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<\/p>\nNithya Raman paused when the question came during a debate with Mayor Karen Bass in Sherman Oaks.
What does she need to work on, she was asked by the moderator, to improve as a politician?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I know I need to keep working on is that in order to make sure that your ideas aren\u2019t stopped, you have to invite people in before you try and put them forward,\u201d she said after giving the matter some thought. <\/p>\n
It was a moment of frank self-reflection for the Los Angeles City Council member hoping to be the next mayor. <\/p>\n
A graduate of Harvard and MIT, Raman is widely regarded as one of the smartest people in City Hall. She has spearheaded significant legislation during her six years on the City Council, including initiating the city\u2019s Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance in 2021 and leading the push last year to update the city\u2019s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, lowering the annual maximum allowable rent increases. <\/p>\n
At the same time, she gets poor marks from her council colleagues, her progressive allies and community leaders in Politics 101: Working with others, forging alliances and listening to other points of view. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe is not a natural-born politician. She\u2019s much more attuned to governing than politicking,\u201d said Rick Cole, who was a deputy mayor when Eric Garcetti had the job and is now a Pasadena City Council member. \u201cBut she\u2019s a quick learner and she has learned some lessons and has a huge amount of upward potential because of that.\u201d <\/p>\n
Surprise announcement<\/p>\n
Raman entered the June 2 mayoral primary race right before the filing deadline, and just weeks after her endorsement for Bass had been announced. <\/p>\n
She declined to be interviewed for this story. In a statement, Raman said that she was aware that her \u201clast-minute entry into the race ruffled some feathers in City Hall, including for many people I respect. But like many Angelenos, I felt frustrated by the direction of our city, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s OK to wait four years to change course.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have led the passage of some of the most significant legislation in recent history in L.A.,\u201d her statement said. \u201cWorking with my council colleagues, we passed the strongest renter protections in America, lowered rent increases for the first time in 40 years, enacted a Sanctuary City ordinance to protect immigrants, created a homelessness oversight bureau, and established independent redistricting to reform City Hall.\u201d <\/p>\n
Raman had won her two elections to the council with the support of the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. But she didn\u2019t reach out to the group\u2019s leaders for support until after she declared her candidacy, said Leslie Chang, the co-chair of the DSA\u2018s L.A. chapter. <\/p>\n
\u201cDSA sees politics as a collective,\u201d Chang said. \u201cThat is very much the case when someone is running for office. It should never be about an individual doing something on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chang has said she is backing Raman, but the DSA opted against an endorsement and simply recommended Raman to its members.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nithya Raman with business owners on Olvera Street in Los Angeles on May 19.<\/p>\n
(Ronaldo Bola\u00f1os \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Raman hasn\u2019t been endorsed by any of the 15 council members in the primary, where polls show she and former reality TV star Spencer Pratt are in a close race for second place in an expected runoff with Bass. All the other DSA-backed council members \u2014 Hugo Soto-Mart\u00ednez, Ysabel Jurado and Eunisses Hernandez \u2014 endorsed Bass.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you want to move fast, you move alone,\u201d Hernandez told The Times two days after Raman joined the mayoral race. \u201cWhen you want to move right, you move with the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Raman signaled from the get-go that she understood the city\u2019s political establishment would not be with her. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was an outsider when I first ran and I think I\u2019ll be an outsider in this race and I\u2019m OK with that,\u201d she said after she announced her candidacy in February.<\/p>\n
Mayoral platform<\/p>\n
Raman has criticized Bass\u2019 Inside Safe program to address homelessness, saying it\u2019s too costly. She has pledged to take a data-driven approach on that and other thorny issues, including streetlights that are out and pothole-riddled roads. Raman, whose husband, Vali Chandrasekaran, is a prominent television writer, has also promised to bring Hollywood jobs back to the city by lowering fees and streamlining permitting.<\/p>\n
She also believes the city has to dramatically expand the creation of new housing, reduce red tape for developers and introduce \u201cgentle density\u201d into single-family zoned neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
Raman emigrated from India to the United States as a child. She attended Harvard and then MIT for a graduate degree in urban planning. <\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Nithya Raman in 2020, when she was running for Los Angeles City Council. <\/p>\n
(Gabriella Angotti-Jones \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Before joining the council, Raman started a nonprofit called SELAH, which works to address the needs of homeless Angelenos in Silver Lake, Echo Park and Hollywood. Before that, she interned for the city, working to track the amount Los Angeles was spending on its homelessness response.<\/p>\n
Raman was considered a top contender from the moment she entered the race, but recent polls have shown her hovering around second or third place as she battles with Pratt for an expected Nov. 3 runoff against front-runner Bass. <\/p>\n
\u201814 more just like me\u2019<\/p>\n
When Raman first joined the council, her colleague Monica Rodriguez took her out to dinner with their husbands to Momed in Atwater Village. <\/p>\n
They shared a few bottles of wine. Rodriguez said that despite the fact that Raman had unseated her ally<\/a>, David Ryu, in Council District 4 \u2014 the first time a council candidate ousted an incumbent in 17 years \u2014 she wanted to build a relationship with Raman. <\/p>\n But Rodriguez, who has endorsed Bass for mayor and is a frequent critic of Raman, said she was taken aback by Raman\u2019s attitude at their dinner. <\/p>\n \u201cShe was like, \u2018The only problem with this council is there needs to be 14 more just like me,\u2019\u201d Rodriguez recalled.<\/p>\n Raman doesn\u2019t remember saying that, nor does it sound like something she would say, a spokesperson for Raman said. <\/p>\n Not long into Raman\u2019s first term as a council member, a major scandal broke<\/a>: the release of a secretly recorded audiotape in which three Latino members of the City Council, including the council president, could be heard making racist comments.<\/p>\n Along with slurs against Blacks, Jews and Armenians, the council members discussed putting Raman\u2019s district \u201cin the blender\u201d to make it harder for her to win reelection.<\/p>\n It was a rude awakening to the sometimes cutthroat nature of city politics. <\/p>\n Nithya Raman in the City Council chambers at Los Angeles City Hall in February.<\/p>\n (Myung J. Chun \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n \u201cShe walked into such a hostile environment,\u201d said a former staffer for Raman, who asked for confidentiality to discuss dynamics on the council. \u201cI don\u2019t think it was any secret other council members had a high distaste for her the moment she walked in.\u201d<\/p>\n That episode had an affect on how Raman worked with other council members, the former staffer said. <\/p>\n \u201cShe had a real chip on her shoulder of feeling bullied. She perceives so much opposition as bullying so it\u2019s like, \u2018Why does everyone pick on me?\u2019 on one end and then extreme ego, \u2018I\u2019m the only one who\u2019s right and everyone else can\u2019t see it,\u2019 on the other end.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018This person has not built consensus\u2019<\/p>\n Raman has also struggled to gain the support of some neighborhood groups in her district. <\/p>\n Debra Matlock, who runs the Los Feliz Improvement Assn., said Raman\u2019s office responds quickly to problems in the community but lacks the kind of warm bedside manner that politicians use to endear themselves with constituents.<\/p>\n The late Tom LaBonge<\/a>, who represented the district from 2001 to 2015, was an old-school politician who knew everyone\u2019s name in the neighborhood and attended every meeting of the improvement association, Matlock recalled. Raman, she said, usually sends a deputy. <\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s this long shadow of feeling like you were seen by LaBonge,\u201d Matlock said. \u201cThat is hard to get out from under.\u201d <\/p>\n Matlock\u2019s view is echoed over the hills in the San Fernando Valley. The board of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. was accustomed to regular meetings with the district council member, president Matt Epstein said. Raman, he said, has met with the board just twice in six years.<\/p>\n Raman and the group are at odds on several issues, especially on housing policy. Raman believes the city must increase density in single-family neighborhoods, while the homeowners group would prefer to limit such development to commercial corridors.<\/p>\n City Councilmember and mayoral candidate Nithya Raman at a City Hall news conference in March. <\/p>\n (Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Raman drew boos from the group in 2024 when she asserted that it wouldn\u2019t make a difference for student safety if a homeless camp was located five feet or 500 feet from a school. Raman, running for reelection at the time, rolled her eyes at the response. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not about political differences,\u201d Epstein said. \u201cA true leader is someone who leads. You need to build consensus and this person has not built any consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n Amos Marvel, the vice president of the Reseda Neighborhood Council, counters that Raman has shown a genuine concern about homelessness and housing issues in the district and that her office was very responsive during immigration raids over the summer.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s smart as a whip and she\u2019s listening and trying to work on things that are pragmatic and having real impact on people in our community,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n In comments on background, several council members said Raman doesn\u2019t seem to have an interest in the kind of politicking needed to advance her agenda. Bass brought that critique out into the open during a Politico event last week. <\/p>\n \u201cShe doesn\u2019t know how to build relationships with her colleagues on council, which is why she doesn\u2019t have any support,\u201d Bass said. \u201cAnd if you want to be the mayor and you can\u2019t get along with people who are your colleagues on council, I don\u2019t know how you\u2019re supposed to govern at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Raman\u2019s supporters acknowledge she has shortcomings when it comes to retail politics, but say those should not overshadow her strengths. <\/p>\n \u201cShe has the courage to do what she thinks is right and not just consider the political dynamics,\u201d said Jesse Zwick, a Santa Monica City Council member and Raman\u2019s former communications director. <\/p>\n But those decisions \u2014 like running for mayor at the last minute and challenging the Democratic incumbent \u2014 have political consequences especially when they represent major departures from her previous stances. <\/p>\n From \u2018defund the police\u2019 to stay the course<\/p>\n On policing, her stance has evolved<\/a> from when she first ran for council and called for the LAPD to be transformed into a \u201cmuch smaller, specialized armed force.\u201d She posted \u201cdefund the police\u201d on Twitter in 2020, but has since sometimes voted in favor of budgets that increase the department\u2019s budget. <\/p>\n She has said she now thinks the LAPD should not shrink any further, saying its size of about 8,600 officers is right, but she voted in January against hiring an additional 170 cops<\/a>, citing budgetary concerns.<\/p>\n She also opposed Bass\u2019 2023 contract for the police union, saying it would \u201cbankrupt\u201d the city. She cites the union deal often for the city\u2019s budgetary issues.<\/p>\n Mayor Karen Bass, left, and City Councilwoman and mayoral candidate Nithya Raman take part in a candidates forum hosted by the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. in May. <\/p>\n (Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n The back-and-forth on LAPD issues has led to frustration with Raman on the left for not being more radical, but also opposition from the police officers\u2019 union in the mayor\u2019s race. <\/p>\n The Los Angeles Police Protective League has released anti-Raman ads on social media calling her \u201cFlip Floppin\u2019 Raman.\u201d<\/p>\n She has shifted on other major issues as well.<\/p>\n![\"Nithya](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779791589_933_.jpeg\")
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