Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman on Wednesday won the backing of the Democratic Socialists of America L.A. in her challenge to incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. The DSA-LA is a potent political organization known for mounting successful door-knocking campaigns for candidates for political office.<\/p>\n
The endorsement places the resources of DSA-LA to work for Raman in what\u2019s expected to be a close race for mayor, but also opens Raman up to criticism that she\u2019s too far left in her political views for the voters of L.A.<\/p>\n
The endorsement came after Raman won more than 60% of the vote in an online election held within the organization over the past week. Of the more than 6,000 members in the L.A. region, 1,400 participated in the vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Raman at the top of the ticket, DSA-LA is organizing to unite tenants, union members, immigrant communities, and working Angelenos behind a slate that can break corporate interests\u2019 grip on city government,\u201d DSA-LA said in a statement. \u201cOur vision is clear: win office, build a governing majority, and deliver a city working people can afford to call home.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Raman, a member of the organization, was first elected with its help in an upset victory over an incumbent City Council member in 2020. She was the first of four DSA-LA members elected to the council in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cA socialist movement with a path to the mayor\u2019s office in Los Angeles should make the political establishment nervous,\u201d said Sean Wakasa, DSA-LA co-chair. \u201cThe opportunity in front of us is enormous, and we intend to meet it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raman was not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Bass campaign did not comment specifically on the endorsement but pointed to some of the issues that surfaced in debates between the candidates, including how to handle homeless encampments and Police Department funding.<\/p>\n
“Nithya Raman said kids aren’t safer if an encampment is 500 feet away from a school and voted repeatedly to cut basic public safety funding to make LA safer,” Alex Stack said. “Those are positions she now fully owns as she tries to flip-flop and convince voters otherwise.” <\/p>\n
Raman has defended her opposition to a ban on camping next to schools, saying moving them merely shuffles homeless people from one neighborhood to the next.<\/p>\n
A ‘double-edged sword’<\/p>\n
Some voters will likely be turned off by the DSA\u2019s endorsement of Raman, according to USC Political Science Professor Christian Grose.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe DSA endorsement is definitely a double-edged sword,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s going to hurt her with the Pratt voters, who will be decisive potentially in the election.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conservative T.V. personality Spencer Pratt finished third in the primary with 26% of the vote.<\/p>\n
Grose added that Raman already has come under fire for her association with the DSA-LA.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo those attacks were kind of happening already,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Wasaka said Raman nonetheless has a lot of appeal to progressive voters.<\/p>\n
\u201cNithya Raman has had a long history with DSA-LA and has helped pass transformative policies at the city level,\u201d Wasaka said. \u201cHer leadership and progressive vision have aligned with DSA members, and we are excited to canvas for her and help her win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re knocking on tens of thousands of doors, we\u2019re hosting fundraisers and we\u2019re talking to all of our neighbors and families about how these candidates are going to build political power for the working class.\u201d<\/p>\n
The DSA-LA endorsed several other candidates in local elections, including Marissa Roy over John McKinney in the L.A. city attorney\u2019s race.<\/p>\n
Raman is a member of the DSA-LA, but was not endorsed in the primary, in part because some members said she didn\u2019t hew closely enough to the party line. Raman, for example, wants to roll back part of the mansion tax, which places an extra tax on the sale of properties worth more than $5.4 million. Raman has said it discourages the building of affordable housing.<\/p>\n
Other endorsements<\/p>\n
The DSA-LA backing comes on the heels of another big endorsement of Raman from a major labor union. Earlier this week, Unite HERE Local 11, which represents hotel and restaurant workers, said it is backing Raman.<\/p>\n
\u201cNithya Raman will fight alongside our members to protect working families, enforce our laws, preserve our housing, and hold corporations like Airbnb accountable when they take desperately needed homes off the market,\u201d said Ada Brice\u00f1o, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11.<\/p>\n
Political scientist Fernando Guerra of Loyola Marymount\u2019s Center for the Study of Los Angeles said the union\u2019s endorsement is important.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would 10 times more want the endorsement from UNITE HERE that has 30,000 members,\u201d said Guerra. \u201cThey are one of the most powerful electoral bodies in terms of mobilization in all of California, especially in Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most labor unions back Bass in the election, including the powerful L.A. County Federation of Labor. The Democratic Party and Chamber of Commerce also have endorsed Bass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman on Wednesday won the backing of the Democratic Socialists of America L.A.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[12858,178542,48,52,123738,51,47,50,49,32081],"class_list":["post-451683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bass","tag-dsa-la-endorsement","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-mayor","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-raman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}