Hot Take
By Mariel Garza
The big election news in L.A. last week was, of course, that a Democratic Socialists of America member, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, ousted Mayor Karen Bass.
The win, following the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City last year, firmly establishes the DSA as a potent force in American politics. It’s also a significant accomplishment for the local chapter, which gained its first big victory in 2020 when it helped Raman flip a City Council seat. Since then, three additional DSA members have been elected to the City Council.
But Raman’s victory was not DSA-LA’s only reason to celebrate.
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The mayor-elect was just one of nine people the group endorsed in the Nov. 3 election. (A DSA-LA endorsement requires a majority vote of the membership.) Eight of those candidates have won their races. The ninth, community organizer Estuardo Mazariegos, a candidate for an open L.A. City Council seat representing South L.A., is trailing his opponent by just 156 votes.
Even if Mazariegos doesn’t prevail, it’s remarkable he has done so well against challenger Jose Ugarte, who worked for the termed-out incumbent and was endorsed by the county Democratic Party.
Among the DSA winners were Angela Gonzales-Torres, a little-known former member of a neighborhood council in Highland Park who ousted incumbent Democratic Congressmember Jimmy Gomez; deputy state attorney general Marissa Roy, who trounced L.A. County prosecutor John McKinney in the L.A. city attorney race; two candidates for Burbank City Council, Mike van Gorder and Nolan Southerland; and one candidate, Stephen Post, for the West Hollywood City Council.
The group also backed two school board candidates: Yaritza González in the Inglewood Unified School District and Estefany Casteñeda for the Centinela Valley Union High School District’s board.
That’s an impressive Election Day haul for any political group. DSA-LA has shown its mettle at winning elections against the county’s Democratic Party machine; now, its elected officials will have to show their ability to govern.
Jon Regardie
Noted, With Comment
By Mariel Garza and Paul Thornton
Who is L.A. transit for? Anyone who’s relied on public transportation in Los Angeles to get to work will appreciate this essay in Zócalo Public Square: Shanice Joseph, who lives in Watts and commutes to her job in the San Fernando Valley, often finds buses and trains unreliable and unsafe when she needs them to arrive to work on time. In contrast, getting to tourist spots via transit is now a lot easier.
They’ll be back: During our live election postmortem on Nov. 4, one of the viewers asked if the defeat of Proposition 43 signals the beginning of the end for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association. Jon Coupal, the head of the organization named after the man behind the property-tax capping Proposition 13 in 1978, has an answer of sorts in the Southern California News Group’s consolidated opinion section. In short: The group still has work to do.
Pay up, Bianco: Riverside County Sheriff and failed gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco has sued the county to get it (and its taxpayers) to cover the legal costs he incurred by his Trump-pandering campaign move to seize 600,000 ballots cast in the 2025 Proposition 50 election. Los Angeles Times political columnist Mark Barabak says the sheriff should pay the costs himself: “Bianco recklessly used and abused his authority as county sheriff to vandalize California’s election system and betray the public trust.”
Dan Morain
Long live CEQA reform: Urban planner William Fulton, who was unclear about his position on Proposition 45 before the election, writes favorably in the San Francisco Chronicle about the defeated initiative to streamline environmental review in California. He encourages the state Legislature to abandon its “Swiss cheese” method of poking holes in the California Environmental Quality Act for preferred projects and reform the law top to bottom instead.
Single-payer delusion: Progressive Jane Kim will be California’s next insurance commissioner. In the California Post, commentator Jon Fleischman says that while she can’t fulfill her campaign promise of single-payer homeowner insurance without legislative action, she can make life more miserable for the private insurers already fleeing California.
California’s newest power center: Lindsey Horvath, who sits on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, recently announced her candidacy for the newly created post of elected county chief executive, a position she helped establish. She’s the first candidate of what will be many, because whoever wins will “automatically … the leading potential candidate for governor or U.S. senator,” writes Dan Walters in CalMatters.
A healthcare mega-crisis: Proposition 40 failed, so the expected $100 billion in revenue to backfill federal cuts over the next five years won’t rescue the state’s ailing Medi-Cal system. In Capital & Main, reporter Mark Kreidler suggests ways for incoming Gov. Xavier Becerra to limit the damage, including a “fair share” tax on businesses with a high percentage of employees on Medi-Cal.
Winning was Step One: In the progressive Los Angeles Public Press, Phoenix Tso gives pointers to Angelenos looking to personally fulfill the promise of Election Day. Among her suggestions: Join a neighborhood ICE patrol, attend Los Angeles police commission meetings and make public comments, volunteer for an organization serving homeless residents and even help paint DIY crosswalks.
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