Bid Launched for 2000 Democratic Convention

The last and only time Los Angeles hosted the Democratic National Convention was in 1960, the year John F. Kennedy clinched the nomination.

On Friday a group of local business leaders and elected officials launched a campaign to bring the convention to the city again--and with it a projected $137 million in revenues.

“More important than the revenues, it’s a way to showcase the city and all that’s going on, especially downtown,” said Eli Broad, chairman and chief executive officer of SunAmerica Inc. and co-chairman of L.A. Convention 2000, the newly formed host committee.

The group officially submitted its bid to host the 2000 Democratic National Convention this week. Touted as a bipartisan undertaking, the bid has the support of Republican Mayor Richard Riordan, a friend of Broad.

“I am confident that our expertise, facilities and resources can deliver an unparalleled experience to convention leadership and delegates,” Riordan wrote in a letter of support.

Other cities competing for the quadrennial gathering include Miami, Detroit and Philadelphia.

The convention is expected to cost the host city about $27 million. Los Angeles Councilman John Ferraro, whose resolution supporting the bid was passed this week, said most of the costs would be covered by private funds raised by the host committee. The city’s contribution would be in-kind services, including extra police, he said.

“Needless to say, we’re strapped for money, and we’re not going to be putting money” into the undertaking, he added.

The effort is a public/private venture patterned after the partnership used during the 1984 Olympics, Ferraro said. Other co-chairmen of L.A. Convention 2000 include DreamWorks SKG principal David Geffen and William Wardlaw, partner at the investment firm Freeman Spogli & Co. and a Riordan confidant.

Supporters of the bid point to a long list of attributes that they say make Los Angeles an ideal site for a national political convention.

They cite a revitalized economy and downtown facilities such as the Staples Center, a sports and entertainment complex scheduled to open in 1999, and the Los Angeles Convention Center. New cultural venues such as the Getty Center and the planned Disney Hall and new downtown cathedral also add to the city’s appeal, they say.

“In Washington they know how to count,” Broad said. “We have 54 electoral votes [in the state]. It’s not possible for a Democratic nominee to win the presidential election without carrying California.”

The bid is the latest attempt to lure the convention to Los Angeles.

In 1994, a committee was formed to seek the 1996 Democratic convention. However, committee members and the mayor determined that such an effort--while the city was recovering from the Northridge earthquake--was not practical, said Gailmarie Fort of the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is managing the current bid.

This year the city is in a much stronger position, organizers said.

For Chicago, the site of the 1996 Democratic Convention, playing host yielded immeasurable benefits, said Don Davis, who served as financial director for Chicago 1996, the committee behind the convention there.

“It put 1968 behind us,” Davis said, referring to violent protests that marred that year’s convention in Chicago. “It showcased the city as one of the most livable cities, if not the most livable city, in the United States.”

He said that in addition to the millions of dollars such an event pours directly into a city’s economy, there is the harder-to-measure value of the national and international media attention.

“It was considered a very positive event,” he said of the ’96 gathering. “The vast majority of people were very happy with it, and in fact the city is pursuing the Republican convention this time.”

In Los Angeles the decision to go after the Democratic rather than the Republican gathering was pragmatic, supporters said, not political. Committee members reasoned that their chances of winning the GOP bid were slim because the 1996 Republican National Convention was held in San Diego.

Next month members of L.A. Convention 2000 will travel to Washington to meet with members of the Democratic National Committee’s site selection panel. In June, 54 members of the selection committee will visit Los Angeles, Fort said, staying at the Regal Biltmore Hotel downtown. They will tour the city via helicopter, visit the Convention Center and other locations and hear a presentation on plans for the Staples Center.

The goal is to convince the selection panel to see Los Angeles as the L.A. Convention 2000 members do.

“We are on an economic rebound,” Fort said. “There’s a lot of excitement. People are believing in the city they call home. They want to share that.”