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  DAVE HILL/Daily Bruin Senior Staff (Left to right) Mayoral candidates Antonio Villaraigosa, Xavier Becerra and Joel Wachs talk on Wednesday.

By Karen Albrecht and Michael Falcone

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

A Los Angeles mayoral debate in Royce Hall was cancelled last night due to protests staged by proponents of affirmative action.

But three of the six invited candidates made an appearance despite the cancellation.

Two of them – Congressman Xavier Becerra and former California State Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa – spoke to students in support of their fight against SP-1.

The third candidate, Joel Wachs, also said he is a strong believer in affirmative action, but added that the debate should still have been held.

“This was a missed opportunity to have students involved in the debate,” Wachs said. “It may have been one of the greatest we have ever had.”

It would have given students the opportunity to air issues they care about, he said.

All candidates were informed that the debate was canceled. Those who did not show were State Controller Kathleen Connell, City Attorney James Hahn and businessman Steve Soboroff.

Shortly after Villaraigosa arrived at Royce, he met with a group of protest leaders. Villaraigosa and Becerra, who arrived later, became impromptu liaisons between the students and Chancellor Albert Carnesale.

Acting as middlemen, the two candidates shuttled back and forth between students inside Royce Hall and university administrators outside to negotiate a time for students to leave the hall without being arrested.

Students were initially directed to leave Royce by 6:30 p.m., but the candidates negotiated for time to speak to demonstrators before the building was cleared, according to Clarence Chapman, chief of university police.

The demonstrators were later given until 8 p.m. to leave Royce. No arrests were made.

“You didn’t cancel the debate; you started one,” Becerra said to the students, while promising to pursue the issue of SP-1 with the UC Board of Regents. “Martin Luther King Jr. would have been proud,” he said.

Because two mayoral candidates spoke to the students despite the cancelled debate and expressed their support, the protest was successful, said Marc Lispi, a fourth-year philosophy student.

“Interrupting the debates will bring a lot of public attention to the issue of SP-1,” Lispi said.

Some students said they were disappointed that only a small number of tickets were initially set aside for student attendance at the debate.

But only 16 of the 200 student tickets which were made available at the Central Ticket Office were picked up, according to Keith Parker, assistant vice chancellor of government and community relations.

The mayoral debate will be rescheduled some time before the April 10 election, although its new location is unknown, said Scott Regberg of the Verizon California State Forum, which co-sponsored the event along with the League of Women Voters.

“It’s a shame because the protest was not related to the mayoral debate,” Regberg said.

Regberg said he hoped student protesters did not have what he called “a misdirected sense of opportunism” in planning the protest to coincide with the debate.

Elias Enciso, internal vice president of the Undergraduate Students Association Council, said he and other students called Villaraigosa earlier in the day, asking him to pressure the regents to put SP-1 on today’s agenda.

Enciso and other students met with Villaraigosa at his home in L.A. several weeks ago to discuss their concerns with him. With the help of UCLA Chicana/o studies Professor Paule Cruz Takash, who telephoned Villaraigosa on her cellular phone Wednesday, the students convinced the candidate to come to UCLA even though the debate had been canceled.

“By coming into Royce and interrupting the debate, we are trying to put pressure on the regents,” said Christopher Young, a third-year physiological science student.

The attending candidates remained at Royce until the students had left the building at 8 p.m. Both Becerra and Villaraigosa planned to speak with the regents at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills after leaving Royce, but neither did.

Though only three of the six invited candidates made it to UCLA after the debate’s cancellation, several of the nine lesser-known candidates who were not invited came to protest limiting the mayoral forum to only a few of the candidates.

Candidates Addie Mae Miller and “Melrose” Larry Green both made an appearance outside Royce. A third uninvited candidate, Steve Mozena, said he had also planned to come to UCLA and publicize his candidacy.

“Not one of the leading candidates have shown the backbone to say that leaving other candidates out is not right,” Mozena said. “They could have held it in Pauley Pavilion and would not have had to exclude us; I bet most of the students and local residents would have come.”