Four years ago, the two candidates running to represent the Hollywood Hills on the Los Angeles City Council spent several months trying to show who had the power. stronger credentials as political progressives.
Urban planner Nithya Raman, then seeking to unseat Councilman David Ryu, spoke about her volunteer work on homelessness, touted her refusal to accept corporate money and called for the defunding the LAPD. Ryu, a mandate holder, ran in his legislation except real estate developers to make campaign donations, while vote to help tenants whose lives had been turned upside down by COVID-19.
Raman prevailed, becoming the first member of the Democratic Socialists of America to remove a City Council member.
Now, as she seeks a second four-year term in Tuesday's election, the political environment is a little more complex: Two opponents are attacking her from the right, some activists are criticizing her from the left, and an avalanche of outside money makes him the Los Angeles City Council's most expensive contest candidate this year.
The result of the race, which now exceeds $2.6 million in overall spending, two-thirds of it for the deputy city attorney. Ethan Weaver will help determine the future of the “progressive vision” espoused by Raman and his allies on the City Council, said Councilman Hugo Soto-Martínez.
That vision, Soto-Martínez said, includes recently enacted measures to reduce the number of evictions and expand tenant relocation payments; “Compassionate” efforts to move homeless people indoors, like those of Mayor Karen Bass. Inside Safe Program; and transportation initiatives such as measure HLA, which would require bus and bike lanes on designated boulevards.
Raman, who describes herself as a “pragmatic progressive,” supports all three.
“What is at stake is the direction the city will take,” said Soto-Martínez, who has been helping Raman in his re-election bid. “Nithya has been a strong advocate for tenant, homelessness and housing issues. “She has really brought a different perspective, one that is now used throughout the city.”
Weaver, who is running to unseat Raman, maintains that his opponent has veered too far to the left on key issues. Weaver, a self-described “pragmatic Democrat,” said his opponent's views on homelessness, public safety and other issues are out of step with those of voters in the district, which stretches from Silver Lake to the Valley. San Fernando.
“City leadership should not be left or right,” said Weaver, who lives in Los Feliz. “It should be about moving things forward in a practical and effective way.”
City Council candidate Ethan Weaver greets Dr. Suzanne Wenzlaff, 80, as she knocks on doors in Los Feliz in December.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
During the election campaign, Weaver has repeatedly emphasized his support for a municipal law that bans homeless encampments near schools. Raman voted against it, calling it ineffective. Weaver has endorsed Bass's package of the police rise, saying they are needed to boost recruiting in a city that has lost about 1,100 officers.
Raman opposite the LAPD salary agreement, saying the increases were very expensive and would trigger a budget crisis.
Weaver, while expressing support for Inside Safe, also argued that the city has been spending more than $1 billion a year on homelessness without making a serious dent in the crisis. The city needs to rectify that by withdrawing from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, she said, and replacing it with an entity that is directly accountable to city leaders.
Raman said city leaders are already taking steps to make LAHSA more effective and warned that a withdrawal would jeopardize federal funding for the homeless.
As he runs for public office for the first time, Weaver has received enormous financial support from police and fire unions, residential and commercial property owners, and other types of donors. By midday Friday, those supporters had spent a total of $1.2 million on mailers, campaign videos and other “independent spending” promoting Weaver or disparaging Raman — the largest amount ever spent to unseat a incumbent member of the Los Angeles council.
Raman, who lives in Silver Lake, has tried to use that money against Weaver, saying she is being attacked for her willingness to stand up to special interests.
in a message to voters, Raman said the police union, a billboard company and a Westside property owner who is They seek to evict hundreds of tenants They're helping Weaver because they don't like his record of fighting police surges, opposing digital billboards and passing pro-tenant legislation, respectively.
That money, Raman said, could have a ripple effect beyond their race, discouraging council members from acting independently in the future.
“It's nice that it's seen as shocking, but I'm very concerned about the chilling effect of real change,” he said.
Raman's supporters have portrayed Weaver as part of a “right-wing power grab,” an accusation that Weaver, who supports gun control and abortion rights, denies.
Raman said that despite the avalanche of outside money, organizations seeking to unseat her have failed to puncture her record, which includes what she called the strongest tenant protection package passed in Los Angeles in more than 40 years.
Raman said his office has made significant progress in combating street homelessness, moving homeless residents indoors from more than a dozen major encampments. Shootings, robberies and homicides decreased by double digits in the district last year, according to his campaign figures.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman (left) speaks with Mayor Karen Bass at a campaign event in Sherman Oaks.
(Mel Melcón / Los Angeles Times)
“Crime has gone down. People are safer in their homes. Homeless encampments are gone” in many places, Raman said during a campaign event with Bass. “They're not saying any of that isn't true. “They just don’t like the fact that I care about people.”
Weaver offered a bleaker assessment, saying residents and business owners in Hollywood, Studio City and elsewhere remain frustrated with the ongoing homelessness crisis and worried about their own personal safety. She said the statistics offered by Raman also do not reflect certain crimes that often go unreported, such as car thefts and low-level robberies.
“The crimes that impact people the most are everyday crimes that are dramatically underreported,” he said. “People say to me, 'Why should I call 911 when it takes 20 minutes to reach an operator and 40 minutes to reach an officer?'”
Under the city's election rules, any candidate who receives more than 50% of the vote will win the race outright, avoiding a runoff in November. That outcome has been made less likely by the presence of a third candidate, software engineer Levon “Lev” Baronian, who sits on the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council.
Baronian has expressed alarm about the money the city's police and fire unions are spending on Weaver. At the same time, he noted that Raman is also benefiting from external spending, which reached $400,000 on Friday.
Among those pro-Raman donors is Unite Here Local 11, the hotel workers union, which has sought to shape planning and zoning decisions. Another is Service Employees International Union Local 721, which has been negotiating a raise package for city workers.
Baronian says he believes the expensive campaigns are turning off the public.
“Voters looked at these two special interest candidates and said, 'No, no, thank you,'” he said.
Raman's district looks quite different from the one she won in 2020. A year after she took office, her colleagues dramatically redrawn the boundaries, eliminating areas like Hancock Park and renter-rich Park La Brea while adding Encino and parts from Studio City. and Reseda.
Meanwhile, the city's progressive politics have become more complicated.
Some activists criticized Raman last year for voting in favor of Bass's budget, which called for hiring 1,000 police officers. Meanwhile, one of Raman's oldest supporters has sent mixed messages.
The Democratic Socialists of America chapter in Los Angeles has been assigning volunteers to knock on doors for Raman. However, that same group also criticized Raman in January for his decision to seek support from Democrats for Israel-Los Angeles. DSA-LA accused that group of supporting “settler colonialism and violence against the Palestinian people.”
“Elected officials endorsed by DSA-LA are expected to govern jointly with the chapter to realize the Democratic Socialist Program (DSP), which includes a commitment to overcome imperialist capitalism and the exploitation of workers around the world,” said the group in es letter Censoring Raman.
When asked about the letter, Raman said he had been trying to create “safer and more supportive conditions” for all city residents.
“In this time of immense pain and division for so many people around the world, I am trying to act in a way that recognizes everyone's pain,” he said in a statement.
Democrats for Israel-Los Angeles ultimately issued a double endorsement, supporting both Raman and Weaver.
Weaver and his allies have sought to highlight Raman's DSA ties, telling voters that the group holds “radical” positions, such as supporting police abolition and defunding Israel.
That message has resonated with Kristin Glushon, who lives in Encino and has hosted two campaign rallies for Weaver.
Glushon, a self-described liberal Democrat, said she is concerned about the DSA's support for Raman. She also spoke in favor of LAPD increases, saying the city needs more officers to address burglaries and car thefts in her neighborhood.
“Right now, the community doesn't feel heard or safe,” she said.
Raman has described DSA-LA as a member of a broad coalition of supporters, which includes Bass and about 100 others. His followers have echoed that message.
Former Councilman Paul Koretz, who represented Encino for several years, said he initially feared Raman was too extreme. But he said that after she took office, he found her to be an effective legislator on climate change and other issues. Koretz delivered that message in January to the county Democratic Party, which later voted to endorse Raman.
“There are a lot of people who have the wrong impression of her, that she is a crazy radical and a strong DSA supporter,” Koretz said in an interview. “I think DSA was just one of many who supported her.”
