never forget his great contributions to the City of Los Angeles, successfully leading us through some of the worst crises. I am no exception. As Angelenos mourn him, I wanted to pay tribute to him and what he accomplished for the City of Angels.

To truly understand Richard Riordan’s legacy, one must understand the city he took over when he was sworn into office in July 1993 and the legacy of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.¹

I was only in the first grade when the 1992 Los Angeles Riots occurred. The 1992 Riots lasted over 4 days, taking 63 lives, injuring at least another 2,383 individuals, and costing over a billion in property damage. They did not end until President Bush dispatched 5000 federal troops into Los Angeles.

I remember the 1992 Riots vividly, partly because my father served as a police officer and was out attempting to protect the city against lawlessness for four straight days and nights. Meanwhile, while the rest of my family sheltered at home, I watched the violence and destruction unfold on the television screen. As society descended into lawless disorder, I watched people commit wanton acts of violence and criminality against their fellow citizens, wondering whether I would ever see my father again.

The 1992 Riots may have been sparked by the acquittal verdicts of four LAPD officers in the beating of Rodney King. But they seemingly stemmed from something deeper and far more sinister. In racially motivated attacks, people deliberately looted and burned down businesses, often owned by Korean Americans, leaving a path of destruction across a once beautiful and vibrant city.

In many cases, the businesses destroyed were owned by immigrants, targeted out of misguided rage and opportunistic selfishness. Those who worked hard and sacrificed to achieve the American Dream had their entire livelihoods destroyed overnight in senseless and selfish acts.²

LA had already suffered through the 1990-1991 Recession. In addition to lost businesses and soaring unemployment, crime had surged to all-time highs. The LAPD’s lean and mean approach, where the force remained small but ruthlessly efficient, almost to a paramilitary level, had not worked. Many areas of the city remained under violent siege due to gang warfare. Citizens lived in fear, regardless of what part of the city they lived in. I still remember the bars on windows and nightly door lock checks even living in what was a relatively low crime area of LA.

The 1992 Riots seemed like a death blow. Not only had we sustained massive economic damage, but citizens felt emotionally wounded. We felt ashamed to be Angelenos and lost sight of the city’s beauty and quirkiness. And in one of the most diverse cities in North America, if not the globe, something else was lost.

One thing I’ve noticed about LA that is different from many other North American cities I’ve visited (New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami) is that we are more socially integrated by race and ethnicity. It’s not uncommon to see people of different races casually mingling together socially.³ In LA, it’s not uncommon to see friends who are of different races shopping, dining out at restaurants, enjoying recreation, or attending shows together. It’s not an oddity to see a group of friends at Dodger or Laker games together who are of every race. Or to see couples of different races sitting together in a box at the Hollywood Bowl.

There is also a great deal of racial and ethnic cultural non-conformity where restaurants and specialty stores long survive the demographic change in their neighborhood. Langer’s Deli at 7th and Alvarado Streets and the Greek Market at Pico Boulevard and Normandie Avenue come to mind. The neighborhood around Pico and Normandie long ago ceased to be a Greek neighborhood. The Jewish population of Westlake long ago disappeared. But it does not matter. These are institutions are beloved by Hispanic and Asian American immigrant residents, adopted as their own.

Pre-riots, my family used to enjoy dinner at a soul food restaurant on Pico Boulevard, Maurice’s Snack and Chat (which yes, in its heyday, was better than Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles). It was owned by the fiery Maurice Prinz, a black woman who, after years of catering parties for the rich and famous of Hollywood, finally got a loan to start her own restaurant in 1978.

Maurice, a three time widow, who never hesitated to tell people what was on her mind, often hired people who couldn’t get hired elsewhere. She ran annual charity drives and even included a toy room at her restaurant, where patrons could drop off toys she would redistribute to needy kids.

The soul food restaurant had a mostly white clientele. Maurice didn’t charge corkage fees and it was not uncommon to see her wealthy white customers drinking bottles of fine wine and imported champagne worth hundreds of dollars while enjoying plates of crispy fried chicken, creamy macaroni and cheese, steamed collared greens, and cornbread.

After the 1992 Riots, she lost a great deal of business. During the riots, looters almost inadvertently burned down an apartment building just a few blocks away from her. Many of her customers became afraid to visit the neighborhood.

If LA was somehow a racial paradise where everyone gets along, that notion had already been challenged pre-riots. In 1990, a near riot broke out at Inglewood High School between black and Hispanic students, who clashed over competing student walkouts over Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Cesar Chavez Day.

In 1991, Korean American grocery store owner Soon Ja Du shot and killed 15 year old Latasha Harlins. She was filling in for her son at her family’s South LA store, which had been robbed repeatedly and had been the target of violence in the high crime community.

Du’s son could not work that day as he had faced death threats from nearby criminal street gangs for agreeing to testify against them. Harlins, a 15 year old honors student who had nothing to do with gangs, was physically attacked by Du after Du mistook her for a shoplifter when Harlins went to pay for orange juice. After Harlins fought back and knocked Du to the ground, Du grabbed a gun she’d been given for personal protection and fatally shot Harlins, then fainting from shock.

Despite her conviction for manslaughter, Du’s defense attorney, Charles Lloyd (a prominent African American) persuaded the judge to sentence Du to probation. If the judge had hoped to heal a community rift, her sentence had the opposite effect, causing outrage.

Perhaps Angelenos could ignore these situations as isolated incidents. Things that didn’t apply to them personally or define the city. But after the 1992 Riots, everything Angelenos had believed about ourselves became suspect. We were told our city was racially divided and unsafe.

If anything, the heightened attention to race and race as a central talking point only exacerbated feelings of racial discrimination. Poorly administered city services like garbage pickup, brush clearing, tree trimming, street cleaning, street light repair, tree cleaning and slow LAPD response times (residents sometimes waited over 30 minutes for police to show up), experienced by all city residents, became seen as racial slights and intentional neglect. Residents began to believe their neighborhood was ignored simply because of the predominant race of the neighborhood. Perhaps ironically, this feeling was shared by residents of all races across all neighborhoods of the city.

Los Angeles is a sprawling 550 square mile metropolis with a mountain range running through the middle of it, home to 4 million people who come from every corner of the globe. Despite our urbanization, it is a city that somehow remains home to active wildlife, who peacefully co-exist with humanity much in the same way humanity seems to co-exist with itself (I imagine other wildlife must think LA wildlife are out of their minds).

In addition to being the capitol of the entertainment industry, LA has the busiest cargo seaport in the United States, serving as a gateway to Asia, an industrial manufacturing center, and global financial center. It is home to several of the nation’s top ranked universities and a center for scientific and medical research.

LA has arts and culture, every different kind of food imaginable, and incredible architecture. There are gleaming skyscrapers in Century City and Downtown LA and along the Wilshire Corridor that create a disjointed yet stunning skyline. In downtown’s historic core, there are Beaux Arts buildings of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Beautifully ornate Victorian mansions can be found in Angeleno Heights and Hoover-Adams and hidden away in other unexpected parts of the city. Historic multi-family homes in Spanish colonial revival style can be found in Carthay. The best examples of modernist homes can be found in the Hollywood Hills.

But now, after the 1992 Riots, none of that mattered about LA.

For those of us who love our deeply flawed yet beautiful city, we knew the 1992 Riots didn’t reflect who we were as a city and instead proved just how much damage a small number of misguided people can cause others. But sadly, it still defined us to everyone else.

The leadership of the city had failed us too.

I always joke that regardless of whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, it is definitely a realistic movie. That’s because in the midst of a massive terrorist attack in the City of Los Angeles where hundreds of hostages have been taken at the city’s tallest building and there is potential for the entire city to be blown up, neither the Mayor nor the Chief of the LAPD appear as characters or are even mentioned.

Then LA Mayor Tom Bradley (our first black Mayor and noted progressive) and then LAPD Chief Daryl Gates (a tough on crime conservative chief who the Mayor could not fire) were bitter rivals.⁴ They were not on speaking terms when the 1992 Riots broke out.

Bradley, in his 5th term, had served in office for nearly 20 years, and after his historic 1973 victory, his leadership had grown stale and uninspired, especially after his failed bids for Governor of California in 1982 and 1986. His administration had grown corrupt and most neighborhoods felt disconnected from city hall.

While a brilliant tactician and pioneering police innovator, Gates had been a poor administrator of the department. Politically insulated by our City Charter, Gates felt free to pop off with racist comments that insulted large segments of the city’s population. As crime increased, so did the misbehavior of LAPD officers, which Gates admitted privately he had difficulty controlling.

When violence first broke out at the intersection of Florence and Normandie Avenues on the afternoon of April 29, 1992, neither initially seemed too concerned with the unfolding events. Tom Bradley casually told people to “go out and vent” over the Rodney King verdict.

While the LAPD abandoned the intersection for hours, enabling a horrific chain of racially motivated violence directed at non-black drivers all captured on live television, Daryl Gates spent the evening at a political fundraiser against a ballot proposition that would have given the Mayor the power to fire him and forced reforms upon his department.

While Los Angeles burned and violence raged, Bradley vented and Gates raised money. The city’s leadership was clearly broken.

It was in this void that Richard Riordan ran for Mayor, the first and only elective office he had ever sought. The wealthy Brentwood businessman still believed in the great promise of LA even if everyone else had wanted to write us off. And in 1993, voters of our heavily Democratic and extraordinarily liberal and progressive city made the unusual move of electing a white Republican businessman as Mayor over his Democratic opponent, Bill Clinton-endorsed, LA City Councilman Mike Woo. Demonstrating the true extent of backlash from the voters, Riordan carried majorities of Asian American and Hispanic voters.

Although elected in the same year, Riordan was the anti-Giuliani. Pro-choice, Riordan also joined with conservative California Republicans who broke with their party to support gay rights like Ed Davis, Robert Stevenson, and Ward Connerly.⁵

In his first press conference as Mayor-elect, standing side-by-side with Bradley, Riordan promised to bring the people of Los Angeles together as the city continued to rebuild from the riots. No matter one's race, ethnicity, immigration status, religion, sex, or sexual orientation, Riordan promised, LA would be a city for all.

In the eight years that followed, the city not only rebuilt but grew even stronger. LA’s economy boomed with new industries, city services improved dramatically, blighted neighborhoods revitalized, new neighborhoods arose, crime dropped to record lows, and, from its ashes, Koreatown not only rebuilt but expanded far beyond its initial boundaries. By 2001, the early 1990’s was a distant memory.

Riordan’s administration was known for being slightly chaotic (a few former staffers told me jokingly that Riordan and the Mayor’s office often resembled the fictional depiction of George Steinbrenner and the New York Yankees on Seinfeld) but it was ultimately a clean government that made great strides in improving city governance. Riordan brought in new blood to serve as city hall staffers and embarked upon reform. He had the city reach out to long neglected neighborhoods. He made good on his campaign promise to expand the LAPD.

Riordan not only guided us through rebuilding from the 1992 Riots but he also led the city through other major crises and pushed through policies that permanently altered LA for the better. Often, he was willing to put practicality over personal preferences. A few highlights:

• Rebuilding From The 1994 Northridge Earthquake. The 1994 Northridge Earthquake, which killed between 60 and 72 people and left billions in property damage, was as devastating as it was terrifying. The 10 freeway, LA’s most significant east-west arterial thoroughfare, literally collapsed, becoming unusable for several months.
  
  But the city didn’t shut down. Riordan’s steadfast leadership ensured that residents had food, water, and power within less than 24 hours. Those displaced from their homes were immediately sheltered. Despite the widespread damage to property, buildings were repaired and rebuilt in record time, often with governmental assistance. This is largely due to Riordan, who enlisted the help of the entertainment industry and its set-builders to help rebuild the city. Under his supervision, the 10 freeway reopened ahead of schedule and underbudget.

• Completing The Los Angeles Subway. In 1995, a massive sinkhole opened in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard. The sinkhole was the direct result of the negligent construction of the subway. Riordan had long opposed the subway project, which had been horribly mismanaged and had led to deaths of construction workers in addition to massive cost over-runs in the billions.
  
  The idea of a subway line running from Downtown LA to the San Fernando Valley had been described as a “fantasy” and finishing it would cost billions. And Riordan, a car culture supporting Republican Angeleno had always looked at the plan to build a subway system in earthquake country as a stupid idea.
  
  The sinkhole disaster offered an opportunity for Riordan to kill the project in its entirety, something that the Clinton Administration favored after the sinkhole.
  It could have well happened, notwithstanding the money spent and the portions of tunnel constructed.
  
  Despite construction of some portions of tunnel and the removal of elevated rail along the same route, New York City abandoned its Second Avenue Subway for decades. Cincinnati has an entire unfinished subway system, complete with 4 full underground stations. Riordan could have left something he considered a folly to meet the same historical fate.
  
  But Riordan refused. With the billions already spent and Angelenos waiting on the subway line, Riordan knew it needed to be finished. The biggest waste would be the time spent and money invested to get nothing. He joined with pro-subway elected officials to persuade the Clinton Administration to continue giving federal funding to the project.
  
  He brought in new management to LAMTA and even employed robotic technology for subway digging in the mountainous parts of the route. In 2000, the subway opened, running 900 feet deep at some points under Mulholland Drive, residents above completely unaware. Pre-COVID-19, the subway line was the second busiest in the United States.

• Building Staples Center. The construction of Staples Center (now Crypto Arena) provided more than a shiny new home for the Lakers, Kings, and Clippers. It helped revitalize a long-neglected portion of the city, brought in millions in revenue for the city, and created a multitude of business opportunities. When a deal to build Staples Center looked like it might fall through, Riordan personally intervened to save the project, helping negotiate the final deal, which ensured public funds were not spent on construction of the sports arena.
  
  The neighborhood around Staples Center was a basic dead zone in the 1990’s. Today, it is a thriving entertainment zone where people regularly go for sports games, concerts, and celebrations. Nearby, new high rise housing developed on what were once nothing but surface parking lots. We never would have had this great addition to LA but for Riordan’s intervention.

• Strong Mayor System. The LA City Charter traditionally placed most of the power in the hands of the City Council and limited what the Mayor could do. This may have worked well in the late 19th century when LA was a dusty outpost with a small population. But as it grew into the second largest city in America, the system of governance proved unworkable. In 1999, Riordan persuaded the voters to approve changes to the Charter that gave more powers to the Mayor’s office.
  
  The Charter changes would not benefit him, only his successors. Nevertheless, he supported the changes as good public policy. Due to his popularity, he overcame opposition from the LA City Council and LA County Supervisors to persuade voters to embrace the change.

• Downtown Rezoning. Rather infamously, bad planning decisions had led to the removal of downtown LA’s previous residential population through the thoughtless destruction of vibrant walkable neighborhoods like Bunker Hill, Crown Hill, and Court Hill. Riordan pushed for the rezoning of commercial and industrial sites that had grown outdated and no longer suitable for office business or industrial manufacturing into potential residential areas.
  
  Today, many old office buildings, long abandoned, have had their beauty restored and house residents. Long abandoned factories have been repurposed into residential lofts. In what were once desolate streets, Angelenos now stroll among cafes, art galleries, and restaurants. Angelenos take pride in the old Bank Loft district and the Industrial Arts district. These neighborhoods exist because of Riordan’s efforts.

• The 2000 Democratic National Convention. Even though he was a Republican, Riordan pushed for the city to host the Democratic National Convention, looking to boost the city’s business opportunities, putting aside his partisan preferences. The Convention was a massive success and the city benefitted tremendously.

Finally, I will always credit him for the integrity he demonstrated during the 2001 Mayoral race when he was term-limited. Riordan’s handpicked successor was fellow Republican businessman, Steve Soboroff. The frontrunner for the race was Democratic City Attorney, James Hahn. Most pundits expected a likely runoff between Hahn and Soboroff if Hahn did not win the primary outright.

In an upset, former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, who was considered an underdog, not only advanced to the runoff, but came in first place in the primary. Villaraigosa, the formerly troubled son of a single mom from Boyle Heights had overcome personal struggles to become Speaker of the California State Assembly. He sought to become the first Mexican American Mayor of Los Angeles since the 19th Century. His life story embodied what any great Hollywood writer would create.

Riordan, who was planning to run for Governor the next year (and would have handily won the general election against Governor Gray Davis had the California Republican Party nominated him),⁶ made it clear after the primary that he would be staying out of the runoff. He had no interest in making an endorsement in a race between two progressive Democrats.

However, Riordan would ultimately change his mind.

As the runoff election proceeded, a vile, race-baiting campaign began against Villaraigosa. Most famously, an attack ad ran showing Villaraigosa’s face juxtaposed with brown hands cutting crack cocaine, an ominous voice telling voters that “You can’t trust Antonio Villaraigosa”. Whispering campaigns began about how Mexican people were “taking over” Los Angeles and how Villaraigosa would devote all city resources to Hispanics, neglecting everyone else. People began whispering that he was really a cholo, who’d look out for the interests of his fellow gang members.

The racist campaign was not limited to white voters either but directed towards the black and Asian American communities as well. At a press conference for Hahn, one prominent progressive black Democratic lawmaker declared “Who is this Antonio Villaraigosa? Where did he come from? You cannot trust this man!” Much of the language was coded but the message to voters was clear:

“Mexican Americans are others. They’re not Americans. They’re not Californians. They’re not Angelenos. They have their own separate culture that is different from your own that they dislike. They do not like you because you are not one of them. They are taking over the city and cannot be elected to city leadership positions because they will commandeer the city’s resources for themselves and discriminate against you. They will neglect or even destroy your neighborhoods because they resent them. They will take your jobs, steal your government contracts, burglarize your homes, loot your stores, and for good measure, make you speak Spanish.”

“You cannot trust Antonio Villaraigosa” the ads kept repeating.

It was vile and awful. Horrifying really, because the race baiting campaign worked. The polls began to shift markedly in Hahn’s favor, changing the race from a small Villaraigosa lead within the margin of error to a double digit advantage for Hahn. By 2001, the 1992 Riots were supposed to be a distant memory. But the strength of the race-baiting campaign against Villaraigosa proved otherwise. We had not really healed as we all thought. Instead, racial tensions were alive and well in LA.

In an act demonstrating character, courage, and integrity, Riordan intervened. In response to the racist political advertisements, he publicly endorsed Villaraigosa and campaigned for him.

Riordan didn’t want to endorse Villaraigosa, who he disagreed with on a whole host of policy issues and did not view him as his ideal successor. After all, Riordan was a Republican businessman and Villaraigosa was a Democratic union representative. But the racist campaign genuinely offended and disturbed Riordan. He had spent his mayoral term rebuilding the city and ensuring that all Angelenos felt they belonged. Witnessing a great wrong occurring, he would take a stand, the politics be damned.

Riordan hoped to assuage the fears of some of his most loyal voters (conservatives, whites, and Valley residents). If he, a wealthy, white Republican from Brentwood who spent his term being tough on crime endorsed Villaraigosa, those voters could trust Villaraigosa and vote for him too. Villaraigosa was not a criminal. There was no reason that a Mexican American could not serve as Mayor of Los Angeles.

Moreover, Riordan wanted to send a message about the race baiting campaign. First, he wanted to make clear that the campaign against Villaraigosa was clearly anti-Mexican American race baiting. Second, many voters (who had been loyal Riordan supporters) who genuinely preferred Hahn over Villaraigosa for legitimate reasons unrelated to race needed to switch their vote to Villaraigosa. They needed to make a statement that LA was not a place where race baiting would be tolerated.

Unfortunately, Riordan’s endorsement wasn’t enough. Villaraigosa lost 53%-47%. But Riordan’s act of integrity in the 2001 Mayoral race was one of his greatest acts. He would not tolerate race baiting. In many ways, it helped reassure those of us who were devastated. Villaraigosa had lost. Race baiting had won the day. But it was clear that Riordan’s late endorsement had shifted a lot of voters. Many Angelenos who had preferred Hahn to Villaraigosa voted for Villaraigosa out of their outrage at what they saw transpire. There was hope for the future.

Riordan’s act of courage may have inspired another I witnessed during the campaign (the first political campaign I truly followed closely). The black community voted overwhelmingly for Hahn over Villaraigosa (According to exit polls, more black voters in LA had voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and Proposition 209 in 1996 than voted for Villaraigosa for LA Mayor in 2001).

A good deal of Hahn’s margin in the black community stemmed from the legacy of the Hahn name. Hahn’s father, Kenneth, had been a longtime LA County Supervisor and former LA City Councilman who represented South LA. An early white ally for civil rights and a rare white politician who fought for the interests of blacks, he was beloved by the black community.

However, the race baiting directed at the black community certainly bolstered those numbers. As Election Day approached, a black woman who volunteered as a neighborhood block club captain and community organizer in Southwest LA decided to take on the role of a Winsome Sears, Zora Neale Thurston, Carol Swain, Condoleeza Rice, Janice Rogers Brown, or Kay C. Adams (that of a black woman being willing to openly voice being in the 10% political minority).

She, a neighborhood watch organizing gun owner who spent time organizing with white homeowners in Sherman Oaks, hadn’t been outwardly political. Her previous main focus had been lobbying for better meat and produce in South LA supermarkets and trying to limit the proliferation of liquor stores and junkyards in South LA. She could have been content to simply cast her vote for Villaraigosa and exercise her right to a secret ballot.

But the racist attacks incensed her and motivated her to speak out and become an active campaigner. If anyone expected her to support Hahn because of her race, she made it clear that she had no interest in being defined by her race. She saw no reason why she, as a black woman, could not vote for a Hispanic candidate she believed was the far and away better qualified candidate. She didn’t think black voters should vote on racial lines. She hoped that by speaking up, she could persuade other black voters that Villaraigosa would not be a Mayor who would neglect or even punish black neighborhoods and black Angelenos.

Moreover, she hoped she could persuade those who were voting for Hahn for legitimate reasons to switch their votes to Villaraigosa to send a message. Like Riordan, she saw the race baiting campaign for what it was and felt the need to call it out. Even if one thought Hahn’s plans were more plausible or even if one had great respect for the work of his father, voters needed to switch their votes to make a statement that this type of race baiting campaign was not acceptable.

Like Riordan, she was unsuccessful. But she helped lay the groundwork for future campaigns and increased her own political involvement, dismayed by the fact that black leaders who claimed to represent her and her interests had condoned if not participated outright in a race baiting campaign.

For those who are wondering who this deeply conservative black woman was or whether she got a FOX News gig, her name is Karen Bass. (Please Google if you’re unfamiliar).

Riordan’s act of endorsing Villaraigosa is part of his legacy too. LA and its voters were not a lost cause. Just four years later, Angelenos realized that Riordan was right. In 2005, voters threw Hahn out of office in a landslide and replaced him with Villaraigosa. In a 59%-41% victory, majorities of white and black voters voted for Villaraigosa. Bass, who had been elected in an upset to the State Assembly the year prior over a heavily favored powerful LA City Councilman, danced on stage at Villaraigosa’s election night headquarters as results began reporting in.

I am grateful to live in LA today, a far better city shaped by Riordan’s mayoralty. His steadfast and principled leadership are a role model for any elected leader, regardless of party. And Riordan left our city far better off than the condition he found it in. For that, I will always be grateful.

Rest in Power, Richard Riordan

1. For a documentary that gives good documentation of the 1992 Riots without editorial, please watch this film.

2. While Korean Americans were often the chief target, the violence targeted businesses owned by Asian Americans of all ethnic backgrounds, Hispanic owned businesses, white owned businesses, and even black owned businesses that failed to put up “Black Owned Business” signs.

3. This is not meant as a knock against other major cities, a claim that LA is a perfect city free of racism or self-segregation (LAUSD still operates under a 1981 federal court order mandating desegregation), or even a suggestion that people need to base their social decisions based on race lest they be bigoted. Just that it is a more common natural occurrence.

4. Both men had served in the LAPD and risen in the ranks, where they were rivals. However, Bradley had been fired when still a Lieutenant (allegedly for speaking to dissident groups off-duty). When Gates became LAPD Chief in 1979, it was not because Bradley wanted it.

5. LA City Councilman Robert Stevenson ran against anti-gay incumbent Councilman Paul Lamport (who referred to all gay people as “molesters” in 1969, on the promise of protecting gay bars and clubs from police raids and fighting for gay rights, as well as an endorsement from an openly gay candidate. State Senator Ed Davis, who was formerly the LAPD Chief, voted in favor of the first gay rights bills in 1984 and maintained his newfound pro-LGBT stance even as his colleagues looked at him askance. Ward Connerly, as President of the Board of University of California Regents, controversially forced the University of California to recognize same-sex partnerships over the objection of Governor Pete Wilson, who had appointed him, and later publicly opposed and campaigned against Proposition 8 in 2008.

6. Even as Davis won re-election against Bill Simon, the same polls just prior to the election that showed him narrowly leading Simon also showed him trailing Riordan by over 15% had Riordan been the GOP nominee.