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The Candidates

Rocky Delgadillo (D), City Attorney, Los Angeles (2001-2009)

Rocky Delgadillo's two terms as Los Angeles City attorney show him to be an energetic, imaginative legal official who used his office to help the people he represented. Delgadillo became the highest ranking Latino to win citywide office in more than 100 years when he was elected Los Angeles City attorney in June 2001. Many of the crimes the city attorney's office prosecutes are gang and drugs related. Rocky enforced and increased the number of gang injunctions to take on notorious gangs that terrorized neighborhoods. In the eight years Delgadillo was in office, both gang membership and gang crime decreased significantly. Another way to reduce the effects of gangs is to help kids stay in school. Delgadillo's most notable program was the Markham Middle School Safety Initiative, which combined a number of elements, including an emphasis on safety inside the school. As a result, Markham's standardized test scores rose an astonishing 55 percent. Rocky worked to expand the School Safety Prosecutor Program that was effective at Markham to additional challenged middle schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Delgadillo fought just as hard to protect consumers. He stood up to private health insurance companies that routinely cancelled coverage on sick subscribers. He stood up to hospitals that were "dumping" poor patients in distant neighborhoods, and got a city ordinance passed outlawing the practice. His office cracked down on urban polluters, some of whom were discharging toxic substances near Los Angeles schools.