You can call them political progressives. Or maybe super-progressive, given how much they want to reshape politics in Los Angeles.
Whatever they call it, candidates on the left end of the political spectrum made decisive inroads in the March 5 City Council primary, setting the stage for some hotly contested runoff campaigns and potentially expanding their power by the end of the election. year.
Progressive activists and advocacy groups helped re-elect City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, while sending two other center-left candidates — tenants' rights attorney Ysabel Jurado and small business owner Jillian Burgos — to runoffs against more moderate challengers.
“I think the results have consistently shown across the board that when we show up, we win,” said Bill Przylocki, executive director of Ground Game LA, a nonprofit advocacy group that has spent several years pushing the council leftward.
If Burgos and Jurado win in November, the number of council members with deep progressive backgrounds will rise from three to five, making up a third of the 15-member council. Four of the five campaigned alongside the Democratic Socialists of America-Los Angeles. Burgos, the fifth, received support from other big names in left-wing political circles, including City Controller Kenneth Mejia and former mayoral candidate Gina Viola.
A highly progressive five-member voting bloc would have a major impact on homelessness, subsidized housing, renter protections, public transit, the installation of bike lanes, and the size of the Los Angeles Police Department.
The bloc would need only three more votes to pass legislation in a chamber that includes several members, including Marquis Harris Dawson and Katie Yaroslavsky, who are center-left swing votes. Superprogressives will also hold additional seats on council committees, allowing them to shape policies from the start, Przelocki said.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman speaks to the crowd on election night. She obtained the majority of votes needed to avoid a runoff on November 5, winning a second term.
(Myung Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Some players in Los Angeles politics say the left's influence in the primaries is overstated. They point out that Councilman John Lee, a centrist council member, easily won his re-election bid in the Northwest Valley. Another incumbent, Councilwoman Imelda Padilla, was successful in re-election after receiving support from public safety unions, construction trades unions, Valley business groups and others.
Raman won 50.7% of the vote, ensuring her the majority she needed to win outright. The victory simply preserved the current political makeup of the council, said Tom Sagao, spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which waged an expensive but unsuccessful campaign against Raman.
“Ultimately, there was no net gain for any ideology on the council,” he said. There are still three Socialists on the Council. “That was before the election, and that was after the election.”
Sagao said the police union has not yet decided how it will spend its resources in the upcoming runoffs.
Progressive groups in Los Angeles still hope Jurado and Burgos will win and change the status quo.
Expanding the highly progressive council caucus would ensure City Hall has a “real and honest conversation” about community safety strategies, said Julio Marcial, senior vice president of the nonprofit Liberty Hill Foundation. For Marcial, that means shifting money from the LAPD to affordable housing, expanding mental health services, job training and other programs.
City Council candidate Isabel Jurado cuts a cake at an event in Little Tokyo to celebrate the success of her campaign in the March 5 primary.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
“We can no longer follow the same playbook with regards to budgeting, where we fully fund law enforcement and not the things that are proven to be effective in creating community safety,” he said.
Burgos, who is running to represent the East San Fernando Valley district, said she hopes that if she and Jurado win, other council members will be inclined to embrace more progressive policies.
“Right now, some people are afraid to make those choices,” said Burgos, an optician who lives in North Hollywood and part owner of an interactive murder mystery theater company.
Burgos, 45, and Jurado, 34, have a long list of shared policy goals. Both want to repeal Municipal Ordinance No. 41.18, which prohibits homeless encampments near schools, day care centers and “sensitive” sites such as senior centers and highway overpasses. Both want to create “social housing,” tasking city agencies with purchasing, repairing and managing low-cost housing complexes.
Both candidates want to shift traffic enforcement from the LAPD. They hope to make bus and train fares free — a more complicated goal, because the decision rests not with the council but with Metro's 13-member board.
“We have a real opportunity to usher in a progressive era” on the City Council, “instead of just throwing away some of the solutions that we care about,” said Jurado, who finished first in an eight-way race for the east side seat. It is now occupied by Councilman Kevin De Leon.
Burgos, who describes herself as a leftist, finished second in the race to succeed Council Speaker Paul Krikorian, who will step down at the end of the year. First comes former State Assemblyman Adrien Nazarian, who was once an aide to Krikorian and describes himself as a “practical progressive.”
Los Angeles City Council candidate Adrien Nazarian held campaign signs in North Hollywood earlier this year, touting his progressive credentials.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
Nazarian received 37% of the vote in the primary, compared to 22% for Burgos. In an interview, he said he also pushed for progressive policies, such as expanding public transportation, increasing funding to help students pay for college and creating a single-payer health care system. In 2016 and again in 2020, Nazarian endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for president in the Democratic primary.
“Judge me by my record. Judge me by my work ethic. There's a reason why, in a crowded field of seven people, I was able to get nearly 40 percent of the vote,” he said.
Nazarian, unlike Burgos, supports the continued use of 41.18. He also spoke in favor of Mayor Karen Bass' campaign to hire more police and increase their pay.
When asked about those two cases, Burgos called for more alternatives to policing, saying in a statement that “the data showed that there is no relationship between the number of sworn officers or the police budget and crime.”
De Leon, who came in second behind Jurado, also defended his progressive credentials, pointing to his work on immigrant rights, climate change and laws to prevent tenant displacement in downtown, Boyle Heights and elsewhere.
“My record of fighting the toughest battles — the sanctuary state, 100% clean renewable energy, renter protections — and winning for my constituents shows that I know how to actually deliver progressive change,” said de León, former president of the state Senate. He seeks a second term.
De Leon faces a difficult second round. He is still dealing with the repercussions of the scandal over his participation in a secretly recorded conversation that included racist and insulting remarks.
Like Nazarian, he supports LAPD raises, hiring more police and using 41.18.
Los Angeles leftists had their first serious success on the City Council four years ago, where they helped elect Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, to the council. Labor unions and advocacy groups repeated this success in 2022, working to elect two more candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America — activist Eunice Hernandez and labor organizer Hugo Soto Martinez — and unseat two incumbents.
Of the three, Raman proved to be the most moderate. Like Nazarian, she sometimes refers to herself as a “pragmatic progressive.” At one point in the primary campaign, she refused to say whether the city needed more police officers. On another occasion, she relied on former Councilman Paul Koretz — who angered Los Angeles leftists — to vouch for her for the Los Angeles County Democratic Party.
Attorney Edgar Khalatyan, who represents real estate developers at City Hall, said he considers Raman pro-business. Raman, whose district is located in the Hollywood Hills, said he has shown a “strong backbone” to the city's efforts to build more housing, while also working to address the homelessness crisis.
“The reason housing prices are astronomical as they are now is because elected officials for decades have not supported more housing development,” said Khalatian, who chairs the board of directors of the Central City Assn., a downtown-based business group. “She supports housing, and she will get political pressure from people in her district when she supports that housing.”
Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin De Leon, in his Eagle Rock office in September, touts his work on climate change, immigrant rights and measures to prevent tenant displacement.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Raman won despite outside spending of more than $1.3 million by the firefighters union, police officers union, property owners and others for one of her opponents, City Rep. Atty. Ethan Weaver. These groups undertook a similar effort in the Northwest Valley, spending a total of $1.1 million to help Lee fend off a challenge posed by nonprofit leader Serena Oberstein.
And in South Los Angeles' 10th Council District, law enforcement groups spent a total of $103,000 on ads portraying Reggie Jones-Sawyer, one of the five candidates, as soft on crime. State Assemblyman Jones Sawyer came in fifth place.
“For the league rule, we had some goals” in this year’s city elections, said Sagao, the police union spokesman. “One was to make sure that Reggie Jones-Sawyer did not bring his brand or ideas of criminal justice reform to the city of Los Angeles, and we succeeded in that.”
Instead, the 10th District will see a runoff between Councilwoman Heather Hutt and attorney Grace Yu, who share similar views on some of the city's most controversial issues. Both support the city's police raise package and 41.18.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America said her organization was unlikely to participate in that contest, in part because neither candidate is a member of the DSA. The spokeswoman, who declined to give her full name, said that given they both favor police increases, it would be “significantly difficult” for either to win the DSA's endorsement.
