reelection

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman is running for mayor, shaking up the field of candidates one final time.

Raman said she will challenge Mayor Karen Bass, her onetime ally, campaigning on issues of housing and homelessness, transparency and “safety in our streets.”

In an interview, Raman called Bass “an icon” and someone she deeply admires. But she said the city needs a change agent to address its problems.

“I have deep respect for Mayor Bass. We’ve worked closely together on my biggest priorities and her biggest priorities, and there’s significant alignment there,” said Raman, who lives in Silver Lake. “But over the last few months in particular, I’ve really begun to feel like unless we have some big changes in how we do things in Los Angeles, that the things we count on are not going to function anymore.”

Saturday’s announcement — hours before the noon filing deadline for the June 2 primary election — capped a chaotic week in L.A. politics, with candidates and would-be candidates dropping in and out of the race to challenge Bass, who is seeking a second four-year term.

Raman would immediately pose a formidable challenge to Bass. She was the first council member to be elected with support from the Democratic Socialists of America, which scored an enormous victory last fall with the election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Councilmember Nithya Raman jumps in the race for mayor, challenging former ally Karen Bass in the June primary.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

At the same time, Raman has deep ties to leaders in the YIMBY movement, who have pushed for the city to boost housing production by upzoning single-family neighborhoods and rewriting Measure ULA, the so-called mansion tax, which applies to property sales of $5.3 million or more.

Raman’s eleventh-hour announcement caps what has been the most turbulent candidate filing period for an L.A. mayoral election in at least a generation. She launched her bid less than a day after another political heavyweight, L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, decided against a run.

Until Raman’s surprise entry, the field had seemed to be clear of big-name challengers. Former L.A. schools superintendent Austin Beutner ended his campaign on Thursday, citing the death of his 22-year-old daughter. That same day, real estate developer Rick Caruso reaffirmed his decision not to run.

Bass campaign spokesperson Douglas Herman did not immediately provide comment.

Raman’s announcement comes as Bass continues to face sharp criticism over the city’s handling of the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes. Unlike some of the candidates, Raman has not publicly criticized Bass about the city’s preparation for, or response to, the disaster.

Bass, 72, faces more than two dozen opponents from across the political spectrum.

Reality TV star Spencer Pratt, a Republican, has received praise from an array of Trump supporters, including Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, of Florida. Pratt has focused heavily on the city’s handling of the fire, which destroyed his home.

Spencer Pratt poses for a portrait in Pacific Palisades.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Democratic socialist Rae Huang is running against the mayor from her political left. Huang has called for more public housing and for a reduction in the number of police officers, with the cost savings poured into other city services.

Brentwood tech entrepreneur Adam Miller, who has described himself as a lifelong Democrat, said the city is on a downward trajectory and needs stronger management. The 56-year-old nonprofit executive plans to tap his personal wealth to jump-start his campaign.

Also in the race is Asaad Alnajjar, an employee of the Bureau of Street Lighting who sits on the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council. Alnajjar has already lent his campaign $80,000.

At City Hall, Raman’s entrance into the mayor’s race is a bombshell, particularly given her relationship with Bass.

Mayor Karen Bass addresses the crowd at the Shine LA event at Hansen Dam Recreation Area in Lake View Terrace, Calif., on Saturday.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

In December 2022, not long after taking office, Bass launched her Inside Safe program, which moves homeless people indoors, in Raman’s district.

Two years later, while running for reelection, Raman prominently featured Bass on at least a dozen of her campaign mailers and door hangers. Raman’s campaign produced a video ad that heavily excerpted Bass’ remarks endorsing her at a Sherman Oaks get-out-the-vote rally.

Raman, whose district stretches from Silver Lake to Reseda, ultimately won reelection with 50.7% of the vote. In the years that followed, she continued to praise Bass’ leadership.

In November, while appearing at a DSA election night watch party for Mamdani, Raman told The Times that Bass is “the most progressive mayor we’ve ever had in L.A.”

Last month, Bass formally announced that she had secured Raman’s endorsement, featuring her in a list of a dozen San Fernando Valley political leaders who backed her reelection campaign.

Raman ran for office in 2020, promising to put in place stronger tenant protections and provide a more effective, humane approach to combating homelessness. On her campaign platform, she called for the transformation of the LAPD into a “much smaller, specialized armed force” — but never specified what exactly that would mean.

A woman takes a photo with her phone at the C. Erwin Piper Technical Center on Saturday.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Since then, the LAPD has lost about 1,300 officers — a decrease of about 13%. The City Council has put in place new eviction protections for tenants, while also capping the size of rent increases in the city’s “rent stabilized” apartments, which were mostly built before October 1978.

Raman does not face the same political risks as Horvath, who had already been running for reelection in her Westside and San Fernando Valley district. Horvath, had she run for mayor, would have had to forfeit her seat on the county Board of Supervisors.

If Raman loses, she would still hold her council seat, since she does not face reelection until 2028.

WASHINGTON — Eleanor Holmes Norton, the 18-term delegate for the District of Columbia in Congress and a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, has filed paperwork to end her campaign for reelection, likely closing out a decades-long career in public service.

Norton, 88, has been the sole representative of the residents of the nation’s capital in Congress since 1991, but she faced increasing questions about her effectiveness after the Trump administration began its sweeping intervention into the city last year.

Mayor Muriel Bowser congratulated Norton on her retirement.

“For 35 years, Congresswoman Norton has been our Warrior on the Hill,” Bowser wrote on social media. “Her work embodies the unwavering resolve of a city that refuses to yield in its fight for equal representation.”

Norton’s campaign filed a termination report with the Federal Election Commission on Sunday. Her office has not released an official statement about the delegate’s intentions.

The filing was first reported by NOTUS.

Her retirement opens up a likely competitive primary to succeed her in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. Several local lawmakers had already announced their intentions to run in the Democratic primary.

An institution in Washington politics for decades, Norton is the oldest member in the House. She was a personal friend to civil rights icons such as Medgar Evers and a contemporary of other activists turned congressional stalwarts, including Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and the late Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and John Lewis (D-Ga.).

But Norton has faced calls to step aside in recent months as residents and local lawmakers questioned her ability to effectively advocate for the city in Congress amid the Republican administration’s aggressive moves toward the city.

The White House federalized Washington’s police force, deployed National Guard troops from six states and the federal district across the capital’s streets and surged federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security into neighborhoods. The moves prompted outcry and protests from residents and a lawsuit from the district’s attorney general.

Norton’s retirement comes as a historically high number of lawmakers announce they will either seek another public office or retire from official duties altogether. More than 1 in 10 members of the House are not seeking reelection this year.

Norton’s staunch advocacy for her city

As the district’s delegate, Norton does not have a formal vote in the House. But she has found other ways to advocate for the city’s interests. Called the “Warrior on the Hill” by her supporters, Norton was a staunch advocate for D.C. statehood and for the labor rights of the federal workers who called Washington and its surrounding region home.

She also secured bipartisan wins for district residents. Norton was the driving force behind the passage of a law that provides up to $10,000 per year for students who attend public colleges outside the district. It also provides up to $2,500 per year for students who attend select private historically Black colleges and universities across the country and nonprofit colleges in the D.C. metropolitan area.

In the 1990s, Norton played a key role in ending the city’s financial crisis by brokering a deal to transfer billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities to the federal government in exchange for changes to the district’s budget. She twice played a leading role in House passage of a D.C. statehood bill.

Steeped in the civil rights movement

Norton was born and raised in Washington, and her life spans the arc of the district’s trials and triumphs. She was educated at Dunbar High School as part of the school’s last segregated class.

“Growing up black in Washington gave a special advantage. This whole community of blacks was very race conscious, very civil rights conscious,” she said in her 2003 biography, “Fire in My Soul.”

She attended Antioch College in Ohio and in 1963 split her time between Yale Law School and Mississippi, where she worked as an organizer during the Freedom Summer of the Civil Rights Movement.

One day that summer, Evers picked her up at the airport. He was assassinated that night.

Norton also helped organize and attended the 1963 March on Washington.

In an interview with the Associated Press in 2023, Norton said the march was still “the single most extraordinary experience of my lifetime.”

She went on to become the first woman to lead the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which helps enforce anti-discrimination laws in the workplace. She ran for office when her predecessor retired to run for Washington mayor.

Brown writes for the Associated Press.