Raman will take charge in Los Angeles amid homelessness crisis and political divisions

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In his bid for mayor of Los Angeles, Nithya Raman introduced himself as a stranger. The democratic socialist received no support from her 14 colleagues on the city council. The police union opposed her, she had friction with the Jewish community, and the Democratic establishment lined up squarely behind the outgoing president, Karen Bass.

Now she must show that she can lead.

As a mayor elected in the wake of a stunning upheaval, Raman will have to overcome political divisions within a balkanized City Hall while tackling a series of issues that challenged her predecessors, including a long-running conflict. homeless crisisan exodus of Hollywood jobs and endless miles of crumbling streets and sidewalks – all on a tight budget.

Appearing before reporters Thursday for the first time as mayor-elect, Raman was succinct about her agenda.

“Homelessness, housing costs and public safety,” she said. “These will be the priorities that I will take in the city. »

Even after the campaign, Indian-born millennial Raman will be a new face to many Angelenos in a city that tends to shrug its shoulders at local politics. But how she governs the nation’s second-most populous city will be closely watched nationally, especially as she prepares to welcome the world to Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympic Games.

Raman joins a new generation of democratic socialist mayors

When she takes office in mid-December, Raman will join the vanguard of democratic socialists in city government that includes Zohran Mamdani in New York and Katie Wilson in Seattle. Janeese Lewis George was elected mayor of Washington, D.C. on Tuesday

Although she is expected to move the city toward the political left, she has been open about her willingness to break with the Democratic Socialists of America when she believes their agenda conflicts with the city’s interests. “My independence will always be paramount” Raman said during a candidates’ forum in September.

At a time when the Democratic Party is deeply divided on the issue war in Gaza And aid to IsraelRaman was asked about her interview with progressive commentator Hasan Piker last spring, in which she responded “Yes, yes,” when asked if she thought Israel had committed genocide. At a forum co-hosted by the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, she said she recognized that genocide was “a deeply painful word” but said she was compelled to speak out after seeing images of “the targeting of hospitals, the deaths of children,” sparking murmurs from the audience.

At the same time, she faced resistance within the DSA, where some felt her positions on Israel were not tough enough.

After his surprise victory, the federation called on Raman to “rebuild trust with Jewish Angelenos that had been strained during the campaign.”

A victory for the democratic socialists without the star power of Mamdani

For Caroline Heldman, a political scientist at Occidental College, Raman must offer concrete solutions to solve the daily headaches that frame life in Los Angeles, whether they are potholes, thousands of broken streetlights or the elimination of homeless encampments.

“She did not win the election by positioning herself as ideologically distinct from Karen Bass,” Heldman said. “She has positioned herself as a pothole politician, very similar to Zohran Mamdani. I see her taking a page from her playbook.”

Raman, however, never had the power of the stars known under the brand name Mamdani. The competition in Los Angeles has been relatively low-key and overshadowed by the unrest in Washington and the fight for control of Congress.

Mike Bonin, a former Los Angeles City Council member and executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, described Raman as philosophically progressive but moderate in temperament.

“She was portrayed in this campaign as a crazy socialist idealologist or a flip-flop without core values,” said Bonin, who served with Raman from December 2020 to 2022. But, he added, “she wanted to work with people. She is very focused on results.”

Raman is just starting to build his team at town hall

She has not presented a detailed financial plan for how she plans to take care of some of the city’s lingering illnesses.

There are few issues in Los Angeles — the birthplace of car culture, where driving is a part of most residents’ daily lives — that elicit more grumbling than traffic and potholes. In 2013, former Mayor Eric Garcetti campaigned on a “back to basics” agenda to combat street paving, but little happened.

Under Bass, the city began to focus on filling potholes rather than resurfacing streets. Raman said she would overhaul that policy, but it’s not yet clear how much money — and how quickly they can be repaved — will be spent on the streets.

In her remarks on election night, before she was declared the winner, Raman painted a picture of a city in state and broadly outlined her vision of what Los Angeles could be.

“LA stopped being a place where we could build things, where we could open things, where we could film things, where we could create things,” she said. Raman added that she wanted to bring back “this aspirational Los Angeles, this joyful Los Angeles, this creative Los Angeles, this entrepreneurial Los Angeles.”

In the city council, the reaction to his election was somewhat muted. Council member Traci Park, who voted for Bass and said she had “concerns about the leadership and effectiveness” of both candidates, said in a statement that she looked forward to working with Raman in a city facing “great challenges.”

Raman won against an injured incumbent

Raising 10-year-old twins with her screenwriter and television producer husband in the Silver Lake neighborhood, her unlikely rise to mayor was at least in part because she was running against a wounded incumbent president at a time when voters across the country were hungry for change. The bass was defeated by the Deadly palisades firewho caught fire while she was out of the country and caught the firefighters are not prepared.

An urban planner, trained at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Raman notably founded a non-profit organization to raise awareness of the homeless in Los Angeles.

The mayors of Los Angeles do not have the influence of their counterparts in New York and Chicago: power is shared with the city council. Bonin described it as an accordion, which can expand or contract depending on who occupies the position.

He said former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, known for his talkative personality and charm, “has turned to the fences.” The bass, by nature a compromise, was different. Raman will chart his own path.

“I can’t think of a mayor who had to take office with this many problems,” Bonin said. “Everyone leaves unpopular… It’s not a job that makes you loved.”