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On paper, the<\/span> second-largest city in the country has its first democratic socialist mayor.\u00a0<\/p>\n Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman declared victory on Thursday over the embattled incumbent Karen Bass, joining a list of socialist mayors who have risen to power in recent years, including Zohran Mamdani<\/a> in New York; Seattle\u2019s Katie Wilson; and most recently Janeese Lewis George<\/a> in Washington, D.C., who won in a landslide this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n Raman, however, did not campaign unabashedly as a socialist. Though she ran as an endorsed member of the Democratic Socialists of America\u2019s Los Angeles chapter, the national DSA threatened to override the local chapter and rescind the endorsement over concerns around her stances on Israel and Palestine.\u00a0<\/p>\n Unlike her counterpart in New York, to whom she draws<\/a> most<\/a> comparisons<\/a>, Raman did not make sweeping socialist promises, such as free public transit, universal childcare, or taxing the rich. Instead, she focused on what\u2019s wrong with the city. Riding a wave of resentment for Bass\u2019s alleged mismanagements of the Palisades fire and the Lineage Logistics warehouse fire in Boyle Heights, Raman talked about filling potholes, fixing street lights, and making roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists.<\/p>\n In addition to DSA-LA support, she earned the endorsements of popular anti-corruption City Controller Kenneth Mejia and Unite Here 11, a major local hospitality workers union, whose large membership canvassed for her in the general. But she lacked endorsements from most key labor groups and social justice nonprofits, and the organizing base they provide. Her fellow DSA members on the Los Angeles City Council all pulled for Bass, forcing Raman to battle back the perception that she struggles to build coalitions.<\/p>\n While Mamdani, 10 months into his term, now finds himself under pressure from New York\u2019s left for refusing to fire NYPD\u2019s police commissioner<\/a>, his massive base of organizer support offers a buffer to criticism. Raman won over the city\u2019s voters, but it\u2019s not clear how much time that will buy her to tackle the city\u2019s most vexing problems once she takes office.<\/p>\n \u201cFolks in New York are willing to cut Mamdani more slack on the movement side, because he was one of them on a bunch of issues,\u201d said David Levitus, executive director of LA Forward, a progressive nonprofit that endorsed Raman in the general election.?\u201dI think Nithya\u201d \u2014 who did not come from the ranks of DSA organizing like Mamdani \u2014 \u201chas more skepticism from parts of the left because of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Raman will face scrutiny from LA\u2019s progressive left on a host of issues: bloated police department spending amounting to roughly a quarter of the city\u2019s nearly $15 billion budget; fear of collaboration between ICE and law enforcement agencies; the 2028 Olympics<\/a> prompting an expansion of surveillance<\/a>; rising homelessness; and failing infrastructure.<\/p>\n Weeks before the November election, Raman seemed less concerned with movement-based allegiances or ideological labels, saying she is \u201ca capitalist<\/a> and I\u2019m also a democratic socialist.\u201d Before the primary in June, she said she was \u201cone of the most independent voices in City Hall\u201d when asked about her membership with DSA. The statements and her votes in city council have prompted intense debate<\/a> among DSA-LA\u2019s members over whether Raman holds up to democratic socialist ideals.<\/p>\n While most Angelenos do not care about such fine distinctions, Raman\u2019s measured embrace of socialist mantle has created among some activists the perception of a more responsive audience in city hall compared to previous administrations. Yet to others on LA\u2019s progressive left, Raman\u2019s ideological elusiveness reads as political unreliability.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think Nithya Raman is accountable to anyone in the movement,\u201d said Kris Rehl, an activist who volunteered for Raman during her 2020 city council run and now runs the mutual aid group LA Street Care. \u201cIf you do not subscribe to any ideology, you can\u2019t be held accountable to it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Rehl, who advocates for abolishing anti-camping bans that criminalize homeless encampments near schools and daycares, expressed dismay over Raman\u2019s previous votes on expanding the police department despite running on defunding the police in 2020.<\/p>\n Others like Tal Levy, a member of DSA-LA\u2019s electoral politics committee, remain more optimistic about what Raman can deliver as mayor. While DSA-LA is pushing for reallocating funds from the police budget into social services, Levy sees the value of Raman\u2019s pledge to support LA Forward\u2019s initiative of citywide expansion of unarmed crisis response teams, which divert certain 911 calls to teams of social workers and clinicians, rather than police.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if Nithya were a fire-breathing abolitionist, it would still be a long fight to make those changes,\u201d said Levy, who has been organizing with DSA-LA for nearly a decade. \u201cBut I believe there is plenty of room for us to make material wins in the short term.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While there is debate over how much power DSA-LA has within LA\u2019s political landscape, the group provided Raman additional attention and credibility among leftist voters, which was only bolstered by the successes of other DSA-endorsed candidates in New York<\/a> and in congressional races<\/a> across the nation.<\/p>\n The DSA\u2019s National Political Committee, however, spurred one of the biggest public rifts during Raman\u2019s campaign. The committee held a vote to un-endorse Raman over her perceived lack of support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which hadn\u2019t been included by the DSA-LA on its endorsement questionnaire. After a week of debate and dueling resolutions, and an email from Raman, in which she wrote, \u201cthe best way for working Angelenos to stand in solidarity with Gaza is through non-violent protest, legislative action, and diplomatic pressure, including BDS,\u201d the national committee decided against rescinding its endorsement of Raman by a narrow margin<\/a>.<\/p>\n Frances Gill, one of three DSA-LA members on the DSA national political committee, voted against rescinding the group\u2019s endorsement. She opposed the idea of alienating the organization\u2019s second largest chapter as \u201cbad organizing and bad leadership,\u201d especially in a high-profile race when the stakes for the regional and national chapters were so closely intertwined.<\/p>\n \u201cThe public ties us to one another,\u201d Gill said of the DSA and Raman, \u201cand there\u2019s not a lot of other key players who have also played such a critical role in her being able to win. So I think that gives us an outsized seat at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n She was a part of the faction among national leadership that instead called for a long-term pressure campaign on Raman on the issue of Israel and Palestine. The group is planning to push Raman on what she can do as mayor to halt the transportation of military hardware that makes its way through the Los Angeles International Airport to Israel<\/a>. Organizers also plan to call for an end to real estate events in LA facilitating the sale of housing illegally built in the occupied West Bank. They will also examine whether the city itself is invested<\/a> in companies that are profiting off Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza and apartheid rule of Palestinians.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there is room to push,\u201d Gill said.<\/p>\n Another major public spat between progressives and Raman took place in January before she announced her candidacy for mayor.\u00a0<\/p>\n Catching housing advocates by surprise, Raman introduced a motion to reform the city\u2019s \u201cmansion tax\u201d to make exemptions for developers. Raman claimed that the tax, known as Measure ULA, was inadvertently preventing construction of new multi-family housing. Organizers opposed the idea, since the tax generates funds for services to support existing affordable housing and keep people housed, and that carveouts for developers would only fuel displacement of low-income renters, possibly pushing more people to the streets.<\/p>\n LA Forward was among those blindsided by the motion, which she eventually withdrew. Before endorsing Raman, Levitus and the group met with the candidate alongside organizers in an activist\u2019s home.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShe talked about, \u2018The times when I\u2019ve succeeded, it\u2019s because I built a coalition, the times when I failed, it\u2019s because I didn\u2019t, and I didn\u2019t bring people along,\u2019\u201d Levitus recalled from the July meeting. \u201cShe really owned her mistake. I don\u2019t know how much her mind has changed intellectually about the policy, but think clearly she recognizes that she needed to do something different \u2014 and that might lead to her pushing for a policy that is different from what she had pushed for before.\u201d<\/p>\n Among Raman\u2019s early tests progressives will be watching for is how she fulfills her pledge to fire LAPD police chief Jim McDonnell. Raman was among the councilmembers who approved his appointment in 2024, despite concerns around his track record of collaborating with ICE as LA County sheriff. She has since said she would fire McDonnell over his response to the ICE raids and his refusal to enforce a state law that banned federal agents from wearing masks<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yet the pledge to replace McDonnell may present a political quagmire for Raman, given that the mayor in LA cannot unilaterally force out a police chief. The city\u2019s police commission, consisting of five civilians appointed by the mayor, must make that decision. Raman first will need to assemble her own commission, but that process also requires approval from a city council that remains largely supportive of the police department.\u00a0<\/p>\n William Gude, a vocal police accountability advocate who supported Raman in the election, said he planned to push the mayor to circumvent the process by asking McDonnell to resign. \u201cI\u2019m putting pressure on her from day one,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s some promises that she made, and those promises need to be kept.\u201d<\/p>\n In her first press conference as mayor-elect, Raman sidestepped a question about whether she still planned to fire McDonnell, amid public threats from the police union warning of \u201cArmageddon.\u201d \u201cPublic safety is the most important service the city is delivering to its people,\u201d said Raman, noting the chief was one of her first phone calls<\/a> after winning.\u00a0<\/p>\n Activist pressure could be a burden for Raman \u2014 or a tool she could use to force legislation through a city council she knows well, according to Gude. \u201cDoes she want to have activists coming after her, also while battling 15 council members?\u201d said Gude, who goes by @FilmthePoliceLA on social media. \u201cOr would she rather have the activist base going after the council members that are coming after her, to create a buffer, to do a lot of her heavy lifting? It\u2019s a choice she has to make.\u201d<\/p>\n Hamid Khan, who heads the Stop Spying LAPD Coalition, is among those who is closely watching who Raman appoints to her police commission. But he sees Raman\u2019s pledge of firing McDonnell as \u201ca band-aid\u201d for the more glaring structural issues of the department. While crediting Raman\u2019s opposition to automated license plate readers from Flock Safety and Axon, Khan also pointed to Raman\u2019s historic support for expanding the police department.<\/p>\nRoom to Push<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Police Chief Dilemma<\/strong><\/h2>\n