James Hahn

Elected at the age of 30 and sworn in two days before his 31st birthday, Hahn is the youngest person ever elected to that position.

James Kenneth Hahn (born July 3, 1950) is an American lawyer and politician.

Hahn was born on July 3, 1950, in Los Angeles, the son of Ramona (Fox) and Kenneth Hahn, and was raised in the Morningside Park district of Inglewood near South Los Angeles.

Hahn attended Manchester Avenue Elementary School, Daniel Freeman Elementary School, Horace Mann Junior High School, and Los Angeles Lutheran High School.

He graduated from the Los Angeles campus of Pepperdine University in California magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in English and a minor in journalism in 1972.

Prior to his term as Mayor, Hahn served in several other capacities for the city of Los Angeles, including deputy city attorney (1975–1979), city controller (1981–1985) and city attorney (1985–2001).

Hahn is the only individual in the city's history to have been elected to all three citywide offices.

He is currently a sitting judge on the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

As Mayor, Hahn appointed Bill Bratton, the former NYPD Commissioner, as Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, opting not to renew Bernard Parks' second term as chief.

Bratton's appointment is widely seen as leading to the sharp declines in Los Angeles' crime rate and improved morale in the department.

Hahn also led the successful campaign to defeat secession in the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood, and San Pedro, thereby keeping Los Angeles intact.

He received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the Pepperdine University School of Law in 1975.

Upon graduation in 1975 until 1979, Hahn worked as a prosecutor and deputy city attorney in the Office of the City Attorney.

From 1979 to 1981, he was in private practice with Robert Horner.

In 1981, Hahn was elected the fifth City Controller of Los Angeles and served until 1985.

Hahn served from 1985 to 2001 as Los Angeles City Attorney, overseeing one of the largest public law offices in the nation with approximately 450 attorneys.

As City Attorney, he worked to rid LA's neighborhoods of gang activity through the use of gang injunctions.

He was involved in crafting state legislation regarding gang enforcement known as the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act.

During Hahn's tenure, he led the litigation to stop the Joe Camel ad campaign and reached a settlement of 312 million dollars for the city.

He used those funds to create the Tobacco Enforcement Project to prevent the sale of tobacco to minors.

Hahn re-established the domestic violence unit and sponsored over 30 pieces of relevant state legislation, helping to shape California's domestic violence laws.

In 1994, he was selected as the School of Law's distinguished alumnus.

While in college, he assisted in the development of a paralegal program for the Family Law Center of the Legal Aid Society and during law school, he clerked for the Los Angeles district attorney's office.

A Democrat, Hahn was elected the 40th mayor of Los Angeles in 2001.

While he is noted primarily for these two accomplishments, they also helped lead to his unsuccessful re-election bid; African Americans upset at Parks' ousting and San Fernando Valley residents disappointed with the secession verdict had been the two constituencies that had propelled him to victory four years earlier in 2001.

A member of the Hahn family of California, he is the brother of Los Angeles County Supervisor and former Congresswoman Janice Hahn, the nephew of former California State Assemblyman and Los Angeles City Councilman Gordon Hahn and the son of former Los Angeles City Councilman and long-time Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

Hahn was elected in 2001, defeating Antonio Villaraigosa to serve as the 40th mayor of Los Angeles.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States Conference of Mayors appointed Hahn to serve as chair of its aviation security task force, in which he assisted in the passage of a federal aviation security bill.

To better prepare the city for future emergencies, Hahn convened a Homeland Security cabinet in his office, coordinated Los Angeles' "Operation Archangel" to protect its infrastructure and lobbied for state and federal public safety grants.

Mayor Hahn led the successful efforts to defeat secession in the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood, and San Pedro, effectively keeping the city together.

He followed up with a program called "Teamwork LA" to bring government closer to the people, which among other initiatives, created seven neighborhood City Halls throughout the city and launched the city's 24/7 non-emergency phone line 311.

He also championed the city's neighborhood councils system which was approved by the City Council just before he became Mayor in May 2001; over eighty councils were certified during his time in office.

Hahn implemented priority based budgeting to include neighborhood councils in the budget process, providing each council with $50,000 for any purpose and an additional $100,000 for street and sidewalk improvements.

With Councilman Eric Garcetti, Hahn created the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs to engage immigrants in civic life.

The office was disbanded during the tenure of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa but revived when Garcetti became Mayor.

In 2002, Mayor Hahn rejected Bernard Parks for a second term as Los Angeles police chief and appointed former NYPD Commissioner William Bratton to the position.

Together with Bratton, he reinstated the community policing program, introduced the COMPSTAT system to better track crime, implemented a flexible work week schedule for officers, and streamlined LAPD's hiring process, all part of a broader effort to increase the recruitment and retention of officers.

As a result, the LAPD experienced an increase in its ranks, morale significantly rose throughout the department and all areas of crime dropped steadily.

Mayor Hahn provided funding to ensure the presence of at least one ambulance in every fire station throughout the city.

He served until 2005, at which time he was defeated in his bid for re-election.