Democratic socialists are looking to extend their hold on Los Angeles City Hall this fall with their biggest prizes yet: mayor and city attorney.
Mayoral candidate Nithya Raman and city attorney Marissa Roy, both members of the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, are headed to the Nov. 3 general election.
If he wins in November, Raman will join the ranks of democratic socialists leading major US cities, including New York’s Zohran Mamdani and Seattle’s Katie Wilson. Washington, DC, looks like this: Janeese Lewis George won the Democratic primary for mayor this month, all but guaranteeing a general election victory in that blue city.
In Los Angeles, a social democratic mayor and city attorney could mean more friction because of ideological deadlock between the two offices, said Fernando Guerra, a political science professor at Loyola Marymount University. In a situation like this, he said, the city attorney’s office is unlikely to be a check against the mayor’s authority to set policy on issues such as land use and public safety.
“It’s a given that the city attorney will interpret a large part of the policy that the Mayor may push to be the right policy, and not challenge it,” Guerra said.
The election of Raman and Roy will further emphasize the left-leaning Los Angeles, which has four members of the City Council, including Raman, members of the DSA – two of whom were re-elected in the first place. City administrator Kenneth Mejia, who was recommended (though not officially endorsed) by the DSA, was also re-elected.
DSA has won over radical left-leaning views of establishment Democrats, such as incumbent LA Mayor Karen Bass. The LA DSA chapter, for example, says its goals include to abolish prisons and reducing police funding.
The Chairman of DSA-LA, Sean Wakasa, said that his organization is growing in LA and the whole country because it undermines the idea of socialism.
“Democratic socialism is ultimately, ultimately, about making politics that working-class Americans can see themselves in,” Wakasa said.
In Los Angeles, Wakasa said, the DSA mayor is expected to build more public transit, strengthen employer protections, fight for workers’ rights, raise the minimum wage and protect local immigrants from the federal government.
The city attorney, he said, is expected to protect working-class Angelenos by enforcing employer protections, solving wage theft problems and enforcing sanctuary city policies.
Business groups and public safety advocates have expressed concern about DSA members calling City Hall.
“They’re going to face the city,” said Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. He said Raman and Roy “don’t just drink the DSA Kool-Aid, they live it.”
Waldman said he would expect Los Angeles under the leadership of social democrats to adopt overzealous tenant protection policies that would stifle new rental growth. He said they will also try to weaken the police force, which has resulted in free crime for all.
“They’re going out of business,” Waldman said.
Roy, who has promised to turn the city attorney’s office into the “biggest law firm in town,” targeting wage theft, employer abuse and other problems, denied Waldman’s assertion.
“Allowing bad actors to break our laws doesn’t make LA safer or more affordable — enforcing it to protect employers, workers and consumers does,” Roy said in a statement.
Raman said in a statement that he supports “DSA’s commitment to fighting for working people and those left behind by a political system that often serves powerful interests instead of everyday Angelenos.”
But he also said that “there is no easy or straightforward way to fill the hole.”
“I have always believed that the most progressive thing you can do is to make the government deliver,” said Raman. “Every time City Hall fails to do that — potholes that don’t get fixed, street lights that stay black, 911 calls that go unanswered — it destroys people’s faith that government can solve problems at all.”
Rick Cole, a former deputy mayor of LA, said the DSA label of both candidates does not mean they will stick to a more played-out version of what DSA stands for. He said that no one will run for election.
Raman’s membership in the DSA “is an indication that he will be very skeptical of the police,” said Cole, a member of the Pasadena City Council. “He will focus more on affordable housing. He will focus more on a humane way to get people off the streets.”
A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by The Times showed that in a head-to-head poll, Raman was supported by 32% of registered voters, compared to 28% for Bass.
Bass finished first in the juniors, ahead of Raman, with former TV personality Spencer Pratt finishing third.
With Pratt out, the race is on for both campaigns to appeal to his voters, who are generally considered conservative. However, the Bass campaign said it does not plan to focus on aligning itself with Raman’s DSA.
“What matters is not the labels — that’s who he is [Raman’s] record shows, and that vote repeatedly to allow parking near schools and reduce our police force. It’s the opposite of what LA needs and what the majority of LA believes,” Bass campaign spokesman Alex Stack said in a statement.
Raman, who was twice elected to the City Council with the support of DSA, voted against hiring more police officers and spending money to create new anti-camping zones in the city.
Another irony is that three other DSA members in the City Council – Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado and Hugo Soto-Martínez – all endorsed Bass, citing the mayor’s strong opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration raids last year, among other factors.
In the first lesson, the DSA chapter of LA recommended Raman but did not recommend him, the difference being that the endorsement comes with active campaigning and support from DSA members. DSA-LA co-chair Leslie Chang said it was not yet clear whether her party would endorse Raman in the runoff.
The DSA’s endorsement of Raman may now be a mixed blessing, since Pratt’s support comes from conservative parts of the city, said Christian Grose, a political science professor at USC.
“Karen Bass is not liked by Pratt voters, and DSA is not liked by Pratt voters, but they will decide the mayoral election,” he said.
Roy, the deputy state attorney general, finished first in the city attorney’s poll by a wide margin and will face John McKinney, the deputy district attorney, in the race.
McKinney said electing Roy to the city attorney’s office would be like “going back in time” there George Gascón was the chief prosecutor in Los Angeles County, which police and prosecutors say is a public safety disaster.
In recent City Council primaries, DSA-endorsed incumbents Hernandez and Soto-Martinez both won re-election easily, while DSA-endorsed Faizah Malik failed to push incumbent Traci Park in her Westside district contest.
In the race for Council District 9, DSA-endorsed community organizer Estuardo Mazariegos will be running against Jose Ugarte, former Curren Price aide.
DSA leaders are happy with the way the candidates performed.
“The DSA has taken over LA County politics,” Chang said.
