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. 134 - November 11, 2022

City Politics

• A significant number of mail-in ballots are still being counted in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, making it impossible to officially call any local races. The official updating results are here.

• In CD13, DSA-LA member Hugo Soto-Martinez is up over incumbent Mitch O’Farrell! Each subsequent ballot drop has widened his lead. It looks good enough that the DSA-LA election night party was covered by the LA Times. November’s chapter meeting is tomorrow morning; the results and post-election strategy are agendized for discussion.

• The controller race essentially ended on election night, with Kenneth Mejia declaring victory. Councilmember Paul Koretz all but conceded the next day, but has said that, like fellow defeated councilmember Gil Cedillo, he may never formally congratulate his opponent. The New Republic covered the historic win.

• The mayoral race is neck and neck, with Representative Karen Bass retaking the lead over real estate developer Rick Caruso with Friday afternoon’s ballot drop. Mail-in ballots have favored the progressives in this year’s elections, and so far they have helped Bass significantly.

• Measure ULA, the citywide ballot measure that would tax sales of properties over $5 million and use that money to fund affordable housing and homelessness prevention, appears likely to pass. Measure H, the DSA-LA–endorsed measure to institute rent control in the city of Pasadena, also holds a widening lead.

• Incumbent Sheriff Alex Villanueva is losing resoundingly. Measure A, which would allow a four-fifths majority of the Board of Supervisors to remove the sheriff from office, and was championed by victims of LASD violence during Alex Villanueva’s term in office, is on the way to passing overwhelmingly.

• Protesters continue to disrupt meetings at City Hall. All the week’s meetings began with Council President Paul Krekorain invoking, with performative disapproval, the City Council decorum rules, which allow the removal and banning of protesters. Last week Councilmember Monica Rodriguez requested a report-back from the LAPD on filing “crime reports” related to the costs the council has incurred by bringing more police to their meetings.

Labor

• The dancers at Star Garden Topless Dive Bar appear to have voted overwhelmingly in favor of unionization. However, the owners of the club have filed challenges to most of the ballots, delaying the official result.

• Performers and stable hands at Medieval Times in Buena Park have also voted to unionize, with the American Guild of Variety Artists.

Transportation

• On Monday, Metro will vote on a package of fare changes. The most impactful of these are fare hikes, including a raise of the base fare from $1.75 to $2.00, and the elimination of free transfers. More details here, along with an activist toolkit.

Housing Rights

• This week the Housing Committee of the Los Angeles City Council agendized an official end to the “pandemic era” eviction “moratorium.” The terms had yet to be put into legal language but had already been approved conceptually by the full council. However, that happened before the release of the leaked recordings that effected the removal of three councilmembers for, among other things, colluding against renters. One of those disgraced councilmembers was then–housing committee chair Gil Cedillo. The acting chair is now DSA-LA–endorsed Councilmember Nithya Raman, who, disappointingly, followed through on agendizing the end of the moratorium. The end of the moratorium was linked with new tenant protections that Raman had helped fight for, seemingly as part of an overall compromise package. This compromise, however, was negotiated between unknown parties, without meaningful public participation, and does over the strenuous objection of tenants’ rights organizations. DSA-LA also objected, via its Twitter account, arguing that the benefit of the new protections would be “dwarfed by the negative impact of lifting the eviction moratorium.” Following a lot of angry public comment, the motions were delayed for further revisions, and do not appear poised to move on to the City Council for final approval just yet.

• [TW suicide]: An attempted eviction ended tragically yesterday in Hollywood Hills, as the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department engaged in a prolonged siege that ended with a tenant’s suicide. Statement from the LA Tenants Union here.

Environmental Justice

• The California Energy Commission has issued a $31 million grant to build a long-duration energy storage system that is expected to provide backup power to the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians and bolster the reliability of the energy system statewide. 

• Grist autopsies the electoral defeat of California’s Proposition 30, a ballot measure that would have raised taxes on the wealthy to subsidize, among other things, electric vehicles. The proposition pitted Lyft against Governor Newsom and received conflicting recommendations from progressive voter guides.