ABSTRACT
This chapter examines coalition patterns at the elite and mass levels that arose during the controversy. It is based on a detailed analysis of public documents, council minutes and videotapes, Los Angeles Times polls and private polls, newspaper articles, and an analysis of the 1993 Los Angeles mayoral election. In his study of Los Angeles, Jesse Jackson found that "the voting data demonstrate the prospect for a coalition forming between the black and Hispanic communities of Los Angeles." The chapter shows that the Rodney King case had a lot to do with restoring the coalition lines that had been fraying as the city grappled with the growth issue. The initial period of the controversy seemed to support the notion that liberal coalition politics had died in Los Angeles. The dramatic events of 1991 and 1992 took the Bradley regime and the people of Los Angeles to peaks and valleys of discord, confrontation, and change.
