“They put incompetent adults ahead of children,” Richard Riordan says of teachers unions who stand in the way of school reform.

The former mayor of Los Angeles took office shortly after the 1992 riots and shortly before the massive 1994 Northridge earthquake. Today, notes Riordan, the City of Angels faces a slate of different crises, from failing public schools to a fiscal calamity that has put the city on the brink of bankruptcy.

In this wide-ranging extended version of an interview that aired in January (and was shot in December), Riordan sits down with Reason.tv’s Tim Cavanaugh to discuss public-sector unions, privatization, LA’s dysfunctional government, why businesses are leaving the city, and why Arnold Schwarzenegger won’t golf with him.

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“Throughout the country, 90 percent of cities and states are going to go bankrupt within the next five years, many of them sooner.” So says former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

Reason.tv’s Tim Cavanaugh sat down with Riordan to discuss state and local budget crises, public-sector unions, and why Riordan recently became a fan of current LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

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The City of Los Angeles – you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.  Slowly, ever since the departure of Mayor Richard Riordan in 2001, the parade of inept mayors and spineless city councils have dragged the city into a morass.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has always been an empty suit, a smirking, glad-handing fool of epic proportions with a history of questionable ethics.  Besides successfully lobbying President Clinton to commute the sentence of a convicted cocaine trafficker, Villaraigosa pulled a John Edwards by allegedly fooling around while his spouse was undergoing cancer treatment.  Add to this the L.A Times report that the Los Angeles Ethics Commission accused him of 31 violations of campaign finance and disclosure laws during his 2003 City Council campaign.  Toss in the report that Villaraigosa was a member of MECha, a Hispanic separatist organization, while at UCLA, and attended an unaccredited law school in Los Angeles that allegedly promoted illegal alien causes (He failed the bar exam four times).

This is the Mayor of Los Angeles, and Angelenos have gotten what they deserve.  They re-elected a man who has shown absolutely no leadership in times of crisis.  His inability to use the bully pulpit has contributed to the dismal record of the Los Angeles Unified School District.  LAUSD is falling apart, unable to manage its budget, unable to fire teachers due to outrageous union rules, and increasing class sizes.  This is not surprising.  A report by the LA Weekly, an alternative newspaper usually known for supporting left-wing causes, did some strong investigative work into Villaraigosa’s schedule.  During one period, the Mayor spent only 11% of his time working on city business.  He has refused to direct LAPD to repeal Special Order 40 – which does not permit officers from asking about someone’s immigration status.

So even in circumstances where an officer sees a KNOWN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT that he himself helped deport following a prior arrest, he cannot report this individual to I.C.E.   This outrageous policy by the Mayor and City Council resulted in the shooting death of a young man named Jamiel Shaw.

However, the most egregious lack of leadership Villaraigosa demonstrates is occurring right now.

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