Wright

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By DANIEL TAUB

Staff Reporter

Assemblyman Roderick D. Wright, D-South Central Los Angeles, has spent little more than a year in the state Legislature, but he has already made his mark.

During his first legislative session, Wright was an outspoken opponent of a bill outlawing the sale of the small, cheap handguns known as Saturday Night Specials an unusual stance for a Democrat. The bill passed, but was vetoed by Gov. Pete Wilson.

In the coming year, Wright, whose district includes Exposition Park, home to the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, will likely play a pivotal role in negotiations with the National Football League over bringing an expansion team to the Coliseum. Because the Coliseum is a state-owned facility, the Legislature will have to approve any renovation plans which are likely to be controversial if they involve state funds.

Wright, 45, has spent most of his life in government and politics. He has been a speech writer for the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a district administrator for U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, and was a delegate to the 1982, 1984 and 1992 Democratic national conventions. He has also worked as a campaign consultant and has hosted a talk show on a South Central radio station.

Question: You were in the unusual position of being a Democrat opposing the Saturday Night Special ban. How did that come about?

Answer: The gun issue is very much like abortion or other kinds of things where people form hard opinions, with or without good information. I believe that the Constitution grants the right to keep and bear arms. So starting from that, there will be some people who argue, “Well, it means you can have a militia.” I believe it means that I can have a gun.

My problem with Saturday Night Specials is that most of the information that was reported about them was just contrived. They’re not disproportionately used in crime and they’re not necessarily unsafe.

This bill banned a whole range of guns, and its primary motivation for banning the gun was the price. Well, I’m not sure that we should make class the determination on at what point you can access the Second Amendment. If we’re going to start that, we can start it on a number of things. What class do I have to achieve to participate in the First Amendment? What class do I have to achieve to participate in any one of these constitutional guarantees?

Q: Doesn’t that view put you out of favor with a lot of your Democratic colleagues?

A: It does sometimes, but that’s OK.

Q: What’s your view on the Coliseum as a future home to a National Football League expansion team?

A: I think that the Coliseum is the best place in Los Angeles for a professional football team to play. It’s also the best economical place for a professional football team to play.

Q: There is talk of public financing.

A: Some of the things they were talking about was infrastructure. In the absence of having a deal with the NFL, we really haven’t begun serious negotiation as to what it would be. Again, the state owns the facility, and it’s free and clear. So the question then would become, do we remodel it as the owner and then rent it to a team? Do we rent it to them as is, and then allow them to make tenant improvements? Which one pencils out better without putting the public at risk in terms of a private enterprise?

Q: You’ve been involved in government on the local, state or federal level in some way since graduating from college. How did you get started?

A: I was a student body president in college. I was a class president in high school. I’ve kind of been involved in things that deal in leadership for a long time.

Actually, though, government and politics wasn’t my original interest. I was a track-and-field athlete. And at the time, I really was going to play football and run track. It was my hope to get a medal in the Olympics and then go play defensive back or wide receiver in the NFL. It never came to pass, but that was what I would have liked to have done.

Q: With term limits a reality, there’s always a consideration of what’s next, even though you’re only one year in.

A: I ran for City Council once, and I don’t think that would be a bad post. The Board of Supervisors wouldn’t be a bad post. Congress wouldn’t be a bad post. The state Senate wouldn’t be a bad post.

Q: Mayor?

A: I don’t know that I make mayor. I don’t know that this city will elect another black person to be mayor.

Q: How come?

A: It would be a real unusual guy, and he would have qualities that I don’t have.

Q: Such as?

A: The ability to be real attractive to white people. And it’s not to say that I’m unattractive to white people. In fact, some of the things that I’m involved with are very conservative, but I just don’t think again, it may be parochial thinking on my part I don’t think that a guy in Northridge or Chatsworth or wherever is going to say, “I’m going to vote for this black guy named Rod Wright,” or anybody else for that matter. I think that the mayor will be either another Anglo or Latino person before it becomes a black person. Again, unless there’s a really unusual I mean, Tom Bradley was an unusual black guy.

Q: What do you attribute that to? Is it an inherent racism in the city?

A: There’s an inherent racism in America. There are really stellar people who break the mold. I mean, the guy in Seattle breaks the mold. The woman in Minnesota Minneapolis breaks the mold. So it’s not an automatic, but it’s pretty close.

Q: How do you get along with Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas?

A: Good. I mean, he’s not coming to my house for Christmas dinner, and I’m not going to his. On those things that are of mutual benefit to our constituents, many of whom we share, we work together very well. We’ve talked about the Coliseum a great deal. Both of our views are the same, that a team ought to play there. I share that with him. He started that drive. Again, I’m working on things that help facilitate a Coliseum deal while looking at the reality that we’re not going to put a lot of money we don’t have into it.

Q: You’ve been in Sacramento for just over a year. A lot of new state legislators have difficulty adjusting, particularly if they have family in their hometowns.

A: I have two daughters. One daughter is in college and she lives in the dorm, and I have a 7-year-old who lives in Los Angeles as well. But I’m single. But it strains things a little. I don’t see them as often as I would like. And there’s an adjustment that one has to make in terms of the commute. I generally go off on Sunday afternoon and I don’t get back home until Thursday afternoon. So for those days, for five days a week, I’m in Sacramento.

Q: What kind of toll does it take on you?

A: It wears you down. My sinuses are acting up now, as a matter of fact, because I’ve flown three or four times this week.

Q: When you had a radio talk show, you had a chance to talk to the local community. Do you miss that?

A: That was a kick, yeah. The thing that I really value about the time I spent on talk radio was that people would call with different subjects, and they would raise different things. You ever played baseball? You ever play Pepper? Pepper is a game where there are three or four guys that are kind of fielders. And a guy takes the bat, you toss him the ball, and he hits the ball and then you have to field the ball. You don’t know which of the three of you the ball is going to come to. But the idea is that you want to be able to move and handle the ball as it comes to you.

What talk radio did for me is it helped me field questions and then come up with an answer, so that I can hear your question and formulate an answer while you’re talking. And then if you’re really good at your craft, then you’re able to do that without having to cut you off, and then come back with a fairly immediate answer. Talk radio does that, because I might get a call today about this, and then the next minute it could be something else. And so you’re discussing a lot of subjects very fast. So it’s good training in that regard.

Roderick D. Wright

Title: Assemblyman

Born: Chicago, 1952

Education: Pepperdine University, bachelor’s degree in urban studies, 1973

Most Admired Person: Nelson Mandela

Hobbies: Softball, golf, flying airplanes

Turning Point in Career: Working on Tom Bradley’s mayoral campaign in 1973

Personal: Single, two daughters

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