The Thorn West is a state and local news roundup compiled by members of DSA-LA. Our goal is to provide a weekly update on the latest developments in state and local politics, and to track the issues that are most important to our membership.

Issue No. 173 - September 8, 2023

State Politics

• As the state legislative session drawing to a close this coming Thursday, many bills have been approved by the legislature this week, to next be signed or vetoed by Governor Newsom. These include a measure to legalize certain psychedelic drugs, as well as a first-in-the-nation law to ban caste discrimination.

• The legislature also approved two proposed constitutional amendments to be placed on the 2024 ballot. ACA 1 and ACA 13 both address the difficulty in passing housing and infrastructure bills at the municipal level, thanks to high voting thresholds imposed by past ballot measures. While 2022 only saw seven statewide measures on the ballot, there are already nine qualified for 2024.

• Across California, the positivity rate for COVID-19 has continued to rise.

City Politics

• The New York Times recapped the city’s corrupt 2020 redistricting process that drastically redrew the district of Councilmember Nithya Raman, and it provided a few updates on Los Angeles City Council’s plan to draft ballot measures to expand council and move to independent redistricting.

• The DSA-LA candidate forum for Phase 1 endorsements is this Sunday from 10am to 3pm. Three candidates for Los Angeles City Council will be present for Q&As: Ysabel Jurado, who is running in CD 14, Nithya Raman in CD 4, and Jillian Burgos in CD 2. The voting period, during which members can vote on whether or not the organization should endorse each candidate, will begin after the forum. RSVP or submit questions here!

Labor

• Last weekend, Star Garden Topless Dive Bar celebrated its reopening as the nation’s only unionized strip club!

Housing Rights

• The Los Angeles Housing and Homeless Committee advanced a motion to discuss with the city attorney whether the city can do more to prevent bad-faith Ellis Act evictions. The Ellis Act is state law that allows landlords to evict tenants from rent-controlled apartments if they take the units off the market permanently. The Los Angeles Housing Department has claimed there is little the city can do to prevent Ellis evictions that strongly appear to be in bad faith, such as the massive eviction underway at Barrington Plaza. Audio from that meeting is here, and is actually quite clarifying.

• Councilmembers Soto-Martínez, Harris-Dawson, and Hutt introduced a motion to eliminate “public facilities zones,” a zoning classification that severely restricts the ability of the city to utilize public land for affordable or new public housing.

• Knock LA published “LA’s War on Public Housing,” a multi-part series on the dismantling of public housing in Los Angeles that has been taking place since the 1980s.

• The City of San Francisco attempted to appeal a preliminary injunction preventing the displacement of unhoused people who have not been made a realistic offer of shelter. This week that appeal was denied.

Environmental Justice

• $2.5 million in funding was approved for Skid Row cooling stations to help unhoused Angelenos stay safe in the summer heat. But massive delays prevented most of them from opening until the summer was almost over. LA officials say it was the result of a miscommunication.

• The Clean Vehicle Rebate Project will end when it runs out of money this year. In its place, the state will expand a program next year that provides subsidies only to low-to-middle income residents.

• A new study finds that climate change has increased the risk of explosive wildfire growth in California by 25%.