It\u2019s the biggest slate of democratic socialists Los Angeles has ever seen. <\/p>\n
The L.A. chapter of Democratic Socialists of America is looking to push City Hall further left by backing candidates for city attorney and four City Council seats in the June 2 primary. Their aim, DSA leaders say, is to see the adoption of progressive policies on homelessness, rent control and public safety \u2014 and to have a socialist city attorney to make those policies stick.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vision is to really imagine and really try to think about the concrete steps, about making a city that works for working-class Angelenos,\u201d said Sean Wakasa, a UC Riverside graduate student who is DSA\u2019s local co-chair.<\/p>\n
Wakasa said the group sees the city attorney\u2019s office as especially crucial. It is endorsing DSA member Marissa Roy, a deputy state attorney general, against incumbent City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto. <\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the reason why we\u2019re really excited about having a city attorney win and having a socialist as a city attorney is that we get to also enforce the existing progressive policy that we already have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Business group leaders and others say they are alarmed about the prospect of democratic socialists gaining more clout in City Hall. Four of the current 15 council members, including mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, were elected with DSA support. City Controller Kenneth Mejia was also recommended, although not formally endorsed, by the group.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city\u2019s not a better place to live than it was before the DSA folks. It\u2019s worse,\u201d said Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. \u201cHomeless are running rampant, costs are going up, no one\u2019s building. It\u2019s problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waldman said a particular concern with DSA members is what he called their aversion to compromise.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost DSA elected officials are unwilling to meet with the opposition,\u201d he said. \u201cThey believe what they believe. They\u2019re not going to change. They\u2019re not going to move. And so it makes it harder for deals to get cut.\u201d<\/p>\n
DSA could potentially hold six council seats after the June 2 primary and Nov. 3 general elections. Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martinez were elected with DSA support in 2022 and have the group\u2019s backing again as they seek reelection this year.<\/p>\n
DSA is also backing public interest attorney Faizah Malik against incumbent Councilmember Traci Park in her Westside district, and community organizer Estuardo Mazariegos for the seat now held by term-limited Curren Price, in a district that includes the Convention Center. The group recommended but didn\u2019t formally endorse Raman for mayor.<\/p>\n
DSA co-Chair Leslie Chang credits several factors for the group\u2019s rising influence, saying COVID-19, Trump administration policies and the Ukraine war led people to become disillusioned with their political leaders. DSA\u2019s push was the answer to those frustrations, she said. <\/p>\n
The group also received a boost with the election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani<\/a> as New York City\u2019s mayor.<\/p>\n DSA-backed council members have worked with other left-leaning council members to cap rent increases<\/a> on rent stabilized properties to 4% per year, impose a $30-an-hour minimum wage for airport and hotel workers<\/a> and expand an unarmed crisis response<\/a> pilot program, which deploys trained mental health professionals to some emergency calls instead of police.<\/p>\n But they\u2019ve been unsuccessful in other endeavors where they can\u2019t pull moderate democrats to their side, often lacking the power to limit anti-encampment zones<\/a> around the city and block police contract increases.<\/a> <\/p>\n Chang said that if DSA candidates win, the group expects the city attorney\u2019s office to go after landlords that violate rent ordinances. And it expects the DSA-backed council members to oppose LAPD wage and operating budget increases and instead work to maintain wage increases for workers.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving more democratic socialists on City Council is, I think, going to be better overall for the way the city is managed and run,\u201d Chang said.<\/p>\n Kamy Akhavan, managing director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, said DSA\u2019s rise is a symptom across the country of political polarization \u2014 red cities are getting redder and blue cities like L.A. are getting bluer, he said, especially in states where one party has a supermajority.<\/p>\n Without enough conservatives to force compromise, contrasting ideas have to come from somewhere else, Akhavan said.<\/p>\n Maria \u201cLou\u201d Calanche, who is one of the candidates challenging Hernandez for reelection, called many of DSA\u2019s policies too ideological to be effective. They make her \u2014 a self-proclaimed lifelong progressive \u2014 look moderate, she said.<\/p>\n She pointed at the open-air drug market in MacArthur Park, which recently underwent a federal raid<\/a>, as an example of what she said are DSA\u2019s weak homelessness policies.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are basically trying to become a political machine,\u201d Calanche said. \u201cSo everything that they are working against, they are becoming.\u201d<\/p>\n Hernandez declined to comment, but Chang didn\u2019t dispute the assertion that DSA is seeking to gain power. The distinction, she said, is that the group is trying to do so through grassroots activism, not through big-money donors, and is focused on serving the everyday workers of L.A. and not special interests. <\/p>\n DSA\u2019s increasing power has thrown it into the political consciousness \u2014 recent AI videos supporting Spencer Pratt feature characters with \u201cDSA\u201d stamped on the backs of their jackets as thuggish masked enforcers<\/a> and \u201cStar Wars\u201d storm troopers<\/a> fighting L.A. residents for Mayor Karen Bass and their shared opponent Raman.<\/p>\n Chang laughed when asked about the videos but admitted they were unsettling to view at first. DSA takes up space in the conservative consciousness, she said, because its grassroots support is a foreign strategy to its right-wing counterparts.<\/p>\n