Three seats at the table.

Los Angeles's April primary has three gay candidates, including one for mayor

Joel Wachs has all the credentials: to be mayor of Los Angeles. A city councilman since 1971, Wachs has been one of the city's most popular politicians, handily winning eight terms of office in his San Fernando Valley district. He's a conservative on fiscal issues but liberal on social issues. Although his base is conservative suburbanites,' he also appeals to the politically independent by not aligning himself with any political party.

Wachs also happens to be gay. If voters choose him in the hotly contested mayoral primary--which is nonpartisan--on April 10, he will have a chance to become the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city.

"I am a gay man, and I'm proud of it," says Wachs. "I'll fight for my community, but I'll also fight for everyone else's community."

"It's a historic opportunity," says David Mixner, a well-known fund-raiser who is currently with a group called Access Now for Gay and Lesbian Equality. "We have a veteran of Los Angeles city politics running as an openly gay candidate. That's a very exciting thing."

The election could also be groundbreaking in other ways. Laurette Healey, an out lesbian, is running for city controller with the endorsement of departing mayor Richard Riordan. And Conrado Terrazas, a gay Latino, is running for city council.

This election marks the first time Wachs has run as openly gay. After years of pleading from gay leaders, Wachs came out in November 1999 after a local cable television talk-show host asked him about his sexual orientation. Wachs, 62, has no regrets about waiting so long to come out, saying it is a personal decision that everyone has to make on their own.

"I'm really glad I made this decision. I'm not going to go back in the closet tomorrow. I grew up in a different time when it wasn't anyone else's business," Wachs says. "When I first ran for office, there was no such thing as an openly gay official."

Mixner and other fund-raisers started working on behalf of Wachs the moment he acknowledged his homosexuality publicly. Wachs is a great candidate, Mixner says, because he reaches across several constituencies, from gays looking for elected officials to serve as role models to local taxpayer groups seeking greater fiscal control over local government.

During his career on the council, Wachs has supported legislation aimed at ending discrimination against gays and lesbians. In 1985 he sponsored the first law in the nation banning discrimination against people with AIDS.

Nevertheless, Wachs has by no means wrapped up the city's gay vote, in large part because he is competing with several other high-profile candidates with strong records on gay issues, including city attorney James Hahn, former state assembly speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, and U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra. The city's Stonewall Democratic Club gave its endorsement to Villaraigosa, citing his leadership role in passing two antidiscrimination state laws covering gays and lesbians in 1999.

Since Wachs is not a Democrat, he was not eligible for the endorsement. But the club's president, Eric Bauman, says he doubts Wachs would have had a chance for the endorsement anyway. While Bauman does not discount the value of electing an openly gay mayor and says he likes Wachs personally, he says other, nongay candidates have been more effective in dealing with gay issues and are more deserving of gay community support.

"Because Joel was not out and didn't travel in typical gay political circles, a lot of people don't really know much about him," Bauman says. "Some of the other candidates, like Villaraigosa, Hahn, and Becerra, have long been associated with the community politically."

While Wachs has a good voting record on gay issues, Bauman says he has never been the point man for the gay constituency. "If gays and lesbians elect Joel, what we get is a gay mayor. But we don't get someone who has a record of being a champion for this community," Bauman says.

The gay vote may be extremely important in the race. A Los Angeles Times poll published March 4 showed Hahn with 24%, with Wachs lagging at 11% in a virtual tie for second place with Villaraigosa, Becerra, and commercial real estate broker Steve Soboroff. The paper said that "perhaps the most surprising finding of the survey" is that Wachs was "struggling to break out of the pack." Gay voters could have an important impact in pushing Wachs into the runoff election June 5.

While Wachs may not have been out during most of his career, he has been a consistent supporter of civil rights for gays and lesbians, says Sloan Wiesen, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which endorsed Wachs. If Wachs wins as an openly gay candidate, it may encourage others to come out too, Wiesen says. "Many people in the gay and lesbian community have come to understand how few gay and lesbian public servants there are in visible and prominent positions," he says. "They understand the importance of the race in L.A. It would be amazingly groundbreaking."

Terrazas and Healey have also been attracting the attention of gay voters. Terrazas is running for the 13th district city council seat vacated by Jackie Goldberg, a lesbian who was elected to the state assembly in November. The district includes Silver Lake and Hollywood, two areas with large gay populations. Terrazas worked for six years as an aide to Goldberg. Since Wachs came out after he was reelected to the city council in 1999, Terrazas would be the first out gay male elected to the council. He would also be the panel's first gay Latino.

Healey, a political newcomer, is running for city controller. She faces a tough battle against city councilwoman Laura Chick, who is being forced out of her current job by term limits. Healey, 46, is the president and chief financial officer of her own company, a manufacturing and distribution firm called Entertainment Marketing Associates. She and her partner, Lisa Sanderson, were two of the producers of the Equality Rocks concert for the Millennium March on Washington last year.

Healey says that as a businesswoman, she is more qualified than Chick for the job. "She's not really a financial person. The controller's job is a position for a businessperson," she says. "I come to the table as a seasoned expert." Healey, whose candidacy is nonpartisan, attracted an endorsement from the gay Republican group, Log Cabin Los Angeles (which also endorsed Soboroff for mayor).

Healey's father, the late Philip Healey, was a longtime state assemblyman in New York and was the inspiration for her political ambitions.

"I think the highest aspiration is public service," says Healey, who, if elected, would be the first out lesbian elected to a citywide office in Los Angeles. "I will be breaking a glass ceiling in Los Angeles," she says. "It's another step forward."

Find more on the gay candidates in the Los Angeles election at www.advocate.com