LA mayoral race pits veteran lawmaker against mall developer

LOS ANGELES (CN) — The race to become the next mayor of Los Angeles is heading to a runoff between longtime Democratic Congresswoman Karen Bass and billionaire mall developer Rick Caruso.

Bass has garnered 37% and Caruso 42.1% of the vote in the primary election, with about 35% of precincts reporting. Since neither candidate won an outright majority, they'll face each other again in a runoff this fall.

LA City Councilman Kevin de Leon was a distant third with 7.5% in the initial returns. There are 12 candidates on the ballot for mayor, three of whom dropped out before the primary.

Bass, 68, has represented California's 37th congressional district since 2011. Previously, she served in the California State Assembly for six years, and in 2008 she became the first Black woman in the U.S. to serve as speaker of a state legislative body. If elected mayor, she would be the first woman to hold that office in the country's second-largest city.

While Bass has been a frontrunner for months, Caruso joined the race at the last minute but has run a high-profile campaign that focused on crime, homelessness and corruption at City Hall. Caruso, 63, owns a number of high-end shopping malls in LA County and registered as a Democratic only in January, a month before he declared his candidacy to run for mayor.

As of June 1, Caruso had spent $41 million on his campaign — primarily funded by his own money. Bass had spent $3.28 million, according to city data.

"Running a business isn't running a government," Francis Flynn, 87, a retired teacher who cast her vote for Bass, said outside the voting center at LA High School. "We need someone with experience who has been engaged in government, as she has been for years. She has a proven track record."

A panoply of politicians have endorsed Bass, including former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, U.S. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, former California Senator Barbara Boxer, Congressmembers Ted Lieu and Katie Porter and a pair of LA City Council members.  The longtime politician has name recognition and a fairly wide political base, having represented parts of South and West Los Angeles, making her popular among both Black and Jewish voters.

"I trust her as an elected official," Roy Stone, 77, a retired librarian who voted for Bass, said outside LA High. "I like her background — she has shown that she cares."

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.

LA's homelessness crisis has been the biggest debating point during the primary campaign. 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 Los Angeles Times poll 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.

Caruso has argued that his background as a developer means that he could fulfill his campaign promise to build 30,000 shelter beds in his first year in office. “I’m the only one on the stage that’s builder, so I’m confident I can do it,” he said during a televised debate in March. As to the city’s housing crunch, which has led to soaring home prices and rents as well as homelessness, Caruso has blamed an excess of regulations. “We have to untangle regulations,” he said.

The developer has attracted a slew of celebrity endorsements, including Kim Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow and Snoop Dogg.

Caruso comes from an affluent background — his father founded Dollar Rent-a-Car and owned numerous car dealerships. At 26, Caruso became the youngest city commissioner in the history of LA when he was appointed to the Department and Water and Power board by then-Mayor Tom Bradley.

He became a police commissioner in 2001, and was later elected as that body’s president, playing a role in firing Police Chief Bernard Parks and replacing him with Bill Bratton. He also has served on the Coliseum Commission and as chairman of the board of trustees for the University of Southern California.

Bass, by contrast, is the daughter of a postal carrier and a homemaker who cut her political teeth as a civil rights activist and community organizer in South LA. In 1990, she founded Community Coalition, a community-based social justice organization in South LA to address substance abuse, poverty and crime in area. Before being elected to the state assembly, she worked as a nurse, physician assistant, and clinical instructor at the University of Southern California.

"She seems like she knows what she's doing," Giovanni, 62, a hairstylist who declined to give his last name, said outside LA High where he voted for Bass. "She has shown a lot of people what she's capable of."

Follow @edpettersson

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