The largest slate of democratic socialists Los Angeles has ever seen.
The LA chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is looking to advance City Hall by continuing to support city representatives and four City Council seats in the June 2 primary. Their goal, DSA leaders say, is to see the adoption of progressive policies on homelessness, rent control and public safety — and to have a city attorney for social services to make those goals stick.
“The idea is to really think and try to think about concrete steps, about making a city that works for working-class Angelenos,” said Sean Wakasa, a UC Riverside graduate student who is co-chair of the local DSA.
Wakasa said the group sees the city attorney’s office as very important. It endorses DSA member Marissa Roy, deputy state attorney general, against incumbent City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto.
“One of the things that makes us very happy with the city attorney winning and having a socialist as the city attorney is that we will be able to enforce the progressive policy we already have,” he said.
Leaders of business groups and others said they were shocked by the prospect that the democratic socialists would gain more from City Hall. Four of the current 15 council members, including mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, were elected with the support of the DSA. City Administrator Kenneth Mejia has also been recommended, although not officially endorsed, by the group.
“The city is no better place to live than it was before DSA. It’s worse,” said Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. “There are many homeless people, costs are rising, no one is building, it’s a problem.”
Waldman said the biggest concern of DSA members is what he called their aversion to compromise.
“Many elected DSA officials are not willing to meet with the opposition,” he said. “They believe in what they believe. They won’t change. They won’t budge. So it makes it hard for deals to be cut.”
DSA could have six council seats after the June 2 and Nov 3 general elections. Councilors Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martinez were elected with the support of the DSA in 2022 and are again supported by the party as they seek re-election this year.
DSA also supported public interest attorney Faizah Malik against incumbent Councilmember Traci Park in her Westside district, and community organizer Estuardo Mazariegos in the seat currently held by Curren Price, in the district that includes the Convention Center. The party recommended but did not officially endorse Raman as mayor.
DSA Co-Chair Leslie Chang credits several factors for the group’s growing influence, saying that COVID-19, the Trump administration’s policies and the war in Ukraine have led people to become disillusioned with their political leaders. The DSA push was a response to that frustration, he said.
The party also gained momentum with the election of democratic socialists Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City.
DSA-backed council members worked with other left-leaning council members to limit rent increases in rental housing to 4% per year, set a $30 an hour minimum wage for airport and hotel workers and increase wages. unarmed crisis response pilot program, which sends trained mental health professionals to other emergency calls instead of the police.
But they have failed in other efforts when they have been unable to draw moderate democrats to their side, often without the power to limit them. combat areas and camp In the world of the city and block the police contract increase.
Chang said if DSA candidates win, the group expects the city attorney’s office to go after landlords who violate rent laws. And it expects DSA-backed council members to oppose the LAPD’s salary increases and operating budgets and instead work to preserve employee pay raises.
“Having more democratic socialists on the City Council, I think it will be a lot better for the way the city is run and managed,” Chang said.
Kamy Akhavan, executive director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, said the rise of DSA is a national symptom of political polarization — red cities are getting red and blue cities like LA are getting greener, he said, especially in states where one party has a large majority.
Without enough conservatives to force a compromise, dissent must come from elsewhere, Akhavan said.
Maria “Lou” Calanche, one of the candidates challenging Hernandez for re-election, called many of the DSA’s policies too common sense to work. They make him – a self-proclaimed lifelong developer – look balanced, he said.
He pointed to an open-air drug market in MacArthur Park, recently raided, as an example of what he says are DSA’s weak homelessness policies.
“They’re actually trying to be a political machine,” Calanche said. “So everything they’re working against, is.”
Hernandez declined to comment, but Chang did not dispute the assertion that the DSA wants to gain power. He said the difference is that this group is trying to do that through grassroots activists, not big donors, and is focused on working for everyday workers in LA and not special interests.
The growing power of DSA has thrown it into the political mind – recent videos of the AI supporting Spencer Pratt include actors with “DSA” stamped on the back of their jackets as masked vigilantes and “Star Wars” stormtroopers fighting the citizens of LA for Mayor Karen Bass and their common enemy Raman.
Chang laughed when asked about the videos but admitted that they were uncomfortable watching them at first. The DSA takes place in the last observation, he said, because its grassroots support is an external strategy to its right-wing colleagues.
Even if the DSA wins all the mandated races, Wakasa said, its new power could be diminished if the city rolls. adjustment commission process the results of other council seats, but Wakasa said DSA is only focused on winning its own races.
Even looking at these six races, DSA has no intention of slowing down and will start thinking seriously about supporting candidates for regional, state and even national seats, Chang said, to continue expanding its reach.
