Labor group forms to support Sheila Kuehl for L.A. County supervisor

Los Angeles County government’s unionized workers jumped into the race to replace Zev Yaroslavsky on the Board of Supervisors, giving $362,500 to an outside group formed to support Sheila Kuehl.

Five different unions gave to a newly formed committee with an unusually long name: “Local Experience We Trust for our Communities-A Coalition of Working Men and Women, Nurses, Teachers, Firefighters and Public Safety Officers for Sheila Kuehl for Supervisor 2014.”

All of the contributions came on Sept. 19, according to finance reports filed with the county’s registrar-recorder. Creation of the so-called independent expenditure committee marks stepped-up activism by unions favoring Kuehl, a former state lawmaker, in the Nov. 4 general election.

In the primary, public employee groups gave Kuehl money and endorsements but did not mount their own campaign to support her run. She finished first in the primary, followed by her runoff competitor, former Santa Monica City Councilman Bobby Shriver.

Another independent group is supporting Shriver’s candidacy, raising $341,943 through Sept. 19, reports show. That group is primarily made of business interests.

Contributors to independent committees are not subject to the county’s campaign finance law capping donations at $1,500. That frees them to raise and spend unlimited amounts to win voters over to their favored candidates or to attack a rival, as long as they don’t coordinate their actions with the candidates they back.

So far, no attack ads have appeared in the hard-fought campaign. But that could change as the election draws closer, said Raphael Sonenshein, chief of Cal State L.A.’s Pat Brown Institute for Politics.

The outright election in June of former U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis to a supervisor’s seat has raised the possibility that county workers could see a more labor-friendly board if Kuehl wins, Sonenshein said. Supervisor Mark-Ridley Thomas was elected in 2008 with $8 million in spending by a labor-backed outside group.

“Labor has been eyeing changes at the Board of Supervisors, and business is wary about that,” he said. “That’s going to become an important issue.”

Follow me on Twitter at @csaillant2