Voters in State Assembly District 57 have a choice between two Democrats in the Nov. 5 election running to replace expired Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer.
This district, which includes much of South Los Angeles, the unincorporated community of Florence-Graham, USC, and much of downtown from Crypto.com Arena and the Los Angeles Convention Center to Skid Row, needs a representative who will be an effective advocate for constituents on a range of issues, from the housing crisis and homelessness to criminal justice reform and climate change.
Of the two candidates, Sade Elhawary, a community activist and educator, offers the clearest and most ambitious vision for uniting the district’s communities and improving the daily lives of people struggling with California’s high cost of living, homelessness, crime and other pressing challenges.
Her experience working with youth as a high school history teacher, college counselor, and foster parent will provide her with valuable insights as a legislator, as will her work experience developing social justice curriculum for students, leading fundraising and community organizing efforts, and training and mentoring youth activists.
Elhawary, whose mother emigrated from Guatemala and her father from Egypt, also shows the most promise for uniting black and Latino residents in a historically black district that is now 71% Latino and 17% black.
Elhawary would also be a strong advocate for humane and smart measures to address homelessness, such as strengthening tenant protections to prevent eviction and building more affordable housing and cutting red tape that delays construction. She supports criminal justice reform and wants to address overpolicing by focusing on prevention-based programs to reduce crime and gun violence. She supports important environmental justice measures, such as phasing out oil drilling, cleaning up abandoned wells, and shifting to renewable energy and zero-emission vehicles.
Elhawary may not have held elected office before, but she has experience that shows she can get things done. For example, as a youth organizer she helped create a Community Wellness Clinic and Community Garden to Fremont High School.
She has been attacked for having grown up outside the district. It is a ridiculous criticism because she was born in Los Angeles and grew up near Dodger Stadium. Her family moved to Altadena when she was in high school, but as an adult she has lived and worked for years in the district in South Los Angeles, advocating for its social and economic improvement and building solidarity between the black and Latino communities. We believe that experience is more valuable than where she spent her childhood.
She recognizes the need to balance her progressive ideals with difficult realities, such as a massive state budget deficit, by making thoughtful decisions that don’t unnecessarily gut essential safety net programs — an approach she says is inspired by one of her mentors, Mayor Karen Bass, who has endorsed her. Elhawary has worked for the Community Coalition, the South Los Angeles nonprofit founded by Bass, and for the mayor’s committee. 2022 election campaign.
Elhawary has also been endorsed by a long list of prominent lawmakers, including U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler and County Supervisors Hilda Solis and Holly Mitchell, and a wide range of unions and organizations such as Abundant Housing LA and Equality California.
The other candidate is Efren Martinez, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and small business owner from Florence-Firestone who has led the local Chamber of Commerce and is running a campaign focused on economic development and public safety.
He previously competed against Jones-Sawyer in 2020 with the support of the corrections officers union and other law enforcement groups, and backed by police unions, the oil, gas and tobacco industries and other big business interests.
Some of Martinez's views match those of his financial backers. He downplays the impact of oil drilling on neighborhoods, and his main suggestion for addressing public safety is to put more police on the streets. But he provided a series of worryingly vague answers about what he would do once in office. He told the editorial board, for example, that he wants to increase education funding, but he didn't say how he would do it, because it would be “irresponsible” for him to provide a plan until he is elected. And his campaign has at times fed division in a community with a history of tense relations between blacks and Latinos.
That's not what this district, which faces some of Los Angeles' most pressing challenges, needs.
What is needed is a representative who is not afraid to share her political plans and whose platform seeks to unite, rather than divide. That is Elhawary, and voters should vote for her.
