Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record \u2014 our City Hall newsletter. It\u2019s Noah Goldberg, with an assist from David Zahniser and Doug Smith, giving you the latest on city and county government.<\/p>\n
Could L.A.\u2019s Zohran Mamdani moment<\/a> be here?<\/p>\n It\u2019s definitely a long shot. But Rae Huang, a 43-year-old community organizer, minister and dues-paying member of the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America<\/a>, is making her move, throwing her hat into the ring for mayor of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n The virtually unknown candidate is the deputy director of Housing Now California, a coalition that fights displacement of tenants at the state and local levels.<\/p>\n Huang, who is planning a campaign launch on Sunday, is shying away from comparisons to Mamdani, a democratic socialist who was elected mayor of New York City last week. She has not been endorsed by DSA-LA, though she hopes to be. Nevertheless, she sees next year\u2019s election as a \u201cmoment for change.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWe are in a place in our country and in our political environment where folks feel stuck and afraid,\u201d Huang said in an interview. \u201cThey feel like nothing is going to change, and the things that are changing are making things even worse.\u201d <\/p>\n You\u2019re reading the L.A. on the Record newsletter <\/p>\n Huang, a Sawtelle resident, has never run for elected office. She faces an extremely uphill battle against Mayor Karen Bass, a veteran politician with close ties to the Democratic Party who has spent much of the year denouncing President Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown in L.A.<\/p>\n Still, Huang could complicate Bass\u2019 reelection bid by playing a spoiler role, pulling away left-of-center voters in a year when the incumbent is facing criticism over her handling of the Palisades fire, a struggling city budget and less-than-optimal public services.<\/p>\n Bass already has a challenger in former Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner, who has assailed her record in each of those areas. And it\u2019s still not clear whether billionaire developer Rick Caruso, who lost to Bass in 2022, will jump in the race.<\/p>\n The larger the pool of candidates, the more work Bass will have to do in the June primary to secure an outright victory. If she falls below 50% of the vote, she would need to wage an expensive runoff campaign in the November 2026 election.<\/p>\n Doug Herman, a spokesperson for Bass\u2019 campaign, said that under her leadership, \u201cthere has been unprecedented progress on the issues that matter most to Angelenos.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHomelessness has declined for the first time in two consecutive years, neighborhoods are safer with significant drops in crime, and the Palisades fire recovery continues far ahead of pace with the fastest recovery and rebuilding in California history,\u201d Herman said in a statement. \u201cIn addition, there was no better defender of Los Angeles than Mayor Karen Bass when Trump\u2019s ICE raids started and we won a court ruling to help stop the illegal raids and unconstitutional arrests.\u201d<\/p>\n Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College, said the upcoming mayoral election differs from recent L.A. contests that were won by DSA-aligned candidates. In many of those races, DSA-backed challengers ousted incumbents who were already struggling politically, she said.<\/p>\n The same goes for New York City, where former Gov. Andrew Cuomo \u2014 Mamdani\u2019s main opponent \u2014 was trying to emerge from scandal and stage a comeback, Sadhwani added.<\/p>\n The Democratic incumbent, Eric Adams, was so weakened by his own legal issues that he ended up running as an independent and then withdrawing from the race. <\/p>\n \u201cBass has her detractors,\u201d Sadhwani said, \u201cbut is not in such an embattled position as Eric Adams or even Cuomo, who had stepped down from the governorship amid sexual harassment claims.\u201d<\/p>\n Huang said she is in it to win \u2014 and hopes to highlight important issues for people on the left. She wants to expand public housing, make buses free for Angelenos and invest more in unarmed crisis responders. <\/p>\n Sound familiar<\/a>? Those would pretty much be Mamdani\u2019s talking points.<\/p>\n Huang said she was \u201chopeful\u201d when Bass was elected. Now, she lobs plenty of criticism at Bass. <\/p>\n She thinks the mayor\u2019s Inside Safe program is allowing too many people to slip back into homelessness. She believes Bass should explicitly support the Venice Dell affordable housing project<\/a>. And she doesn\u2019t feel the mayor did enough to curb police violence during the summer\u2019s chaotic protests over federal immigration raids.<\/p>\n Huang is not the first to run from Bass\u2019 left. In 2022, late-arriving mayoral hopeful<\/a> Gina Viola won nearly 7% of the vote, scooping up more than 44,000 votes in the primary after positioning herself as the self-proclaimed \u201cinfamous defund-the-police candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n Viola said she is glad to see Huang get into the race, and with much more time to campaign. Viola ran in 2022 with just three and a half months left before the primary. Huang has nearly seven months. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat she needs to do is [win over] those voters that are so terribly disenfranchised that they don\u2019t have anything to vote for,\u201d Viola said.<\/p>\n Part of getting those potential voters out to the polls is having a strong ground game, knocking on doors and raising money. An endorsement from the local DSA chapter could help Huang get her name out to more Angelenos, Sadhwani said.<\/p>\n DSA members have petitioned to endorse Huang. She needs to receive 50 signatures, which would trigger a vote of chapter members, with 60% required to capture the endorsement.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s certainly exciting to see a left challenger to a status-quo Democrat. That always pushes the conversation in a good direction,\u201d said Claire Palmer, an organizer with DSA-LA.<\/p>\n There has been \u201centhusiasm\u201d among members about Huang, Palmer said. <\/p>\n As for the DSA-backed members of the City Council?<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t sat down with them yet,\u201d Huang said. <\/p>\n While four DSA-backed L.A. City Council members celebrated Mamdani\u2019s win with a party at a Highland Park bar on election night, it\u2019s not clear that they have any interest in getting behind a candidate other than Bass.<\/p>\n \u201cKaren Bass is the most progressive mayor we\u2019ve ever had in L.A.,\u201d Councilmember Nithya Raman told The Times<\/a> at the party.<\/p>\n Bass \u201chas been doing a good job at least in handling this crisis,\u201d Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said in June, referring to Bass\u2019 handling of the federal immigration raids.<\/p>\n Councilmember Hugo Soto-Mart\u00ednez has already endorsed Bass.<\/p>\n State of play<\/p>\n \u2014 THE RENT IS TOO DAMN CAPPED: The City Council voted Wednesday to lower the annual cap<\/a> on rent increases for rent-stabilized apartments to 4%. Many landlords and developers opposed the move, saying it would eat into their bottom line and drive away investment. Council members argued that the changes are needed to keep Angelenos from falling into homelessness.<\/p>\n \u2014 WILDFIRE PROBE: Los Angeles County has opened an investigation<\/a> into State Farm General\u2019s treatment of January wildfire victims following complaints that claims were delayed, denied and underpaid. The state\u2019s largest home insurer received notice of the probe<\/a> in a letter demanding records and data showing whether the company violated the state\u2019s Unfair Competition Law.<\/p>\n \u2014 MISSING INFO: At least one official in the Los Angeles Fire Department was aware of concerns that its firefighters were ordered to stop mop-up operations<\/a> for a Jan. 1 brush fire that later reignited into the massive Palisades fire. Yet the department\u2019s 70-page after-action report<\/a> on the Palisades fire didn\u2019t include that information \u2014 or any detailed examination of the reignition, The Times reported<\/a> this week. <\/p>\n \u2014 FAREWELL TO A WATCHDOG: One of L.A. County\u2019s most prominent citizen watchdogs is dead at 62<\/a>. Eric Preven, a resident of Studio City, advocated for increased public access to city and county meetings, filed countless public information requests and regularly offered his views on CityWatch<\/a>. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just like [he was] shooting from the hip,\u201d said Supervisor Kathryn Barger. \u201cHe would do his research.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 MEMORIES OF MARQUEZ: Environmentalists are mourning the death<\/a> of Wilmington clean air advocate Jesse Marquez, who battled the Port of Los Angeles for years over emissions from trucks, trains and ships. Marquez, 74, died Nov. 3 from health complications that developed after he was struck by a vehicle while in a crosswalk in January.<\/p>\n \u2014 A NEW ROADBLOCK: The proposal from Frank McCourt for a gondola between Union Station and Dodger Stadium faced yet another setback this week, with the City Council urging Metro to kill the project<\/a>. \u201cThis resolution tells Metro that the city of Los Angeles refuses to be bought by shiny renderings and empty promises,\u201d said Hernandez, who represents Chinatown and the stadium area.<\/p>\n \u2014 PROTEST POWERS: The council\u2019s Public Safety Committee endorsed legislation this week that would bar the LAPD from using crowd control weapons<\/a> against peaceful protesters and journalists. The proposal, which now heads to the full council, would prohibit the department from using \u201ckinetic energy projectiles\u201d or \u201cchemical agents\u201d unless officers are threatened with physical violence.<\/p>\n \u2014 POLICING THE POLICE: The LAPD took more than a year<\/a> to begin fully disclosing domestic abuse allegations against its officers, as required by a state law passed in 2021. The revelation came out during a recent hearing regarding an officer who was fired after being accused of time card fraud and physically assaulting her former romantic partner, a fellow cop.<\/p>\n \u2014 CHIEF IN CHARGE: The council voted Friday to make Deputy Chief Jaime Moore the city\u2019s newest fire chief. Moore, a 30-year department veteran, said one of his top priorities will be improving morale in a department that has faced heavy criticism for its handling of the Palisades fire. He also plans to seek an outside investigation into missteps by fire officials<\/a> in the days leading up to that disaster.<\/p>\n \u2014 GRILLING GIBSON DUNN: U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter pressed attorneys from Gibson Dunn this week on the fees they\u2019ve been charging<\/a> the city in the landmark LA Alliance homelessness case. At one point, the firm had 15 lawyers billing the city $1,295 per hour<\/a>, regardless of their titles or experience.<\/p>\n Carter also voiced his anger over reports that a South L.A. homeless facility had only 44 beds<\/a>, not the 88 spelled out in a contract awarded to a nonprofit group. The judge set a hearing for Wednesday on whether to hold the city in contempt over what he described as delaying tactics in complying with an order he issued earlier this year. <\/p>\n QUICK HITSWhere is Inside Safe? The mayor\u2019s signature initiative to combat homelessness did not launch any new operations this week. The program did move about a dozen people indoors from Skid Row, according to Bass\u2019 team.
On the docket next week: The council heads out on recess<\/a> next week, with members taking part in the National League of Cities conference in Salt Lake City. Meetings are also canceled the following week for the Thanksgiving holiday. They\u2019ll be back Dec. 2.Stay in touch<\/p>\n