When Knock began reporting in 2017, people told us that no one cared about local politics. The alt-weeklies were being sold for scrap and the LA Times was choking under the thumb of something called Tronc; city hall may as well have been on the moon. The idea that your average Angeleno would care about something like City Council was absurd.
You proved them wrong.
While most media attention has focused on the presidential race, this election could help decide the paths of our region and our state for years to come. There are measures promising long-needed, if insufficient, structural reforms to local governments, and progressive candidates looking to make major gains up and down the ballot. At the same time, reactionaries are hoping to erase a decade of progress on prison reform and return to the brutal stupidity of the “War On Drugs” era, and bigoted anti-LGBTQ+ extremists try to law their way onto school boards and into classrooms.
The common thread is that YOUR votes will make a decisive difference. That is why our team of editors and writers have devoted countless hours of research and discussion to making these recommendations. This voter guide is a labor of love – love for the city, and for all the people in it. Thank you to everyone who gave their time to this collaborative effort.
If this voter guide was useful to you, we’d appreciate any donation you can give.
Knock LA is a journalism project of Ground Game LA. We exist to tell the stories that others will not about the communities and people that our daily discourse ignores. We believe that uplifting these stories, these communities, these people is a key step to building power where it is most needed. If you believe in that mission too, please support Knock LA.
November 2024 General Election Races
CITY OF LOS ANGELES
LA City Council District 2: Jillian Burgos
Jillian Burgos is the owner of a small theater company and a member of her neighborhood council who formerly served as the chair of the Housing and Services committee. In her capacity, she has moved resources to feed and provide wraparound services to people experiencing homelessness in North Hollywood. Her lifelong experience as a renter will add a much-needed tenant voice to the majority-homeowner LA City Council. Burgos’ strong showing in the primary served as a reminder that, when given the opportunity, Angelenos across the city will choose candidates with lived experience who will fight for our communities over career politicians just looking for their next landing pad. Although she was outraised nearly 9 to 1, Burgos and her team have pulled 22% of the vote in an open primary. Burgos would be the first Afro-Latina on council and has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a thirst for progressive representation in the Valley. Her endorsements include City Controller Kenneth Mejia, Burbank city councilmember Konstantine Anthony, and Ground Game LA.
Her opponent, Adrin Nazarian, is the chosen successor to the termed out council president Paul Krekorian. Nazarian is a corporate Democrat whose decade in office has produced no meaningful legislation. He previously spent a decade in the Assembly and served as chief of staff for Paul Krekorian, both when Krekorian was an assembly member and later when he was a councilmember. Despite claiming to be pro-renter and even a progressive champion in some spaces, Nazarian’s donor base (and voting history) shows otherwise. Thrive LA, the group that put a $1 million bounty on Nithya Raman’s reelection campaign, hosted a fundraiser for him in December. Nazarian has been actively seeking support from the real estate industry, securing significant backing from groups like the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, California Real Estate PAC, and dozens of developers, construction companies, and real estate firms.
LA City Council District 10: Heather Hutt
Heather Hutt, CD 10’s current incumbent, was handpicked by the local party establishment to fill the seat left open by the federal indictment (and subsequent conviction) of Mark Ridley-Thomas on corruption charges. In fact, the machinations to put her in place, along with her expected reliability as a compliant vote, were a major subject of the leaked Fed tapes.
In wake of the tapes’ release, Hutt has positioned herself as a somewhat more progressive and independent voice, and has provided some valuable votes on issues such as tenants’ rights. But she has also cast lousy votes for the grotesque new LAPD contract, and it remains to be seen how she will align herself during a full term and with Marqueece Harris-Dawson as the new council president. Her office’s treatment of the unhoused is also far from the progressives on council — advocates in Koreatown have seen encampments targeted with repeated sweeps, with the harassment continuing even during rain and dangerous heatwaves. Advocates have also criticized Hutt’s office for continued support of the residential fence originally installed by the Country Club Park Neighborhood Association which walls off a section of single-family homes in an otherwise renter-heavy community, a literal fence separating neighbors by class and blocking public accessibility.
Her opponent is Grace Yoo, who is running for this seat for the third time. She has a history of leading some extremely nasty protests against homeless shelters in Koreatown and has a long history of NIMBY activism. Yoo’s entire political career is due to her prominent role in fanning the flames of hatred against the unhoused. Hopefully it comes to an end this November.
LA City Council District 14: Ysabel Jurado
Ysabel Jurado’s powerhouse campaign has been the electoral ride we all deserve. Disgraced current city councilmember Kevin de León’s refusal to step down (even after being told to resign by President Biden), has been the perfect launching pad for Jurado’s campaign. The daughter of undocumented Filipino immigrants and a single mother, she understands the struggles working class Angelenos face, because she has faced them herself. As a teen mom, she relied on food stamps to feed her family and depended on the 81 bus line to get her from Northeast LA to Westwood, where she got her degree from UCLA after transferring from Pasadena City College.
This is what led her to become an eviction defense lawyer and work on the frontlines of the housing/homelessness crisis. She understands that in order to solve the homelessness crisis, we first need to stop it from continuing to get worse.
The Highland Park native is also no stranger to ineffective leaders who have sold out the needs of their constituents to special interests. In the face of gentrification, she has demonstrated an understanding of the urgency for community ownership models to fight against displacement, having provided legal support to housing cooperatives, worker-owned cooperatives, and community land trusts.
Jurado’s expertise and dedication to serving the community is reflected in her campaign platform. While a newcomer to politics, her website boasts detailed policy proposals that have been meticulously crafted with input from the community. Her proposals include expanding affordable housing, building community resource hubs, ending homelessness, supporting small businesses, tackling the climate crisis, and building a more just economy for all.
Her campaign has earned the endorsements of the LA County Democratic Party, the LA Labor Federation, CD 1 Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, and City Controller Kenneth Mejia, along with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action, Food & Water Action, Ground Game LA, DSA-LA, and California Women’s List, among other progressive groups.
The incumbent, Kevin de León, was part of the backroom gerrymandering scandal exposed by the leaked LA Fed tapes, which also uncovered numerous racist comments. Following the leak, he made news for attacking an activist.
De León has not been a reliable vote when it comes to progressive items like capping rent increases or reducing police funding. He also supports criminalizing homelessness and has introduced a slew of 41.18 zones. This district, which had the largest population of unhoused individuals and the most eviction notices in 2023, needs better representation.
LOS ANGELES COUNTY
District Attorney: George Gascón
District Attorney George Gascón has, to an impressive degree, made good on the promises of his election. Elected during the upheaval of the first year of the pandemic and the George Floyd uprising, the ex–police chief and former district attorney of San Francisco offered a new direction for LA’s criminal legal system. His reforms have reduced the use of irrational and draconian prison sentences, kept children out of adult prisons, and increased the role of mental health treatment, addiction rehabilitation, and diversion programs that are proven to prevent recidivism.
This is exactly what Angelenos have been demanding for years! But from day one, Gascón’s reform policies faced unprecedented opposition from conservatives in his own office, the police unions, and even the judicial bench — not to mention the usual cadre of Fox News mouthpieces who spend their time pretending that every left-of-center city has become some sort of Mad Max wasteland.
Out of the assortment of fearmongers, opportunists, and egotists hoping to ride a wave of misinformation into the DA’s office, Republican and failed attorney general candidate Nathan Hochman made it through to the general election. Hochman has nowhere near the experience of Gascón and offers nothing more than a return to a morally bankrupt pursuit of incarceration for its own sake. Hochman was openly registered and running statewide as a Republican as recently as 2022; as so often happens, he had sudden stirrings of “independence” when it came time to run in Los Angeles in order to hide his past from voters. Hochman’s backwards policies and lack of character should be rejected
Gascón’s tenure does have some clear weaknesses. His reforms tend to arrive as proclamations from on high, without real effort to promote or explain the moves to the county or even his own employees. His office has also been hesitant to bring charges against killer cops, leaving families of victims in the lurch — a key issue that previously swung the 2020 election in his favor. And, unfortunately, he has proven poor at explaining his work to the public, letting falsehoods fill the silence rather than sharing the victories of his term: the families kept intact, the people diverted to treatment rather than prison, and the material gains in public safety.
Gascón has made major strides to improve criminal legal practices in Los Angeles and will hopefully continue to build upon that framework. The alternative is to turn our backs on rational policy — San Francisco replaced reformist DA Chesa Boudin with the tough-on-crime posturing and drug war politics of DA Brooke Jenkins; violent crime rose in San Francisco even as it fell across the state, and overdose deaths began to soar. Should we make the mistake of electing Hochman, we can expect to see our safety once again undermined.
The contest here is not reform against safety, but reform and safety against empty fear and prejudice. For a safer, more just county, Gascón deserves your vote.
LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
LAUSD District 1: No Recommendation
Sherlett Hendy Newbill has been endorsed by all members of the board’s current charter-critical majority — Rocío Rivas, Jackie Goldberg, Scott Schmerelson, and George McKenna (Newbill’s current boss, who is termed out). However, Newbill has indicated that she would retreat from the board’s 2021 vote to remove school police from campuses, instead preferring to shift the policy to a campus-by-campus basis. That’s unacceptable.
Her opponent, Kahllid Al-Alim, has run on a more progressive platform, and had previously been endorsed by United Teachers Los Angeles. However, it emerged at the end of the primary that he had used social media to praise a flagrantly antisemitic book in October 2022. He subsequently apologized, but then backtracked on his apology and appeared to stand by the book, including its antisemitic views. UTLA quite rightly rescinded its endorsement and support. The whole incident displays an appalling lack of judgment and is disqualifying in a candidate for office.
Al-Alim has reportedly neither raised or spent any money since the primary, and his website has gone dark. Newbill will clearly be the next representative for this district. But given the flaws of both candidates, we cannot recommend either.
LAUSD District 3: Scott Schmerelson
Scott Schmerelson, a lifelong educator and former school principal, has represented this east San Fernando Valley district since 2020. His reelection campaign is endorsed by United Teachers Los Angeles.
When the board discusses issues, whether procedural or contentious, it’s clear that Schmerelson draws from his tenure in schools and deeply considers the impact of the board’s decision-making on the classrooms. And when district representatives are less than forthcoming about district policies and practices, Schmerelson can (and has) cut through the fog and spoken candidly about what those practices actually are.
In this coming term, as ESSER funds recede (robust federal educational emergency funding tied to COVID), the LAUSD board will have difficult decisions to make about resource allocation — and Schmerelson’s wisdom and candor will be particularly useful. Vote Schmerelson in this election.
LAUSD District 5: Karla Griego
Karla Griego, an LAUSD special education teacher for 19 years, has Ground Game LA’s endorsement to replace the retiring Jackie Goldberg. Griego has been part of this district since she immigrated to Los Angeles from El Salvador at 5 years old and began attending LAUSD schools. As a United Teachers Los Angeles area chair, she has led work that resulted in LAUSD policy changes, including lowering class sizes, placing nurses in all schools, placing librarians in all secondary schools, and establishing community schools. She would be the first special education teacher on the school board.
Griego believes charter schools need to be transparent in terms of equitable enrollment and their use of district funds, including funds owed to the district for over-allocation of space. Griego is endorsed by United Teachers Los Angeles — the voice of the district’s 37,000 teachers, nurses, and counselors — and DSA-LA, among others. These endorsements convince us that she is the right choice.
JUDGE OF THE SUPERIOR COURT
Judge – Seat 39: George Turner
George Turner is an experienced deputy public defender with deep roots in Inglewood. In addition to his trial work, he serves as the supervisor for the public defender’s Mobile Homelessness Unit, giving him great experience as an advocate for mental health and addiction treatment and making him particularly suited to the challenges of the present moment.
Turner is part of the Defenders of Justice slate and endorsed by Ground Game LA.
Judge – Seat 48: Ericka Wiley
Ericka Wiley has spent more than two decades doing trial work for the Los Angeles County public defender, and has leadership and management experience as a “deputy in charge” at the office. She is committed to fairness and justice in the courts, and to breaking the cycles that fuel the crisis of mass incarceration.
Wiley is part of the Defenders of Justice slate and endorsed by Ground Game LA.
Judge – Seat 97: La Shae Henderson
La Shae Henderson served with the public defender for 18 years, during which she worked extensively in the juvenile courts and worked with litigators across the state on implementation of California’s Racial Justice Act (2020), which aimed to reduce racial bias in the criminal legal system. A depth of specialized knowledge makes her a natural choice.
Henderson is endorsed by Ground Game LA.
Judge – Seat 135: Georgia Huerta
We recommend Georgia Huerta, who has the most experience as a lawyer and who has served as a district attorney in the collaborative courts — special courts designed to address issues of mental illness and substance abuse with a focus on treatment and recovery rather than incarceration. That experience will be crucial in implementing reforms in the years to come.
Judge – Seat 137: No Recommendation
Neither candidate in this race sticks out as a strong choice for progressive voters. Sorry.
CALIFORNIA STATE LEGISLATURE
State Senate
Senate District 23: Kipp Mueller
Kipp Mueller is a labor attorney representing employees, pushing a mostly progressive platform focusing on homelessness, wage inequality, and the environment. In 2020, Mueller narrowly lost the election for this seat to current Republican state senator Scott Wilk, who is term-limited. In this runoff, Mueller is facing former Republican assemblymember Suzette Martinez Valladares, the former executive director of an LAPD PALS chapter in the San Fernando Valley who is endorsed by pretty much every local Republican you can think of, from mayor of Lancaster Rex Parris to County Supervisor Kathryn Barger. Valladares took the lead in the primary with only about 4,000 votes, which means every vote for Mueller counts! Give him yours!
Senate District 25: Sasha Renée Pérez
District 25 is the San Gabriel Valley seat left open by term-limited incumbent Anthony Portantino. Sasha Renée Pérez, a young rising-star politician from Alhambra, has attracted the most support from Democratic electeds and received the state party’s endorsement. Pérez’s core issues include homelessness, sustainability, and the cost of housing.
Pérez is facing off with Republican Elizabeth Ahlers, part of the Christian far right, who is in the race to try to banish trans people from our schools. Pérez narrowly took the primary, and we recommend you help her keep it that way this November.
Senate District 27: Henry Stern
If you live in North Hollywood, Studio City, Sherman Oaks, west or northwest San Fernando Valley, Thousand Oaks, or Simi Valley, you should vote for Henry Stern. He is an effective and trustworthy environmental advocate, and he is opposed by a MAGA conservative zealot.
In Los Angeles, it’s easy to be pro-environment. You can vote against a development or say yes to some ambitious climate goal and pander about the importance of sustainability without ever making a hard choice or expending political capital. That’s not the kind of environmental legislator Stern is: he consistently goes where the need is, striking smart balances between aggressively pushing the state forward and fostering legislatively viable policy. He is unafraid to butt heads when necessary, even with Governor Newsom.
His opposition, Lucie Volotzky, is endorsed by a who’s who of who’s left as an out Republican in LA and has a policy platform that features anti-trans bigotry. As a senator, she pledges to “defeat the radical progressive agenda hijacking our state and country.” She also prominently displays a Thin Blue Line flag on her website.
We must note Stern’s failure to support rent control by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Act, but that does not alter our recommendation. He has also repeatedly expressed support for Israel without mentioning the atrocities in Gaza. Furthermore, he has taken money from police unions, realtor associations, and AirBnB. He also spearheaded legislation for CARE Courts, which will make it easier for the state to take conservatorship over those it considers mentally ill. We believe the courts will be used to further criminalize being poor.
However, his opponent is much, much worse on those issues.
As the climate crisis moves from looming threat to intolerable normal, California must pilot and model bold, aggressive environmental policy, and the value of Stern’s work on this front is hard to overstate. In this election, vote for Henry Stern, and not just because the alternative is a right-wing ideologue.
Senate District 33: Lena Gonzalez
A mea culpa is perhaps due to Lena Gonzalez, whose agenda Knock LA considered immediately suspect when she entered the legislature in 2019 with substantial financial support from the oil and gas lobby. Gonzalez said at the time that she was neither beholden to, nor even a fan of, the interests that were supporting her, but it is in her votes and bills that she has since proven her independence.
Representing chronically polluted neighborhoods surrounding the massive Long Beach–Los Angeles port complex, Gonzalez has vigorously pursued new environmental protections, like a buffer keeping new and existing oil wells from operating if they are near homes or other sensitive land uses. She has also provided important public testimony about the corrosive influence of the fossil fuel industry within the state’s Democratic caucus. In the current term, she also authored a bill increasing mandatory sick leave in the state, earning her the renewed ire of the state’s chamber of commerce. We recommend a vote for Gonzalez.
Senate District 35: No recommendation
Michelle Chambers was the favorite in the primary race, but ultimately came in second behind Laura Richardson. While Chambers is endorsed by corrupt Inglewood mayor James Butts and ex–City Council freak Joe Buscaino, she also has good endorsements and seems like she’d be… fine. Her most recent role was as director of external affairs for Rob Bonta, who is just okay himself.
Laura J. Richardson on the other hand is a career politician attempting to get back in the game after an 11-year hiatus since losing her congressional seat to Janice Hahn in 2013. In 2007, Richardson supported AB 900 to create 40,000 more prison beds in California at the cost of $7.4 billion. Though she doesn’t give a clear sense of her vision these days, it is probably safe to guess her politics are about the same.
STATE ASSEMBLY
Assembly District 34: Ricardo Ortega
Republican Tom Lackey has compiled a voting record that matches the backwards positions of his party during his 10 years representing this high-desert district. Democrat Ricardo Ortega is a former foster youth who now advocates for current foster youth and those transitioning out of the system. Vote for Ortega.
Assembly District 39: No Recommendation
Democratic assemblymember Juan Carrillo was generally a disappointment in his first term in this latine-majority district that includes parts of Palmdale, Lancaster, and Victorville. Carrillo failed to support bills raising the minimum wage for fast food workers (AB 1228), strengthening penalties on oil companies for leaks and spills (AB 631), and prohibiting racially biased “consent” searches by police (AB 93). While he also supported some progressive criminal justice bills, that is not good enough in this safely blue district.
Carrillo faces Republican Paul Marsh in a rematch of 2022, when 57% of voters supported Carrillo. Neither candidate deserves your vote in this uncompetitive race.
Assembly District 40: Pilar Schiavo
Pilar Schiavo first took office in 2022 after defeating incumbent Republican Suzette Martinez Valladares in one of the closest races of the cycle, carrying the race by just a few hundred votes. Schiavo is now up for reelection against far-right Republican Patrick Lee Gipson, a former sheriff’s deputy running in opposition to “Marxist” school curricula, pandemic-era public health orders, and liberal activists “funded by unending influxes of foreign money.”
Schiavo has supported tenant protections, worker rights, and affordable housing from this seat. We recommend a vote for Schiavo in what will likely be another tight race.
Assembly District 41: John Harabedian
Former Sierra Madre city councilmember John Harabedian faces Republican Michelle Del Rosario Martinez in this open seat race. Harabedian is a strong advocate for combating climate change and supports a ban on the production of harmful chemicals near schools and neighborhoods. Vote Harabedian.
Assembly District 42: No Recommendation
Democrat Jacqui Irwin consistently fails to support progressive legislation, including bills to strengthen eviction protections, to increase the number or required sick days (SB 616), and to end racially biased “consent” searches by police. However, her Republican opponent Ted Nordblum is no better, offering an anti-tax and law-and-order platform. We cannot recommend either in this Dem-leaning district.
Assembly District 43: Celeste Rodriguez
San Fernando mayor and Democrat Celeste Rodriguez has amassed endorsements from many labor unions and Democratic Party politicians in this race for an open San Fernando Valley district. She supports legislation encouraging renewable energy while phasing out fossil fuels in cooking systems. Her opponent, Republican Victoria Garcia, favors harder criminal sentences and hateful anti-LGBT “parental rights” positions. Vote Rodriguez.
Assembly District 44: Nick Shultz
In the primary we recommended Burbank councilmember Nick Schultz, who came in first in a crowded field seeking to replace Laura Friedman. Schultz has enacted several progressive policies in Burbank, including shifting funding from police to social welfare programs ($2 million — a small but nonetheless meaningful amount in a small city), creating a detailed municipal greenhouse gas reduction plan, and permitting new affordable housing over NIMBY opposition.
His Republican opponent is a reactionary whose platform is almost entirely dominated by his desire to purge LGBTQ content from schools and to turn the public school system into a maze of vouchers. By appealing to extremists he was able to eke out a second-place finish as the only GOP candidate in the primary. He should be allowed nowhere near the state capitol.
Assembly District 46: Jesse Gabriel
Jesse Gabriel is going to win this race. Gabriel has also improved on issues related to criminal justice in his past two terms. He’s fine. And again, he’s going to win this race. His only opposition is a Republican who wants to slash taxes and spend more money on cops. This is perhaps our most lukewarm recommendation, but it doesn’t matter because this race is already over.
Assembly District 48: No Recommendation
We eagerly endorsed Brian Tabatabai’s progressive primary challenge against the incumbent corporate Democrat Blanca Rubio. Alas, Brian came in third and missed the general. Blanca Rubio is one of the most conservative Democrats in the Assembly, as shown by her “F” rating from Courage California, and cannot be endorsed in the safely Democratic seat.
Assembly District 49: Mike Fong
Following the January 2023 mass shooting in Monterey Park, Assemblymember Mike Fong sprang to action, introducing a legislative package focused on preventing such tragedies in the future. He ultimately passed laws strengthening the process for removing firearms from people who are prohibited from owning them, mandating translation services during emergencies, and combating anti-Asian discrimination. He also authored a law banning the sale of guns by state and local agencies, which was vetoed by Governor Newsom.
Fong had a good voting record overall in his first full term, although he did receive a troubling amount of donations from gas companies, real estate interests, and police associations.
Fong’s Republican opponent, whose digital presence is littered with “Make [Blank] [Blank] Again” riffs, is not worth your consideration.
Assembly District 51: No Recommendation
Rick Chavez Zbur is running against a Republican, which is a shame, because this district — an east-west district that stretches from Santa Monica to East Hollywood — deserves far better. Zbur has been in politics for decades, fundraising for then-governor Bill Clinton, running for Congress and LA city attorney before settling on state Assembly.
Zbur is in an enviable political situation: with massive financial support, well-worn political connections, and a bright blue district, there are few people in the state who could drive as much legislative progress as Zbur — at least in theory. The reality has been very different. With all this political capital, he is focusing on chairing a select committee on retail theft and has done the bare minimum with regard to progressive priorities.
With thousands in campaign donations coming from interested parties as varied as real estate and landlord lobbying associations, charter schools, gas companies, Amazon, and AirBnB, perhaps inaction is a feature and not a bug. But alas: Where he is a disappointment, his Republican opponent would be a disaster.
Rick Chavez Zbur clearly knows where his bread is buttered. Next cycle, we hope he is toast.
Assembly District 52: Franky Carrillo
Framed for murder by LASD gang members, wrongly convicted, and then exonerated after 20 years in prison (a story Knock LA covered as part of A Tradition of Violence), Franky Carrillo, then earned a degree and went to work advocating for justice reform. He co-chaired the successful Measure A sheriff accountability ballot measure and is the chief policy advisor to Cal State LA’s Innocence Project. There is no substitute for lived experience.
Too many assemblymembers take their position and responsibility for granted, legislating as though so many people’s welfare doesn’t depend on swift progress. We don’t have that concern about Franky Carrillo: if elected, he would almost certainly legislate with a deeply felt urgency. We recommend voting for him over fellow Democrat Jessica Caloza.
Assembly District 53: No Recommendation
In the primary election we recommended nonprofit leader Javier Hernandez for this open seat, but Democrat Michelle Rodriguez and Republican Nick Wilson advanced to the general. Michelle Rodriguez is the wife of Freddie Rodriguez, the term-limited current representative of this seat who disappointed while in office. We expect nothing better from Michelle. Neither candidate can be recommended in this safely blue Pomona-based seat.
Assembly District 54: John Yi
In another open seat race, we recommend nonprofit leader John Yi. Yi’s campaign focuses on stopping growing inequality and its impacts on district residents. He supports repealing the Ellis Act and the Costa-Hawkins Act, increased subsidies for cost-burdened households, and better public and active transportation. He is also the executive director of Los Angeles Walks, a pedestrian advocacy nonprofit.
Opponent Mark Gonzalez is running to replace his departing boss, Miguel Santiago. A creature of the establishment, Gonzalez’s high-gloss campaign boasts a boatload of endorsements from electeds up to and including the governor. As the longtime chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, his priority has been holding back progressive change – his latest mailers feature a full page endorsement from “former” Republican councilmember John Lee, also known as Staffer B from the Mitch Englander indictment. Perhaps at some point we should discuss why the local Democratic Party is so willing to accept conservatives who change their registration for electoral gain!
Support Yi’s independent campaign over a party flack.
Assembly District 55: Isaac G. Bryan
Assembly member Isaac G. Bryan is a progressive champion for criminal justice reform, environmental protections, and affordable housing legislation. In 2024, Bryan wrote and helped pass AB 2716, which requires low-producing wells in Inglewood Oil Field to be plugged within 2 years. Bryan has also sponsored an ambitious measure to add the right to clean air and water and a healthy environment into the California constitution.
Assembly District 56: No Recommendation
Democrat Lisa Calderon is on track to win a second term in this Dem-leaning district. With a record of collecting oil and gas contributions and failing to support many progressive priorities, she has done nothing to deserve your vote.
Assembly District 57: Sade Elhawary
Progressive Sade Elhawary, an LA native who was the first of her family to attend college, supports policies that reflect the urgent needs of her low-income district. Elhawary supports expanding eviction protections, giving Black and brown communities a voice in development decisions made about their neighborhoods, and developing non-market and subsidized housing. She also supports bold climate action, expanding access to mental health resources, and fully funding community clinics and health centers.
Conservative Democrat Efren Martinez is endorsed by the LA police and LA County sheriff associations and has received campaign contributions from oil and gas companies. Vote Elhawary.
Assembly District 61: Tina McKinnon
Progressive Democrat Tina McKinnor is a longtime activist and native Angeleno who, in 2023, sponsored and passed AB 12, which limits security deposits to one month’s rent, and AB 1418, a statewide prohibition on “crime-free housing” ordinances, which were used by cities to systemically evict and keep out Black and Latine residents. She deserves your vote.
Assembly District 62: No Recommendation
Termed-out former speaker Anthony Rendon has endorsed Lynwood city councilmember and local Chamber of Commerce president and CEO José Luis Solache to replace him. Solache has endorsements spanning from the California Federation of Teachers to the Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, and has received donations from real estate and landlord lobbyists, gas companies, and police associations. We are dismayed, but not surprised, to see another uninspired corporate Democrat stroll into an safely blue open seat. The Republican in this race holds detestable views, but that is irrelevant. We cannot recommend either candidate.
Assembly District 64: No Recommendation
Democrat Blanca Pacheco compiled one of the most conservative voting records by a Democrat in the 2023-24 Assembly. She assisted in blocking numerous criminal justice reforms, including ending racially biased consent searches by police. She also failed to support key bills strengthening workers’ rights and eviction protections. Her Republican challenger cannot be recommended either in this safe Democratic seat.
Assembly District 65: No Recommendation
Entrenched Democratic assemblymember Mike Gipson faces a Republican who made the general election as a write-in. Gipson takes enormous amounts of campaign cash from the same oil and gas companies that shorten the lives of the residents of his district, and he regularly fails to support urgent climate bills.
Assembly District 66: No Recommendation
Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, who has held this seat since 2016, has a checkered voting history, including voting no on AB 937, which would have ended the transfer of people eligible for release from jail or prison to immigration detention. He has accepted a significant amount of contributions from police associations and real estate interests. He faces a Republican in an uncompetitive race.
Assembly District 67: Sharon Quirk-Silva
Incumbent Democrat Sharon Quirk-Silva failed in 2023 to support stricter enforcement and penalties against oil companies for leaks and spills or a prohibition on racially biased police consent searches, among other troubling positions. However her opponent, Elizabeth Culver, is a prominent member of the right-wing Conservative Patriots of Orange County. We recommend a vote for Quirk-Silva in this OC-based swing district.
Assembly District 69: No Recommendation
Incumbent Josh Lowenthal failed to support a bill requiring large companies to disclose their climate-related financial risk (fortunately, the bill passed anyway). He also accepted campaign donations from gas companies, real estate interests, and police associations.
Most seriously, he introduced AB 2153, legislation that targets the California Public Records Act (CPRA) — which is similar to LA City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto’s proposed CPRA amendment designed to increase government secrecy. The amendment would have required notification of public employees before certain personal records are released to the public, giving them a chance to try to block the release. Fortunately, this bill went nowhere.
Neither Lowenthal nor his Republican opponent can be recommended in this uncompetitive race.
US CONGRESS
US Senate
Senator: No Recommendation
After more than a decade, Adam Schiff is finally getting the promotion he’s been pining and fundraising for.
This seat has an undistinguished history, as it was long the perch of Dianne Feinstein, who spent some three decades as a centrist and hawkish neoliberal who opposed progressive priorities. It was then briefly warmed by placeholder and former Airbnb lobbyist Laphonza Butler. Schiff won’t be an improvement.
Before he was elected to Congress in 2000, Schiff made his bones first as a federal prosecutor and then in the California State Senate, where he was one of the most enthusiastic and legislatively productive champions of our state’s system of mass incarceration. His milquetoast, pro-business moderation may have had some justification when he was first running to oust a Republican in a swing seat, but his politics have changed little since, even as his district has become overwhelmingly Democratic. Schiff has used his time in office to establish himself as a stridently Zionist and hawkish representative for the military-industrial complex (yes, of course he supported the invasion of Iraq), and then more recently, to build a national profile and an immense warchest playing a lawyer on MSNBC for the last few years.
Schiff and his allies spent many millions of those dollars to boost Republican Steve Garvey in the primary in order to box out Schiff’s more progressive rivals Katie Porter and Barbara Lee. This tactic was both cynical and effective, and Garvey will indeed be the sacrificial lamb, electorally speaking, in the general. But don’t spare Garvey (a former baseball star) any sympathy — he called student protesters supporting a ceasefire in Palestine “pro-terrorism,” urging their arrest, and he owes enormous quantities in back taxes, because why should a rich famous guy have to pay taxes?
So, we’re stuck with Schiff.
US House of Representatives
District 23: Derek Marshall
This deeply conservative district — covering the communities of Victorville, Barstow, and Joshua Tree — is unlikely to elect a Democrat in 2024. But progressive candidate Derek Marshall is running a campaign to build a lasting progressive movement in the high desert. His support for a ceasefire in Gaza and his advocacy for climate justice, Medicare for All, and LGBTQ+ rights makes him the clear choice in this race over MAGA-supporting incumbent Jay Obernolte.
District 26: No Recommendation
Six-term incumbent Julia Brownley voted in April to continue providing Israel with unconditional military aid, which will further enable the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. She also voted for House Resolution 894, which ignorantly declared “anti-zionism is antisemitism.” She faces Republican Michael Koslow, who poses no threat in this safely blue seat.
District 27: George Whiteside
Republican Mike Garcia is a Trump-backed conservative who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results. He previously co-sponsored a bill to ban abortion nationwide — even in California. He also opposes student debt relief and is supported by weapons manufacturers and fossil fuel interests. Moreover, Garcia secretly sold $50,000 of Boeing stock immediately prior to the release of a damning congressional report about the company and failed to report this trade until after the 2022 election.
Democrat George Whitesides, an aerospace executive, supports full reproductive health and abortion access, wants to ban individual stock trading by members of Congress, and proposes a “Apollo-like” program for public investment in affordable housing. While we do not agree with Whiteside on all issues, this district is one of very few in California that will determine partisan control of the House of Representatives. The stakes are high. Whiteside is the necessary vote here.
District 28: Judy Chu
Representative Judy Chu — who represents Pasadena, Alhambra, and nearby cities — was one of only 37 congressional Democrats to take a stand against the ongoing killing of civilians in Gaza, voting against unconditional military aid to Israel in April 2024. She also favors Medicare for All and citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Vote for Chu.
District 29: Luz Rivas
Assemblywoman Luz Rivas, the handpicked successor of Rep. Tony Cárdenas, has compiled a reasonably progressive record in her time in the State Assembly. Despite this, we question the priorities of a politician who continues to take contributions from big corporations like Amazon, Airbnb, AT&T, and Facebook.
Reservations aside, her opponent Benito Bernal is a virulent bigot who has participated in violent anti-LGBTQ rallies in 2023 with hate groups like LOKA. Allowing him to represent this community would be a disgrace.
District 30: Laura Friedman
Laura Friedman will be the next representative for this overwhelmingly Democratic district. In all likelihood, she will be a significant improvement on her predecessor, Adam Schiff, though that’s a very low bar.
Laura Friedman has done a decent job in the Assembly as a consistent supporter of housing and transit and a strong and effective voice on the environment. That places her well above Schiff, who came into office as a pro-business, pro-carceral moderate and has spent his time there developing close ties to the military-industrial complex and appearing on MSNBC.
But Friedman has indicated that she intends to mirror Schiff’s uncritical support for Israel, and her apparent lack of concern at Israel’s genocidal slaughter of Palestinians is both revolting and disheartening given that her position in Congress will give her much greater say over foreign policy.
Unfortunately, there is no viable alternative. Friedman’s Republican opponent Alex Balekian, has close ties to far-right, anti-LGBTQ extremists, including the repulsive bigots in “LOKA,” a group dedicated to spreading anti-LGBTQ hate.
Hold your nose and vote for Friedman, then prepare to give her hell once she’s in office.
District 31: Gil Cisneros
Democrat Gil Cisneros, who won the Mega Millions jackpot and then parlayed his wealth into a Congressional seat just south of this one, used his one-term stint in Congress to establish himself as an unimaginative moderate. He supported military spending increases in 2019 and 2020. He is now on the doorstep of returning to Congress after placing first in the March primary. Gil holds standard Democratic Party positions like supporting reproductive rights, banning assault weapons, and raising the Federal minimum wage to $15. He also refuses to take donations from Big Pharma and oil corporations.
Republican Daniel Martinez ran for this seat in 2022 and lost badly to Rep. Grace Napolitano, who is now retiring. Martinez promotes “unity amongst conservatives and libertarians” and supports Elon Musk. Cisnero is the uninspiring but better choice here.
District 32: No Recommendation
Brad Sherman’s career of mediocrity took a particularly dark turn in this most recent term as he lent his full-throated support to Netanyahu’s brutal government and its ongoing genocide in Gaza. He joined with GOP Senator Marco Rubio to slander Jewish pro-Palestine protesters as antisemitic terrorism supporters. While he claims to be an environmentalist, Sherman has been fighting (on behalf of wealthy Bel Air NIMBYs) against a subway line connecting the Valley and the West Side, betraying his working class constituents.
His opponent, Republican Larry Thompson, favors deportation for all undocumented immigrants, enacting tough-on-crime laws, and lowering real estate taxes that affect only the wealthy. Neither candidate can be recommended in this safely blue district.
District 34: David Kim
Representative Jimmy Gomez and progressive challenger David Kim face off for a third time in this Central and Northeast Los Angeles district. The trends may favor Kim, as he lost by 6% in 2020 and 2% in 2022. Kim has called for an end to the genocide and occupation in Palestine, while also providing detailed proposals for creating universal healthcare and building more public housing. In addition to his progressive policies, Kim also holds co-governance as a core value.
The 34th district is the poorest congressional district in California, with a 29% poverty rate, yet incumbent Gomez has failed to take the necessary steps to upend the status quo. Gomez continues to give lip service to progressive policies, while at the same time collecting significant amounts of campaign cash from the healthcare, real estate, and financial services corporations who oppose progressive reform. He has also voted in favor of unconditional military aid to Israel, enabling the killing of civilians in Gaza.
District 35: No Recommendation
Representative Norma Torres, the only member of Congress born in Central America, has represented Pomona and parts of San Bernardino County since 2015. Torres voted for unconditional military aid to Israel, despite the ongoing genocide perpetuated with those weapons, and for House Resolution 894, which ignorantly declared “anti-zionism is antisemitism.”
However her opponent, Republican Mike Cargile, opposes abortion rights, supports hateful anti-LGBT+ policies, and is a vocal advocate for guns. We cannot recommend a vote for either candidate.
District 36: No Recommendation
Westside representative Ted Lieu voted for unconditional military aid to Israel, thus enabling the ongoing killing of civilians in Palestine. He also voted for massive increases in military spending in 2021, 2022, and 2023 and has received thousands in campaign donations from military contractors, along with other corporate contributors. Unfortunately his opponent, conservative reactionary Melissa Toomim, is an even worse option. Knock LA declines to make a recommendation in this safe democratic district.
District 37: Juan Rey
First-term representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove won this Central LA district with relative ease in 2022 after former representative Karen Bass ran for mayor. While she holds some progressive positions, she voted for continuing weapons shipments to Israel, despite the use of those weapons to kill civilians in Gaza. She also accepts campaign donations from numerous large corporations, including Amazon.
Fortunately, voters have a better option in third party candidate Juan Rey. Rey is a longtime train mechanic for LA Metro and a union steward who supports an end to military weapon sales to Israel and advocates for socialist policy positions.
District 38: No Recommendation
Linda Sánchez has represented this Southeast Los Angeles district for more than 20 years. However, she is no progressive. Sánchez voted for unconditional military aid to Israel in April 2024, along with massive increases in military spending in 2021, 2022, and 2023. She also received large campaign contributions from landlord associations, banks, and health insurance companies. Voters deserve better. Unfortunately, Sánchez’s opponent, Republican Eric Ching, is worse. Knock LA makes no recommendation.
District 42: No Recommendation
Former Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia has become a rising political star in the Democratic Party in his first term in office. Yet his politics remain decidedly backwards. He voted for unconditional military aid to Israel, despite the ongoing slaughter of civilians in Gaza. He also receives copious amounts of corporate cash from the real estate, insurance, and healthcare industries and opposed rent control during his time as mayor.
Republican and MAGA conservative John Briscoe is also in the race. We recommend neither candidate.
District 43: Maxine Waters
Rep. Maxine Waters was one of only 37 congressional Democrats to take a stand against the ongoing genocide in Gaza and vote against unconditional military aid to Israel in April 2024. We wish more of her LA colleagues had such sense. She has also repeatedly called for a federal civil rights investigation into the violent LASD deputy gangs. Vote Waters.
District 44: No Recommendation
While Rep. Nanette Barragán purports to hold progressive views on many issues, her actual values became apparent in April 2024, when she voted to continue sending unconditional military aid to Israel, despite those weapons being used to kill thousands of Palestinian civilians. Yet conservative Republican Roger Groh is an even worse option. We decline to recommend either candidate in this safely blue district.
District 45: Derek Tran
Rep. Michelle Steel, a right-wing Republican who previously co-sponsored a bill to ban abortion nationwide and signed a legal brief seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade, is seeking re-election in this highly competitive district located mostly in Orange County.
Her opponent is Democrat Derek Tran, a consumer- and employee-rights attorney and the son of Vietnamese refugees. He wants to take on pharmaceutical companies in order to lower the cost of prescription drugs and to expand Medicare so that everyone has access to healthcare. Tran is the easy choice here.
BALLOT MEASURES
LA County
Measure A: Yes
This measure was assembled by many of the same folks who put together 2022’s LA City Measure ULA (United to House LA), and it will do a similarly great job at providing desperately needed funding to address the housing crisis.
Measure A will generate an estimated $1.1 billion in annual revenues to fund affordable housing, services for the unhoused, rental support for tenants, and other much-needed programs. The revenue will come from a new, permanent 0.5% sales tax, which will replace a 0.25% sales tax scheduled to expire in 2027.
Like ULA before it, Measure A expenditures will be strictly allocated according to provisions laid out in the ballot measure. It will involve significant citizen oversight, which will limit the capacity of the Board of Supervisors and the county bureaucracy to use the funding as an all-purpose slush fund. But, perhaps most exciting, a significant portion of the funding will go directly to the LA County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, a new and little noticed but extremely powerful board that has the ability to buy or even build new affordable housing, including social housing.
The simple reality is that we know what works to address homelessness and housing precarity — giving people housing and services. When we have done that, it has worked. The problems stem from the fact that we haven’t dedicated nearly enough money to meet needs, and that the existing housing market is so undersupplied, commodified, and dysfunctional that new people are pushed into homelessness faster than the current systems can bring people out of it.
Measure A won’t solve all of these problems, but it will provide essential new funding and new tools to make a major difference in the lives of tens of thousands of people. It has our enthusiastic support, including the endorsement of Ground Game LA.
Measure E: Yes
Measure E proposes a parcel tax of $0.06 per square foot to raise an estimated $152 million per year. LA County Fire Department is short-staffed, needs equipment upgrades, and is one of the busiest 911 systems in the world. They could use the money.
The LA County Board of Supervisors could choose to prioritize fire and rescue services without imposing new taxes. $152 million is not that significant in relation to a $45.6 billion annual budget. Unfortunately for us, LA County opted to award a whopping $4 billion to the infamous LA Sheriff’s Department, more than double the paltry $1.5 billion allocated to a department facing increasing demand and challenges in a region that grows hotter and drier each year.
In effect, we’re being asked to approve more tax revenue to fix a problem that the county could solve with better spending priorities.
Measure G: Yes
It’s been obvious for decades to even the most casual political observers that LA County’s current setup of five massively powerful supervisors ruling over five fiefdoms, overseeing the most populous county in the country, is a terrible system of governance.
Which makes it odd, to say the least, that this major governance reform package was unveiled and rushed through the County Board of Supervisors at the last possible minute, by a narrow 3-2 vote. There was supposed to be a study of governance reform, according to a motion passed by the Board over a year ago, but the County bureaucracy not only never produced a study, it never hired a consultant to produce a study. Rather than waiting, Supervisors Horvath and Hahn came up with their own package and pushed it through. This may explain why the proposed changes in Charter Amendment G are bold in the big strokes but shoddy or sparse on some of the details.
Briefly, if passed, the charter amendment would create a new, elected countywide executive; would expand the five-member Board of Supervisors to nine, and would create a purportedly independent ethics commission, in addition to some minor additional transparency measures.
The county executive position is long overdue. The current system of an unelected County CEO produces doubtful accountability for bureaucratic staff and has played a major role in why transformative initiatives to fund alternatives to incarceration and overhaul the youth development system have stalled out or foundered. Of course, this new executive will be immensely powerful, practically a mini-governor, and one shudders to think of the ungodly heaps of money that will be spent on the 2028 election for the first county executive. Public financing of county campaigns is one of those many details that got left out of the current package.
As for increasing the number of supervisors to nine, it’s an arbitrary number, and probably too low, but it’s clearly an improvement on five, given that the population of the county is some 10 million people.
The ethics commission, while a great idea, has virtually no details and thus no teeth. The Supervisors have promised to establish one by ordinance, but an ethics commission created by ordinance is weak by definition, as it can be changed just as easily. In its current form, it looks like little more than poll-tested window dressing.
The same is true of the absurd requirement that the new, expanded system of governance not cost any more than the current one. What this means, in practice, is that the new positions will be understaffed. This is obviously a cynical sop meant to soothe concerns about “big government” expansion, but the reality is that these costs are droplets in the bucket of the county’s $46 billion budget. It will have no practical effect on deficits or taxes, but it may seriously hinder the ability of the supervisors and the new county executive to properly do their jobs. It is shoddy and irresponsible in the extreme.
All else being equal, it might be tempting to give a pass to this flawed package and wait for a better considered set of reforms. But all else is not equal — if this measure goes down, it will set back the cause of structural reforms to county governance for easily a decade, and could damage efforts in LA City as well. The reality is that these are real improvements over the mess we have now and could plausibly create the momentum for further needed changes in the years to come.
Vote Yes on Measure G.
Proposition 2: Yes
This would authorize $10 billion in new bonds for capital investments in the facilities of K–12 public schools, community colleges, and technical education programs. Sounds good to us.
Proposition 3: Yes
In 2008, California voters supported Prop 8, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman in the state constitution. This was invalidated in 2015, when the Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges affirmed the right to marry under the 14th amendment.
Now, California voters have the opportunity to enshrine the right to marry in the state constitution by voting yes on Prop 3. This proposition made its way onto the ballot with no opposing votes in the California State Senate and Assembly. It is supported by the ACLU of Northern California, Equality California, Human Rights Campaign, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, and the Trans Latina Coalition.
Roughly 5% of California’s population identifies as LGBTQ+, placing California in the top five states with the highest LGBTQ+ populations. Voting yes on Prop 3 is a no-brainer for progressive voters.
Proposition 4: Yes
Another bond measure, this one to authorize borrowing $10 billion for climate and environmental projects, at least in part to fill in some of the gap left by budget cuts. The money would be allocated to water quality improvements, flood and drought protection, river and lake restoration, wildfire and extreme heat projects, parks and wildlife projects, coastal protections, clean energy projects, and agricultural projects.
Cool.
Proposition 5: Yes
This is basically a kludgy way to make an extremely stupid part of California’s godforsaken constitution slightly less stupid. Currently, most local government bond measures require voter approval with a two-thirds supermajority, which is insane and a terrible way to govern.
Proposition 5 would lower the threshold to 55% — not a simple majority, mind you, because that’s too normal, but 55%, which is at least better than two-thirds. This would make it much easier for local governments to borrow money for things like affordable housing construction, local hospitals, parks, water management, and the like.
But don’t worry, it gets stupider. To buy off the California Association of Realtors, the drafters of this measure also had to include a ban on local governments using the money raised through such bonds to buy single-family homes and convert them into affordable units.
So, is this Proposition good? No, of course not, this is California. But is it better than what currently exists? Yes, god help us, it is. So vote for it.
Proposition 6: Yes
This historic proposition, if approved by voters in November, will end involuntary servitude in California. While slavery is banned in the state, involuntary servitude is allowed as punishment for crime. A similar proposition was crushed by the state legislature in 2022.
Incarcerated people in California work in a variety of fields, including construction, yard work, cleaning, and firefighting, and are paid less than a dollar an hour for this work (with the exception of firefighters). If an able-bodied person refuses to work, the punishment can range from losing phone and visitation rights to being sent to solitary confinement.
Proposition 6 will remove the language from the state constitution allowing involuntary servitude and additionally state that incarcerated people cannot be punished for denying work and can be awarded credits for taking work (which could potentially reduce their sentence). It would depend on city and county ordinances to determine the payscale for voluntary work.
The proposition is supported by the ACLU of California, Abolish Slavery National Network, the California Black Legislative Caucus, and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition. If passed, it would make a significant change in the brutal conditions the thousands of people incarcerated in California currently face. Vote yes on Prop 6.
Proposition 32: Yes
Proposition 32 should be an easy yes for all California voters. It will raise the minimum wage to $18 an hour by 2025 for employers with over 26 employees, and by 2026 for employers with less than 25 employees, with minimum wage being adjusted for inflation thereafter.
This proposition is similar to Senate Bill 3, passed in 2016, which brought California’s minimum wage to $15 an hour over several years. With wages stagnating and the cost of living rapidly rising across the nation, this proposition is sorely needed, especially in a more expensive state like California.
This proposition is supported by Working Families Party California, Unite Here, and the LA Federation of Labor. While $18 an hour may not meet the needs of all Californians, it is an important step forward towards a living wage. Vote yes on Prop 32!
Proposition 33: Yes
Proposition 33 repeals Costa-Hawkins, one of the worst anti-tenant laws on the books.
The law, passed in 1995, bans cities from applying rent control to single family homes or new construction, “new” being back-dated: in the City of Los Angeles, anything built after 1978 is exempt from rent control due to Costa-Hawkins. If your apartment was built since John Travolta appeared in Grease, your landlord can jack up the rent at will and there’s nothing the city can do to stop it. Costa-Hawkins is one of the two main laws, along with the Ellis Act, that have gutted the inventory of affordable units in California and helped drive our state’s tenant crisis. Everyday, landlords, property managers and large institutional real estate investment behemoths like Blackstone wake up and thank Costa-Hawkins for protecting their profits.
The proposition replaces the previous law with one sentence, barring the state from limiting cities’ and counties’ right to “maintain, enact, or expand residential rent control.” Wealthy NIMBY enclaves like Huntington Beach (which have long used exclusionary zoning to maintain racial and class segregation) are hoping to weaponize this clause in bad faith in order to block new housing construction, particularly multifamily housing. We expect this ploy to fall flat in the face of the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) – the state has been much more willing in recent years to take legal action to force these cities to build their fair share of housing – but further state action might be needed to prevent similar foolishness.
Astute voters might be experiencing a sense of deja vu, as this is the third time in four elections they’re being asked to vote for rent control. This is because these efforts have been dominated by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a well-funded organization with a poor history of coalition-building that has resulted in repeated failures. Any Californian who watches television will be unsurprised to learn that Yes is being outspent 2:1 by No, and the absence of robust people power in these efforts makes a tough campaign that much harder.
That’s especially frustrating, because expanding rent control could be a literal life-saver for millions of Californians. The ability of landlords to drive out tenants through enormous rent hikes is a major contributor to homelessness, especially given the massive shortfall in housing supply and the general lack of affordable housing.Tenants’ rights are too important to play hero ball with. You can do your part to support rent control by voting Yes on 33, and AHF can do their part by working with this state’s many powerful and inspiring tenant groups if we all have to take another shot at this in 2026 or 2028.
Proposition 34: No
This unusual proposition has a single target and simple motivation: it was written by the landlords’ and developers’ lobby in order to block political advocacy by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a major HIV/AIDS healthcare provider (and SYPHILIS EXPLOSION billboard producer) which in recent years has put resources behind housing-related campaigns (like Proposition 33, above). Whatever your opinion of those campaigns, there’s one clear principle: a group of ghouls like the California Apartment Association shouldn’t be able to tell nonprofits what to do with their funds. And laws shouldn’t be written to pursue grudges against any one individual organization, no matter how troublesome.
Proposition 35: No
This is a really technical one, so bear with us. Right now there’s a Managed Care Organization (MCO) tax that funds Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, which is due to expire in 2027. Everything got knocked around by budget shortfalls recently, so Prop 35 is intended to try to lock in that tax and allocate that money for certain purposes and rate increases.
So far so good, but the problem is that it locks in the purposes for the MCO tax revenues, and it imposes a ¾ requirement on legislative votes to change the way the revenues are used. That immediately creates issues for the 2024-25 budget – we used MCO tax money to help close the budget shortfall – and means less flexibility in the future, including around health spending priorities. It also doesn’t actually make the tax permanent, because the MCO tax requires federal approval. Instead, it requires that the state ask for the approval, and if the feds change the rules or criteria for MCO taxes then we may find ourselves needing entirely separate revenue streams.
We’re not even getting into the particulars of the spending requirements, but in general this sort of detailed budgeting should be handled in the legislature, which can – and likely will – extend the MCO tax on its own without these problematic requirements.
Proposition 36: No
Do you think someone should face more than a decade in prison for personally using drugs? If not, vote NO on Prop 36.
Prop 36 an attempt to turn back the clock to the War On Drugs era and to fatten the budgets of state prisons and county jails, decimating the modest gains we’ve made over the past decade with reforms like 2014’s Prop 47.
Despite California’s liberal reputation, for decades we built a brutal “tough on crime” regime that trapped tens of thousands of people in cycles of incarceration. Excessive sentences ballooned the state prison population to the point that the US Supreme Court found that California prisons themselves amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The human cost was incalculable; the budgetary cost was absurd.
In 2014, voters passed Prop 47, a vital reform package which included changes to the Three Strikes law and making personal possession of narcotics a misdemeanor, rather than a felony. Its reforms made our communities safer and saved hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars by reducing prison sentences and expanding treatment-focused approaches to substance use disorders.
It was, without exaggeration, one of the largest expansions of human freedom in this century.
This is what Prop 36 wants to undo – backed by police and prison lobbyists, financed by huge corporations, and supported by a fearmongering media backlash to the racial justice protests of 2020. It would roll back this progress by bringing back felony charges for simple drug possession, creating new mandatory sentence enhancements for petty theft, expanding the Three Strikes Law, and clawing back millions in funds from treatment programs and other community services to fund the expansion of jails and prisons. It is an irrational proposition, cruel and destructive for the sake of being cruel and destructive.
Not a single backer of Prop 36 will see heaven. Vote NO.
To learn more about Prop 36, read this Knock op-ed by Shervin Aazami, policy director for Initiate Justice Action.
Charter Amendments DD and LL: Yes
The LA City Council redistricting process is famously dysfunctional and corrupt. The backroom machinations that drove the most recent round of map-drawing in 2021 played a starring role in the Fed Tapes (as when the conspirators plotted to put Nithya Raman’s district “in a blender,” for example) and drew national headlines. The previous redistricting cycle, in 2011, was notable for the power politicking that cut prime downtown real estate out of Bernard Parks’s district and grafted it onto Jose Huizar’s. Many have quite plausibly connected Huizar’s custom-crafted district to his subsequent corruption scandal and conviction.
The LA Unified School District Board’s redistricting process is less notorious, but that is a function of obscurity, not cleaner governance. The last redistricting cycle featured some heavy-handed, last-minute map alterations by chair Luis Sanchez. It did not escape the notice of many observers that Sanchez focused much of his loving care on District 2, where his wife, Maria Brenes, subsequently ran for school board. (She narrowly lost.)
Charter Amendments DD and LL are twin amendments that would move the power over the redistricting processes for City Council and LAUSD, respectively, to independent redistricting commissions that are significantly insulated from political officeholders and power brokers. Commissioners would be selected based on neutral, nonpartisan criteria; the commissions would be required to hold a series of public, and publicly accessible, meetings; the maps that they draw would be required to meet objective measures of fairness; and the maps that the commissions ultimately pass would be final, with no interference from the Mayor, City Council, or anyone else.
There are some shortcomings to the design, it is true — the commissions would still be heavily reliant on the City Attorney for legal advice and the City Council for funding, which still leaves them somewhat vulnerable to pressure. The small number of districts compared to the large sizes of territory and huge populations still make sensible mapmaking difficult and significantly strain the commissioners’ options. But on the whole, the new commissions would be an immense improvement over the disastrous system that we’ve had.
Hopefully, these needed changes will be only the first of many structural reforms needed to make governance in our region more responsive and effective for ordinary citizens and less beholden to entrenched, powerful interests.
Vote yes on both measures, and then keep loudly demanding more changes. Independent redistricting is a good start, but it’s just a start.
(Note: Only LA City voters are eligible to vote for Amendment DD. All voters in LAUSD are eligible to vote for Amendment LL.)
Charter Amendment HH & II: Yes
HH & II are essentially an oil change and tire alignment for LA City, clarifying and fixing various issues to take things off the plate of the charter reform commission. Many pieces are small and obvious, like clarifying that the city-owned Greek Theater can sell food. Some codify more significant good-government rules, like clarifying that gender identity and expression are protected by city hiring non-discrimination rules.
HH also establishes that the Controller has the right to financially audit city contractors – Kenny, ol’ buddy, give us a ring, we’ve got some suggestions for you.
Charter Amendment ER: Yes
Charter Amendment ER is a minor but worthy improvement to the Ethics Commission. It certainly deserves your vote, but it could have been much more. It represents an opportunity missed.
The Fed Tapes scandal, the skein of corruption prosecutions and convictions of sitting councilmembers, and the window all of these opened onto the LA political establishment’s corrupt way of doing business, created the political momentum, and the public desire, for serious reforms. In fact, even Paul Krekorian, paladin for the clubby old world of council, brought out of committee reforms that were not necessarily sufficient, but at least represented a few steps in the right direction. The Ethics Commission would have been empowered to make proposals for new ethics policies to City Council, and if Council rejected these policies or failed to act on them, to put them directly on the ballot in front of voters. The Ethics Commissioners would also have been able to add two more commissioners chosen by themselves rather than elected officials (who currently nominate all ethics commissioners), thus creating a touch more independence from Council.
This rather weak tea was apparently much too strong for some. The LA Federation of Labor — consistently an opponent of anti-corruption measures, for reasons one can readily speculate — sprang into action by hiring former Council President Herb Wesson to lobby vigorously against these measures. Rank-and-file members also complained that the ethics rules would force them to register as lobbyists — rank disinformation.
Adding insult to injury, two of the leading councilmembers in the gutting of these ethics reforms were Hugo Soto-Martinez, who co-sponsored the eviscerating amendments, and Eunisses Hernandez, who seconded them. Both campaigned for office, and were elected — with our enthusiastic support — in part on promises to help clean up City Hall and its corrupt way of doing business. Instead, for reasons they have failed to satisfactorily explain, they have helped to ensure that ordinary people will continue to take a back seat to more powerful special interests. Soto-Martinez, in particular, has had an especially disappointing record on ethics matters.
As it is, Charter Amendment ER will make a few minor reforms. The penalty for violating the ethics code will rise from an absurd $5,000 per violation to a paltry $15,000. The department that houses the Ethics Commission will get a minor budget increase to a floor of $6.5 million (which will not be tied to inflation). And the Amendment will also create a Charter Reform Commission, albeit one wholly beholden to our present crop of elected officials, and which will only be able to make recommendations back to council.
So go ahead and vote yes. But the lesson is clear — LA City Council is unable to reform itself, regardless of new blood. If we want to clean up City Hall, the people will have to bypass council to get serious reform on the ballot.
Charter Amendment FF: No
This amendment moves the pensions of non-LAPD city police officers from the LA City Employees’ Retirement System (LACERS) to the Fire & Police Pension Plan. This would cost over $100 million, with the city on the hook for $23 million, and in the longer term it means a smaller and therefore less influential LACERS. Not worth it.
NEIGHBORING CITIES
BEVERLY HILLS
Beverly Hills Unified School District: Dr. Amanda Stern and Dela Peykar Ronen
There are three open seats for the Beverly Hills School Board election and four candidates. Unfortunately, two of the four candidates are from the far-right: gun store owner Russell Stuart and contractor Sigalie Sabag have formed a reactionary voting slate. While Sabag’s platform remains unclear, Stuart has endorsed wild conspiracy theories about immigration and COVID-19 safety measures, and during his failed City Council run he allegedly suggested that people should carry concealed firearms regardless of legality. Vote instead for Dr. Amanda Stern and Dela Peykar Ronen. We do not recommend voting for a third candidate.
Dr. Amanda Stern is the current BHUSD School Board president and a school psychologist. Her first term on the school board saw a tremendous amount of change in the district, including construction projects at Beverly Hills High School and El Rodeo and the transition of Beverly Vista Elementary School into a district-wide middle school, all amidst post-pandemic recovery efforts. Stern has also championed increasing mental health resources for students, kosher meal options, and gun safety.
Dela Peykar Ronen is an estate planning attorney with a deep commitment to the BHUSD. A graduate of BHUSD, she has served as a board member for the Beverly Hills Education Foundation (BHEF), which raises funds for the BHUSD. Her time on BHEF means Ronen has a strong grasp on the district’s financial needs and shortcomings. She has also been a fixture on the Hawthorne PTA. Ronen intends to focus on easing the newly established transition from the distinct elementary schools to the combined middle school.
BHUSD is at a critical juncture. Decreasing enrollment has led to the repurposing of two of the city’s four elementary schools. Alongside the nationwide rise in book bans and attacks on bodily autonomy, Beverly Hills has been increasingly targeted by conservative actors from both inside and outside the city, including far right rallies and the blocking of a medical facility providing abortion services. It is incredibly important to prevent these extremists from getting a foothold in city government at any level.
BURBANK
Burbank City Council: Konstantine Anthony and Mike Van Gorder
In March, we’d hoped that voters would send Konstantine Anthony to the County Board of Supervisors. While he was unable to unseat Barger, he has the opportunity to continue representing the people of Burbank.
Anthony has proven himself to be a remarkably capable politician, someone who can listen to and address all of his constituencies’ demands without compromising his own principles. A proud socialist and SAG-AFTRA member, Anthony puts his money where his mouth is, walking the union picket lines day after day or putting his body between the LAUSD school board meeting and an anti-gay mob. Knock LA recommended a vote for Konstantine during his first election — we were right.
Mike Van Gorder is running for the first time on a platform of expanding tenant protections, creating affordable housing, and protecting Burbank schools from bigotry. An urban planner, he would bring necessary expertise to city government. Van Gorder would be an important progressive voice on Burbank City Council. He deserves your vote.
Burbank Unified School District:
For the first time, Burbank Unified School District is voting for its trustees based on district, rather than by an at-large election.
Area 1: Laurette Cano
In Trustee Area 1, two newcomers are vying for the open seat due to the recent resignation of progressive Steve Ferguson, Burbank’s first-ever openly gay elected official. To maintain Ferguson’s legacy of inclusionary education and student-first advocacy, we recommend Laurette Cano, a public school teacher in Montebello. Cano is endorsed by all four current school board members and a number of local elected Democrats, including former Mayor Konstantine Anthony.
Her opponent, Thomas Crowther, left his position as principal of Burbank High School to accept a job at a charter school in Los Angeles. He is endorsed by a number of local Burbank Republicans, including former Mayor Michael Hastings, president of the Burbank Police Foundation.
Area 2: Dr. Emily Weisberg
Dr. Weisberg, a progressive Democrat, is running unopposed. Easy!
Area 5: Dr. Armond Aghakhanian
Here’s a race to watch. Dr. Aghakhanian, the incumbent trustee, has been a consistent supporter of progressive education policies. He’s worked wonders to keep graduation rates high despite massive budget shortfalls over the years, earning him the endorsement of the Burbank Teachers Association and a stacked roster of elected Democrats.
His opponent, Annie Markarian, describes herself as a labor lawyer, which is a funny way to put it — her job is to negotiate on behalf of LA’s housing authority against the unions. Her platform includes increasing the number of cops in public schools. She has also found a base of enthusiastic support in the virulent anti-LGBT hate groups that have been active in the Burbank and Glendale area. Dr. Aghakhanian’s seat needs to be protected.
CULVER CITY
Culver City Council: Bryan “Bubba” Fish, Yasmine-Imani McMorrin, Nancy Barba
In smaller cities, a single election can shift the entire political landscape. We saw this in 2022, when conservatives took a 3–2 advantage in Culver City — the new council immediately passed an ordinance to criminalize homeless by banning camping and destroyed recently-installed bike and bus lanes. We hope Culver City will take the opportunity to reverse these foolish, short-sighted policies by sending Bubba Fish and Nancy Barba to join incumbent Yasmine-Imani McMorrin on council.
Fish is a Transportation Deputy for Supervisor Janice Hahn, with a strong record of improving public transportation and advocating for accessibility and safe streets. As a member of Culver City’s Committee on Housing & Homelessness, he opposed the criminalization of the unhoused and has worked to encourage the creation of new affordable housing and supportive housing in Culver City.
Barba also has a strong environmental and transportation background, running to make Culver City a walkable and bikeable city. She supports fighting homelessness by giving people housing and services (what a concept!) and supports rent control and tenant protections.
McMorrin, who has been holding the line against the rightward shift in City Hall, wants to invest in alternative crisis response programs for nonviolent incidents, and to expand wraparound services and affordable housing to address homelessness. With new allies on city council, Culver City can get back on track.
GLENDORA
Glendora Unified School District: Elizabeth Reuter (District 4) and Robin Merkley (District 5)
Incumbent board members Robin Merkley and Elizabeth Reuter are solid, dedicated public servants who have put their own children through the Glendora school system. They have demonstrated their commitment to addressing the nitty gritty issues of district policy on issues ranging from technical education to classroom technology to student mental health services.
But the reason that Angelenos far beyond the borders of Glendora should care about this election is their opponents and the forces who are backing them. Dan Cayem (District 4) and Michael Munoz (District 5) are both endorsed by Save Glendora Schools (SGS), an organization of right-wing, anti-LGBTQ bigots seeking to take over the Glendora school system, with ties to national groups seeking to crush LGBTQ rights nationwide. To quote the good folks at Glendora Forward, “SGS advocates for anti-LGBTQ and illegal legislation in our public schools, including the Parental Rights Notification, which Glendora Forward strongly opposes, and has been ruled illegal by the State of California. SGS is part of a national movement led by Moms for Liberty that has been pushing a far-right agenda.”
The anti-LGBTQ movement is systematically trying to spread its mission of hate to school boards across the country, district by district. Races like this one in Glendora are key to defeating them and protecting our LGBTQ kids and teens.
LONG BEACH
City Council District 4: Herlinda Chico
Only District 4 is going to a runoff this November. We recommend Long Beach Community College Trustee Herlinda Chico, who is running on a platform of transitioning away from fossil fuels, expanding the Mobile Access Center program, and increasing housing vouchers to get people housed. She’s racked up many labor, environmental, and Dem party endorsements.
Incumbent councilmember Daryl Supernaw was one of two votes on the council against the resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza, and is a consistent conservative voice on all issues.
Measure LB: Yes
This measure closes a tax loophole impacting two power plants in Long Beach, and is estimated to generate $15 million per year in revenue.
Measure JB:
Coming soon!
Measure HC:
Coming soon!
SANTA MONICA
Santa Monica City Council: Dan Hall, Ellis Raskin, Barry Snell, Natalya Zernitskaya
Santa Monica, long-celebrated as a progressive enclave along the coast, has lurched to the right in recent years, as conservatives have taken a 4–3 majority on the city council.
Fortunately, voters have a chance to reverse that trend in this election, and the battle lines couldn’t be clearer. Four progressive candidates are running together as the “United Democratic Slate” — Dan Hall, Ellis Raskin, Barry Snell, and Natalya Zernitskaya (whom Knock supported in the 2022 election). They have been endorsed by Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, UNITE HERE Local 11, Abundant Housing LA, and the Sierra Club, among others, and support a housing and care first approach to homelessness, advocating for more affordable housing, safer streets for bikers and pedestrians, tenants’ rights, and more.
On the other side is the conservative, pro-cop bloc of Phil Brock, Oscar de la Torre, Vivian Roknian, and John Putnam. This group is being backed by the “Santa Monicans for a Real Positive Future” PAC, which in turn is funded by, among others, notorious corporate landlord Douglas Emmett Properties to the tune of $100,000. Douglas Emmett is perhaps most notable for its attempted mass eviction of hundreds of tenants in the Barrington Plaza apartment complex, and for funding some of the worst politicians in the region, including Traci Park and Hydee Feldstein Soto.
The choice couldn’t be clearer.
POMONA
Coming soon!
TORRANCE
Coming soon!
PASADENA
Coming soon!
ALHAMBRA
Alhambra City Council
Katie Chan (陳靄淇) is a child of immigrants and a product of the Alhambra school system. She was appointed by Alhambra City councilmember Sasha Renée Pérez as the President and Commissioner of the Environmental & Sustainability Commission for the city of Alhambra District 4.
Katie has a strong policy platform supporting tenants through rent stabilization, increasing affordable housing, and strengthening regulations on habitability standards. She also proposes infrastructure improvements that reflect Green New Deal climate goals, including increasing transit routes and bus frequency, improving air quality, and building out Alhambra’s tree canopy.
Incumbent Jeff Maloney has come under fire in the past for receiving donations for real estate developers.
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