Free Republic

Former Los Angeles mayor has received more than $1 million in campaign contributions and other financial support from fossil-fuel interests during his decades in public life. His support of the oil industry illustrates a broader divide in the Democratic Party about wanting to fight climate change, but not to the detriment of low-income Americans. As California positions itself as a leader on climate change, former Los Angeles mayor and gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa is pivoting away from his own track record as an environmental champion to defend the state’s struggling oil industry.Villaraigosa’s work to expand mass transit, plant trees and...

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) will run for governor of California in 2026 after current Gov. Gavin Newsom reaches his two-term limit. The Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday: Villaraigosa, who has been out of elected office since leaving Los Angeles City Hall in 2013, joins a crowded field of high-level Democratic candidates that includes Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former state Controller Betty Yee, state Sen. Toni Atkins, and state schools Supt. Tony Thurmond. All are vying to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is serving his second and final term in office.

Hundreds of thousands of voters’ names have been accidentally left off the rosters in Los Angeles County because of a printing error. About 2.3 percent of registered voters in the county — or 118,522 voters — were missing on the lists for Tuesday’s primaries, according to The Los Angeles Times. But those voters are still able to cast provisional ballots, though they won’t be verified right away. This will have an impact in more than a dozen House districts, but will likely have the most dramatic effect on the race to replace retiring GOP Rep. Ed Royce, where Democrats are...

The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board endorsed former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for Mayor on Thursday saying he should be California’s next governor because he “showed political courage in hard times.” Villaraigosa is currently trending in third place behind former Chicago resident and San Diego businessman Republican John Cox who would make it to the general election if he finishes in second place behind frontrunner Democrat Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Two Republicans, businessman John Cox and Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach), have now passed former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in the race for California governor, according to a new poll. Cox has 18 percent of likely voters and Allen has 16 percent, according to the University of California Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) Poll, as reported by the Fresno Bee. Villaraigosa is a distant fourth, at just 9 percent. All trail Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, who is at 30 percent. But Villaraigosa’s fall is stunning. He had 17 percent of likely voters in December, according to the poll. But...

The California Democratic Party decided not to endorse in the U.S. Senate contest on Saturday, an embarrassing rebuke of veteran Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein, who has represented California in the Senate for a quarter-century, is facing an insurgent bid by a fellow Democrat, state Senate leader Kevin de León. He earned nearly 500 more votes than the senator, who was first elected in 1992. De León has cultivated relationships with the party’s delegates. He still faces a significant challenge in trying to topple Feinstein, who trounces De León in all public polling and fund-raising. The party also did not endorse...

Back in the summer of 2012 the City of Los Angeles realized that they had a serious budget problem on their hands and the culprit, as in so many other cities, was the city’s extremely generous pension plan for municipal workers. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, backed by the city council, jumped into the fray and passed what was then described as sweeping pension reform and patted themselves on the back for a job well done. (LA Times, 2012) Despite a raucous protest and threats of a lawsuit from city labor unions, the Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to roll...

Former Los Angeles mayor and potential California gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa told the Democratic National Convention the party "must stand up and fight for these 11 million" illegal aliens in the United States, "for we are our brother's keeper." "These 11 million people have no credentials to this hall," Villaraigosa said, "they don't even have a vote."

3,600-square-foot 1977 contemporary home has 360-degree views of the Hollywood sign, the Griffith Park Observatory, downtown Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean. It has three bedrooms, four bathrooms, and an art studio. Villraigosa was mayor of LA from 2005 to 2013, when he was termed out...

Former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has decided not to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by liberal Democrat Barbara Boxer after 2016. With strong support among Latino voters in California, Villaraigosa was seen as a major potential threat to Attorney General Kamala Harris (D), who was the first to declare for the seat With Villaraigosa out of the running, the path is cleared for Harris–unless Condoleezza Rice or another household name enters the Senate fray.

Listen live to John & Ken show at 5pm Pacific for what should prove to be quite a debate between potential U.S. Senate hopefuls hopefuls Loretta Sanchez and Tony Villaraigosa. They are what my state has become --- a joke and caricature of itself. Unbelievable. My guess is that they will ask questions and dub in some of the idiotic things each of these fools has said. It should be fun. LISTEN ONLINE TO KFI, LOS ANGELES

With only weeks gone but years left in California's Senate race, national Democrats appear eager to anoint state Attorney General Kamala Harris as the 2016 successor to Sen. Barbara Boxer's seat. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee weighed in lauding Harris' candidacy after she announced her decision last week, and high-profile sitting senators including Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Cory Booker also feted the new front-runner. But outside the Beltway, another group of Democratic power players and donors is coalescing behind the goal of electing California's first Latino senator, and they already have their candidate in mind: former Los Angeles Mayor...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A Malaysian recruited by al-Qaeda to pilot a plane in a second wave of Sept. 11-style attacks on the United States pulled out after observing the carnage of the 2001 assaults, Southeast Asian officials said Friday. President Bush on Thursday outlined details of an alleged plot to hijack an airliner and fly it into a skyscraper in Los Angeles. He said cooperation between Washington and several Asian countries helped expose it. The plan never appeared close to the stage where it could be put into execution. Scores of arrests in the aftermath of the Sept. 11,...

In his retirement, former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has decided to enter the exciting world of multi-level marketing, taking on a new role as adviser to Herbalife, the Amway of nutritional supplements. The move comes as Herbalife hires lobbyists and gears up for a battle on Capitol Hill over its business model. Congresswoman Linda Sanchez has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether the company is actually operating as a pyramid scheme. villaraigosaherbalife2.jpg Wikipedia Another silly photoshop image Herbalife looks to be signing up Democrats who might have some sway with the Obama administration. Today, the New York Post...

WASHINGTON (KABC) -- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was in the national spotlight Monday calling for federal immigration reform. With so many priorities in Washington D.C. right now, the mayor said he doesn't want this issue to fall off the radar screen. Villaraigosa spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and called repairing the nation's broken immigration system an economic imperative. He wants a pathway to citizenship as the core of any reforms. "No human being is illegal. No human being should be illegal. We must enshrine this principle into the heart and soul of this country's immigration...

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Monday, said the federal government should stop deporting “non-serious criminal” aliens as a means of making the nation safer. “It is time to put an end to the practice of deporting non-serious criminals,” said Villaraigosa. “Our neighborhoods will be safer and our families will be more secure.” …

Trouble-prone actor Charlie Sheen has apologized for a homophobic slur caught on video during a party Friday. "I meant no ill will and intended to hurt no one and I apologize if I offended anyone," Sheen told TMZ.com Sunday after the website posted a video of him at what was billed as "Charlie Sheen's Epic Bar Grand Opening" at the El Ganzo hotel in Puerto Los Cabos, Baja California, Mexico. He added to TMZ, apparently jocularly, "I meant to say maggot but I have a lisp." In the video, Sheen at a microphone warms up the crowd for musical guest...

Los Angeles could soon be the latest of several cities across the nation to make life easier for illegal immigrants by offering them official photo identification cards to help them access taxpayer-funded services and open bank accounts. It’s a necessary measure to help illegal aliens incorporate into civic life, according to lawmakers in the city of about 4 million. Nearly half of L.A. residents are of Hispanic or Latino origin, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and a chunk are in the U.S. illegally. One L.A. councilman told a local newspaper that the ID cards will allow illegal aliens “who...

Villaraigosa platform flap now the subject of a campaign adSeptember 7, 2012 | 3:48 pm An awkward moment for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at the Democratic National Convention has become the subject of a new television ad for a Republican congressman seeking reelection. U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) announced that his re-election campaign has begun running a 60-second spot on Friday that shows Villaraigosa -- acting in his role as DNC chairman -- being booed by delegates after a trio of voice votes over changes to the Democratic Party’s official platform. Those changes included the reinsertion of the word...

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel took time off from the busy job standing idle while an alarming number of shootings plague his city to come and party for the week. Were he to have an R after his name, the media would’ve crucified him. But he doesn’t, so let the good times roll. Lilly Ledbetter, self-appointed champion of equal pay for women, took to the stage to extoll the virtues of the Obama administration … which pays women in the White House significantly less than male employees. The irony went both unnoticed by the crowd and unmentioned by the media. Nancy...