Congressman Adam Schiff endorses colleague Karen Bass for LA Mayor

(CN) — LA Congresswoman Karen Bass continued to mop up endorsements in her bid to become the next mayor of Los Angeles when her colleague Adam Schiff gave his stamp of approval on Thursday.

"Los Angeles needs a leader who can bring people together and create a stronger, safer, and more equitable city for everyone," Schiff said on a media Zoom call. "I've seen firsthand her talent at organizing, mobilizing and confronting the challenges of housing and homelessness, health care and climate change."

Bass is widely seen as the front-runner in the 2022 race. An independent poll taken in October, matching Bass up with both declared and theoretical candidates, found her well ahead of the pack with 26% of respondents preferring her — a 20-point advantage over the next-most popular candidate.

She has been endorsed by a panoply of other politicians, including former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, U.S. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, former California Senator Barbara Boxer, Congress members Ted Lieu and Katie Porter and a pair of City Council members, Mike Bonin and Marqueece Harris-Dawson. None of the other candidates running for mayor have racked up even a single endorsement from a prominent elected official so far.

"She has the strongest support and the strongest name recognition," said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, LA. "She has a strong base and a couple of constituencies. That’s important in LA."

Assuming no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in June, there will be a two-person runoff in November. To qualify for the second ballot, a candidate may need only as much as 25% of the vote. Because it is a nonpartisan race and because most of the candidates are likely to be Democrats, a campaign often succeeds by cobbling together different constituencies.

Tom Bradley, who served as mayor for two decades (from 1973 to 1993), won the seat by putting together a coalition of Black voters living in South LA and liberal Jewish voters living on the West Side. Bass, said Sonenshein, "has some elements of the Bradley coalition: Her congressional district covers most of South LA and parts of West LA, including Culver City, Westwood and the Pico-Robertson area, known for its large Jewish population."

Bass was seen as a contender to be Joe Biden's vice presidential nominee. Although she was passed up in favor of fellow Californian Kamala Harris, the news that she was being considered helped raise her profile.

The mayoral primary is nearly seven months away, but the race still feels like it's in its infancy. Other candidates may yet enter the race. Shopping mall magnate Rick Caruso, a former president of the police commission and current chairman of the board of trustees at the University of California, is said to be considering a run as he has in previous elections. The billionaire has hired Ace Smith, Gavin Newsom's political consultant, to advise him.

Austin Beutner, another wealthy businessman who recently served as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, is seen as a potential candidate as well.

As for the candidates who are running besides Bass, they include: City Attorney Mike Feuer, an elected official since 1994; City Councilman Joe Buscaino, a former police officer; City Councilman Kevin de Leon, a former president of the state Senate; Jessica Lall, president of the Central City Association, a downtown business group; and dozens of other, lesser-known candidates. It's unclear how many of those will end up on the ballot. The deadline to file is in March.

Though a lot can happen in seven months, one issue looms larger than any other: homelessness. For at least five years, Angelenos have ranked the issue as their top concern. But that concern may be shifting from empathy toward fear. A recent poll taken by the Los Angeles Times reported nearly four in 10 respondents saying that homeless people in their neighborhood made them feel "significantly unsafe." Those asked ranked homelessness as the most serious problem in the city, followed by housing affordability, traffic and climate change.

Buscaino wants the city to take a tougher stance on homeless encampments. He wants to build a large number of homeless shelters and other temporary housing, and he wants the police to jail or fine homeless people who refuse to move off the streets and into shelters, assuming enough empty beds are in place. It's a message that may find resonance with some voters. According the LA Times poll, 57% of voters would prefer the city focus on short-term housing solutions for the homeless, rather than long-term housing.

But Buscaino, who has raised more money than any other candidate thus far, faces certain challenges. For one, he is a relatively unknown figure outside his home neighborhood of San Pedro, LA's far-flung, southern port town. And he's enraged progressive activists with his rhetoric around homelessness, referring so often to "buckets of feces" near encampments that some have taken to calling him "Joey Buckets."

Observers say that in order to qualify for the November runoff, Buscaino will need to campaign heavily in the San Fernando Valley, which has a more conservative electorate than the city.

"His views would seem to be more aligned with the valley," said Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association. "But the valley does not know him from Adam."

Close supports Mike Feuer, the city attorney and former members of the City Council and the state Assembly. He, too, wants to build enough shelters to house every homeless Angeleno. He also wants to double the size of the City Council, from 15 seats to 30.

Feuer's major liability is the Department of Water and Power billing scandal. On Monday, a former DWP attorney pleaded guilty to one count of bribery. In a court filing, the Department of Justice stated Feuer's office knew about a scheme in which the lawyer represented both the city and a ratepayer suing the city.

Councilman Kevin de Leon, another candidate, promises to build 25,000 units of housing (including shelter beds and more permanent housing) by 2025. Before running for the City Council, de Leon ran for the U,S. Senate against longtime incumbent Dianne Feinstein. Though he was roundly trounced, he raised his profile, especially in progressive circles, by running to Feinstein's left. That may endear him to some progressives. And as the only major Latino candidate in the race, he can be expected to do well with Hispanics, who make up nearly half the population, but a smaller percentage of the electorate.

It's far less clear what Bass would do on homelessness. But her campaign will likely focus less on policy prescriptions, and more on her experience. She worked as a physicians assistant in the 1980s, then founded Community Coalition, a nonprofit dedicated to alleviating poverty in South LA. She is widely seen as a consensus-builder and a collaborator, rather than a policy maven.

"She does talk a lot about bringing communities together to find solutions," said Sonenshein. "I think that probably does draw on a lot of her strengths."

But Close, the Sherman Oaks HOA president, wants more than talk and ideas.

"I’ve seen visions for many decades, and they all end up trying to sell the same lemonade," he said. "The question is, who can deliver the lemonade?"

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Congressman Adam Schiff endorses colleague Karen Bass for LA Mayor

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