The Thorn West is a state and local news roundup compiled by volunteer 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. 245 - December 19, 2025

City Politics

• Amid a citywide fiscal crisis Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember John Lee are pushing to expand the LAPD’s bloated hiring budget, and increase this year’s class of new officers from 280 to 410. The request came without a proposed funding source. The Council approved a smaller increase of 40 officers, costing $1.8 million, after a contentious city council meeting.

   

• Councilmember Lee has been fined $138,000 for ethics violations for his role in the scandal that led to Mitchell Englander, Lee’s predecessor and former boss, being imprisoned for corruption.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• The LA Reporter covers the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission’s consideration of police accountability measures at meetings earlier this week.

ICE in LA

• LA County has opened a rental relief program for people economically impacted by  federal immigration agencies’s ongoing barrage of raids and abductions. However, only landlords may apply for the program, leaving room open for evictions. Activists continue to push for a full eviction moratorium.

• The last of the remaining National Guard troops occupying Los Angeles under the direction of the Trump administration have left, in compliance with a court order.

• LA Public Press speaks with members of local solidarity networks that have grown in a response to ICE raids.

• Six independent Los Angeles newsrooms have partnered to cover the ICE occupation of LA.

• DSA-LA, in coalition with the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, is forming volunteer patrol networks to serve as lookouts against ICE raids at adopted Home Depots and street vendor locations. To receive training and volunteer, click here!

Labor

• A coalition of labor organizations, including DSA-LA, successfully defeated a direct attempt to repeal the city’s new Olympic Wage ordinance via ballot measure. However, opponents of the wage increase subsequently introduced a ballot measure that would repeal the city’s business tax, costing nearly 1 billion in revenues, which has been interpreted as an attempt to blackmail the city into weakening its own ordinance. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson has recently introduced a motion to delay the called-for wage increases.

Transportation

• Under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Measure HLA, resurfacing LA streets triggers numerous mandatory accessibility improvements. StreetsLA, the city department in charge of road repair, appears to have stopped all resurfacing and instead coined the term “large asphalt repair” to describe partial repairs that, from the bureau’s perspective, evade these requirements.

• An editorial in the LA Times argues against the planned LAX freeway expansion.