Word: mayor
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...where he fought doggedly for California's claim on tide-lands oil. Looking, as always, for bigger things, he took on Republican Senator Tom Kuchel in 1954, lost in a bitter contest. He practiced law for the next seven years, then decided in 1961 to challenge the incumbent mayor, genial but colorless Norris Poulson. Sam shaved off the mustache he had worn since he was 17 ("I always wanted to look older") and literally rode into office on trash. A major campaign issue that won the hearts of housewives was his opposition to a since-repealed city ordinance requiring...
Though Los Angeles politics are nominally nonpartisan, Sam was, in fact, the first Democrat elected mayor in more than 50 years. That should have made California Democrats happy, but it emphatically did not. Sam had already shown his maverick streak by supporting Republican Richard Nixon against Jack Kennedy in 1960 after his first choice, Lyndon Johnson, had lost to J.F.K. for the Democratic nomination. When Nixon ran for the California governorship against Pat Brown...
Yorty must work with and within one of the nation's most bewildering governmental structures. The job of running the city itself, defined by an archaic, 41-year-old charter, is split between the mayor and its 15-member city council in such a way that neither can exercise effective powers. Further diluting the mayor's authority is the county board of supervisors, five elected officials who have the last word on many countywide affairs. As the Senate's cities experts discovered last week, city government is confined largely to such functions as police and fire protection...
Beyond Authority. Sam Yorty can rightfully say that he lacks the power to do many of the things that need doing. He himself once said: "Any man who reads beyond the second paragraph of the city charter would be out of his mind to run for mayor." But Yorty ran and won, and he has shown by his actions as mayor that, when he wants to, he can exert a good deal more power and responsibility than he admits to having. Despite his faults and his constant feuds-Angelenos tend to be either 100% for him or 100% against...
...again agreed to postpone the march through Cicero-at least until the Chicago leadership had had a chance to demonstrate its good intent with action. "We've come a long, long way," he said. "We've crossed the Red Sea right here in Chicago." Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley agreed that it was a "historic...