The 2001 election for

Mayor of Los Angeles The mayor of the City of Los Angeles is the official head and chief executive officer of Los Angeles. The officeholder is elected for a four-year term and is term limit, limited to serving no more than two terms. (Under the Constitution of Califo ...

took place on April 10, 2001, with a run-off election on June 5, 2001. Incumbent mayor

Richard Riordan Richard Joseph Riordan (born May 1, 1930) is an American investment banker, businessman, lawyer, and former Republican politician who was the 39th Mayor of Los Angeles, from 1993 to 2001. Born in New York City and raised in New Rochelle, New Y ...

was prevented from running for a third term because of

term limits A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms an officeholder may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method of curbing the potenti ...

. In the election to replace him, then-City Attorney

James Hahn James Kenneth Hahn (born July 3, 1950) is an American lawyer and politician. A Democrat, Hahn was elected the 40th mayor of Los Angeles in 2001. He served until 2005, at which time he was defeated in his bid for re-election. Prior to his term a ...

defeated

Antonio Villaraigosa Antonio Ramón Villaraigosa (; né Villar Jr.; born January 23, 1953) is an American politician who served as the 41st Mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Villaraigosa was a national co-chairman of Hillary ...

, the former speaker of the

California State Assembly The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature, the upper house being the California State Senate. The Assembly convenes, along with the State Senate, at the California State Capitol in Sacramento. The A ...

Results

Primary election

The primary election for Mayor was held on April 10, 2001. Villaraigosa finished first, with 30 percent of the vote. Hahn was second with 25 percent of the vote. City elections in Los Angeles are

nonpartisan Nonpartisanism is a lack of affiliation with, and a lack of bias towards, a political party. While an Oxford English Dictionary definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., in most cases, nonpartisan refers sp ...

; the top two vote-getters advance to the

runoff Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock market ...

if no contender reaches 50 percent. Riordan had endorsed his Senior Advisor and Parks Commissioner, businessman

Steve Soboroff Steve Soboroff (born August 31, 1948) is an American businessman, philanthropist, and politician, who has been serving as a Los Angeles Police Commissioner since August 2013. Soboroff previously served as President of the Los Angeles Recreatio ...

, to replace him. Soboroff, the only prominent

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

in the race, finished third with 21 percent of the vote. Also competing in the primary election were longtime Los Angeles City Council member

Joel Wachs Joel Wachs (, ; born March 1, 1939) is an American former politician and lawyer. He is the president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York City. He was a member of the Los Angeles City Council for 30 years, where he was k ...

United States Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

Xavier Becerra, and then-

California State Controller The state controller of California is a constitutional office in the executive branch of the government of the U.S. state of California. Thirty-two individuals have held the office of state controller since statehood. The incumbent is Betty Yee ...

Kathleen Connell Kathleen Connell is an American businesswoman, journalist, entrepreneur, and academic. She was the California State Controller from 1995 until 2003. She was the first woman to serve in the position. As controller she served as a trustee of CalP ...

. They finished with 11, 6 and 5 percent of the vote, respectively. The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' made a dual endorsement of Hahn and Villaraigosa in the primary election, while the City's other daily newspapers, ''

The Los Angeles Daily News The ''Los Angeles Daily News'' is the second-largest-circulating paid daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California. It is the flagship of the Southern California News Group, a branch of Colorado-based Digital First Media. The offices of the ''Da ...

'' and '' The Daily Breeze'' endorsed Soboroff. The mayoral campaign of Xavier Becerra ran a tape of someone impersonating

Gloria Molina Jesus Gloria Molina (born May 31, 1948) is an American politician and a former member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Molina broke into politics in 1982 by going agai ...

disparaging the voting record of mayoral candidate

. The tape was run by campaign staffer

Lloyd Monserratt Lloyd Monserratt (December 2, 1966 – January 9, 2003), was an American political activist and Director of Constituent Services for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, where he trained a number of future La ...

, and though no laws had been broken, this action tarnished the reputations of all involved.

General election

Riordan switched his endorsement to Villaraigosa in the general election. Despite the popular Republican Mayor's endorsement, as well as the endorsement of the Los Angeles Times, Villaraigosa was unable to capture a majority. Hahn won the general election on June 5, 2001 with 53.53 percent of the vote, to Villaraigosa's 46.47 percent. Soboroff and Becerra remained neutral in the general election. Wachs endorsed Villaraigosa.

Further information

Hahn was sworn in as Los Angeles' 40th mayor in the summer of 2001. Hahn faced Villaraigosa in a runoff rematch in the

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

Los Angeles Mayoral election. In that race, Villaraigosa defeated Hahn to become the 41st mayor of Los Angeles. Soboroff would go on to become a Senior Fellow at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and to the head of the

Playa Vista Playa Vista is a neighborhood in the Westside area of Los Angeles, California. The area was the headquarters of Hughes Aircraft Company from 1941 to 1985 and the site of the construction of the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" aircraft. The ...

development on Los Angeles' Westside, while Wachs became president of the

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

Foundation in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and Connell was termed out of her post as State Controller. Becerra remained a member of the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

until his appointment to succeed Senator

Kamala Harris Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well ...

Attorney General of California The attorney general of California is the state attorney general of the Government of California. The officer's duty is to ensure that "the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced" (Constitution of California, Article V, Section ...

in 2017.

References and footnotes

External links

Office of the City Clerk, City of Los Angeles
{{DEFAULTSORT:Los Angeles Mayoral Election, 2001 Mayoral election, 2001 2001 California elections 2001

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

April 2001 events in the United States