Taking inspiration from Mamdani, democratic socialists look to expand their power in L.A.

Revelers who packed an election night party in Los Angeles’ Highland Park neighborhood on Tuesday were nearly 1,500 miles away from the concert hall where New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani celebrated his historic victory.

But despite this widening distance, the crowd of members of the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America had no trouble covering Mamdani’s applause. he is a DSA memberduring his victory speech.

“New York!” Mamdani bellowed on the large television screens hanging throughout the Greyhound Bar & Grill. “We will make the buses fast and —”

“Free!” The crowd inside the bar shouted in response.

In Los Angeles, activists for the Democratic Socialists of America have already launched their campaigns for the June election, sending out campaign teams and planning postcard-writing events for their chosen candidates. But they also draw new inspiration from Mamdani’s victory; They point to his inclusive, unapologetic campaign and relentless focus on budget issues, especially among working-class voters.

City Councilman Eunisses Hernandez, who won the seat in 2022 with DSA’s logistical support, said the message that carried Mamdani to victory resonated the same way in Los Angeles.

“New York City says rents are too high, affordability is a big issue, not just when it comes to housing, but when it comes to groceries and day care,” he said. “These are things we experienced in Los Angeles.”

DSA-LA, a membership organization and not a political party, has elected four of its endorsed candidates to the council since 2020 and has unseated incumbents in each of the last three election cycles. They did this largely by knocking on doors and working to increase participation among renters and low-income households.

The department hopes to win two more seats in June. Organizers have begun envisioning a fully-fledged socialist City Council, possibly by the end of 2028, with DSA members holding eight of the council’s 15 seats.

“We want a Socialist City Council majority,” said Benina Stern, co-chair of DSA’s Los Angeles chapter. “Because that’s clearly the logical progression of continuing to grow the block.”

Even with these lofty goals, it could be at least five years before the Los Angeles chapter matches this week’s breakthrough in New York City.

Mayor Karen Bass, a high-profile leader within the Democratic Party with little connection to DSA, is now running for a second term. His only major rival is Austin Beutner, a former schools superintendent who is at the center of the political spectrum in Los Angeles. Real estate developer Rick Caruso, a longtime Republican who is now a Democrat, has not announced his intentions but has long been at odds with DSA’s progressive policies.

In Los Angeles, DSA organizers place an emphasis on identifying and campaigning for candidates in down-ballot races, not citywide contests. Part of this is because Los Angeles has a weak mayoral system; especially compared to New York City, where the mayor is responsible not only for city services but also for public schools and even judicial appointments.

L.A. council members propose and approve legislation, rework budgets submitted by the mayor, and represent districts with more than a quarter-million people. As a result, DSA organizers chose the council as their path to power in the municipality, Stern said.

“I think the conditions in Los Angeles and New York are very different,” he said.

DSA-LA has been very selective about its approval options since 2020. The all-volunteer organization sends applicants a lengthy survey with dozens of litmus test questions: Do they support diverting funds away from law enforcement? Do they oppose Los Angeles’ decision to host the Olympics? Do they support lifting Los Angeles’ ban on homeless camps near schools?

Once a candidate gets an endorsement, DSA-LA turns to its formidable pool of volunteers and dispatches them to help candidates knock on doors, call staff banks, and organize fundraisers.

During Tuesday’s party, DSA-LA organizers recruited new members to help the re-election campaigns of Hernandez and Assemblyman Hugo Soto-Martínez, a former labor organizer. They handed out postcard-sized fliers with the message “We Hate Capitalism? So Do We.”

standing nearby Estuardo MazariegosA tenant rights advocate is currently running to replace Councilman Curren Price in the South Los Angeles district. Mazariegos, 40, said he first became interested in DSA when he was in seventh grade when his middle school civics teacher hung the DSA flag in his classroom.

The crowd at the Greyhound in Highland Park reacted to the results Tuesday.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Mazariegos welcomed the results from New York and California and said voters were “taking America back for America’s working people.” He sounded a little less enthusiastic about Bass, a former community organizer who has pursued some middle-of-the-road positions like hiring more police officers.

Asked if he supported Bass’ bid for a second term, Mazariegos replied: “Yes, if he’s facing a billionaire.”

“Maybe not if he’s facing another comrade,” he added with a laugh.

When Bass ran in November 2022, DSA-LA reluctantly recommended voting for him in the popular election. voter guide, describes him as “a politician who maintains the status quo”.

Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who represents the Hollywood Hills district, is much more enthusiastic. Raman worked closely with Bass on efforts to move homeless Angelenos indoors while also seeking fixes for larger systems that serve Los Angeles’ homeless population.

“Karen Bass is the most progressive mayor we have had in Los Angeles,” said Raman, who hosted the election night party with three other DSA-affiliated council members, DSA-LA and others.

Raman became the first among DSA-backed candidates to win a council seat in Los Angeles, running in 2020 as a reformer who would provide stronger protections for renters and introduce a network of community access centers to help homeless residents.

Two years later, voters elected labor organizer Soto-Martínez and Hernandez. Tenant rights attorney Ysabel Jurado came in fourth last year and unseated Councilman Kevin de León.

Stern, the DSA-LA co-chair, said he believes the four council members are bringing “big change” to City Hall by working with their progressive colleagues to expand the city’s unarmed response teams, which are seen as an alternative to gun-carrying police officers.

The DSA voting bloc also shaped this year’s city budget, voting to reduce the number of new hires at the Los Angeles Police Department and preserve other city jobs, Stern said.

To be clear, the four-member bloc has pursued these efforts by working with other progressives on the council who are not affiliated with DSA but are more moderate on other issues. Beyond that, the group has many opponents.

Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. Chairman Stuart Waldman said DSA-backed council members are making the city worse by demanding a $30 per hour hotel minimum wage and a $32.35 minimum wage for construction workers.

“Nobody will ever build a hotel in this city again, and DSA was part of that,” he said. “Very soon no one will be building housing, and DSA is part of that.”

The union representing LAPD officers has vowed to fight efforts to expand DSA’s reach and said it would work to ensure “Angelenos are not fooled by socialist bait-and-switch.”

“Socialists want to get Angelenos to talk about affordability, oppression, and justice, get their candidates elected, and then enact their own decisions. platform ‘Defund the police by rejecting any expansion of police budgets… [police] In its statement, the board of directors of the union stated that the budgets are approaching zero annually.

In New York, Mamdani made a suggestion: a set of measures Making the city more affordable, including free bus tickets, city-run grocery stores and a four-year freeze on rent increases on rent-stabilized apartment units.

Some of these ideas have already been tried in Los Angeles

In 2020, weeks into the COVID-19 shutdown, Mayor Eric Garcetti declared a moratorium on rent increases for more than 600,000 rent-stabilized apartments. The Council kept this measure in force for four years.

Around the same time, LA County’s public transportation agency suspended mandatory collection of bus fares. The agency started collecting fees from bus passengers again in 2022.

City Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Eunisses Hernandez celebrate an election night party they hosted with the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and two other council members.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

In recent months, DSA-LA has pushed for new limits on rent increases for Los Angeles’ rent-stabilized apartments. Raman, who chairs the council’s housing committee, supports a 3 percent annual cap on these buildings, most of which were built before October 1978.

Hernandez, whose district stretches from working-class Westlake to rapidly gentrifying Highland Park, believes in replacing the Overton Window at City Hall, moving the political debate to the left and “putting people before profits.”

Like others in his constituent party, Hernandez hopes the council will have eight DSA-affiliated members in coming years, saying such a change would be a “game changer.” With a clear majority, he said, the council won’t face a major fight to approve new tenant protections, expand the network of unarmed response teams and impose “accountability measures” on companies “making money off of our city.”

“There are so many things we could do more easily for the people of the city of Los Angeles if we had the majority,” he said.