LA Voter Guide for the 2024 Primary Election
March 5th's vote will affect Los Angeles for decades.
The Primary election isn’t just Biden and Trump.
In LA, voters will decide legislation that will visibly affect our city for generations—and both the finalists and winners for a number of important offices.
Checking your ballot’s boxes takes less time than an evening’s doomscroll and has ~1 million times the impact. With a handy guide like this in hand, it can be as much joy as filling in a government standardized test—but one in which you judge the government, rather than the other way around. How the tables turn.
My criteria for deciding endorsements is primarily what the candidate will do to end our housing crisis. This has been my top concern for years as it drives millions of residents to pay absurd rents and mortgages, prevents people from owning homes, fuels our homelessness crisis, forces many to leave the state, causes sprawl that is horrible for the environment, and more—and is almost entirely caused by deliberate policy choices. I’m hardly alone: California voters list homelessness and housing costs separately as two of the top three issues in the state.
To make a determination here I look at candidate’s interviews and website, the endorsements of pro-housing groups like Abundant Housing LA and institutions like the LA Times. I also know a handful of candidates from personal experience (e.g. hosting them on panels and podcasts) or housing advocacy and bring that to bear as well.
I also generally assess experience and qualification for the roles, particularly those for which housing policy isn’t a primary responsibility.
So, here’s my recommendations and reasonings for Los Angeles’s primary election on Tuesday, March 5th. Note that you won’t have to vote for all of these offices, just the ones that your particular district includes. There’s a cheat sheet first for quick reference and then detailed explanations below.
U.S. Senate:
Adam Schiff (both to fulfill the rest of the term and for the subsequent term).
U.S. Congress:
District 27 - George Whitesides
District 30 - Laurie Friedman
District 32 - Christopher Ahuja
District 45 — Kim Nguyen-Penaloza
District 47 - Dave Min
California State Senate
District 23 - Kipp Mueller
District 25 - Sasha Renee Perez
California State Assembly
District 41 - Jed Leano
District 44 - Nick Schultz
District 52 - Jessica Caloza
District 54 - Mark Gonzalez
District 57 - Dulce Vasquez
Ballot Propositions
Prop 1 - No
Measure HLA - Yes
LA County District Attorney
Jeff Chemerinsky
LA County Supervisors
District 2 - Holly Mitchell
District 4 - Janice Hahn
District 5 - Kathryn Barger
LA City Council
District 2 - Adrin Nazarian
District 4 - Nithya Raman
District 8 - Jahan Epps
District 10 - Reggie Jones-Sawyer
District 12 - Serena Oberstein
District 14 - Miguel Santiago
LA Superior Court Judges
Office No. 12: Lynn Diane Olson
Office No. 39: George R. Turner
Office No. 48: Ericka J. Wiley
Office No. 93: Victor Avila
Office No. 97: Sharon Ransom
Office No. 115: Christmas Brookens
Office No. 124: Kimberly Repecka
Office No. 130: Leslie Gutierrez
Office No. 135: Steven Yee Mac
Office No. 137: Tracey M. Blount
LAUSD School Board
District 1: Sherlett Henry Newbill
District 3: Dennis Chang
District 5: Victorio Gutierrez
District 7: Tanya Ortiz Franklin
LA County Central Committees
If you registered as a member of a political party, you may get asked to vote for members of that party’s central committee in your district. These are volunteer positions that determine what endorsements the party makes. There are hundreds of such candidates, so for information on those in your district, check out LAist’s guide here.
Explanations
U.S. Senate - Adam Schiff
There are 3 well known Democrats in the race for a rare open California Senate seat: Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, and Barbara Lee. The leading Republican is Steve Garvey, a former pitcher for the LA Dodgers.
I’m still somewhat irritated that Newsom didn’t just appoint someone to take the role after Senator Feinstein died and avoid the candidates running an expensive, unnecessary race to decide which perfectly fine candidate would take the seat. But it’s a long story.
All 3 Democrats have things to recommend them. Congressman Schiff led Trump’s impeachment proceedings extremely well. Congresswoman Porter has been a charismatic TV fixture who’s held down a swing district. Lee was the only member of congress to vote against the Iraq war. At the same time, the primary has seen them throw out a grab bag of proposals that aren’t always thought through: their campaign platforms read like they’ve just copied and pasted points from various advocacy groups rather than coherent visions. Nonetheless, I would expect them all to be competent in the Senate, as they have been in the House.
Adam Schiff is the clear frontrunner in the race, with the result likely being a close race between him and Porter or a race between him and Garvey he would likely win easily given California’s status as a solid-blue state. I think he’s probably the best candidate, but moreover I think it’s much better to avoid an unnecessary runoff between Porter and Schiff for the seat that will burn tens of millions of dollars and tons of sorely needed time and energy that could go towards more important races in the fall: the presidency and races in California that may very well determine control of the House.
Speaking of which…
US House
District 27 - George Whitesides
This is one of the closest swing districts to LA, and is currently held by election denier Mike Garcia. George Whitesides has an exemplary record as a former chief of Staff at NASA and is a longtime community leader on wildfire prevention and other local matters. He deserves your support.
District 30 - Laura Friedman
Laura Friedman has been a standout force in the state legislature, leading on housing and transportation issues that are key to the state’s future and earning wide respect for her abilities. I’m excited to see her bring her effectiveness to congress. There are other decent candidates among the 8+ running for the seat, but Laurie is the best choice.
District 32 - Christopher Ahuja
This is my district and represented by longtime congressman Brad Sherman, who has been notable for…well, not much. Most recently, he’s been meddling in the approval of a key rail project through the Sepulveda pass to offer a large-scale alternative to the long-choked 405 freeway through the area. Wealthy homeowners in Bel Air, led by the former CEO of Ticketmaster, have been lobbying for a (no kidding) monorail instead based on unfounded fears that vibrations from trains hundreds of feet below might be felt and annoy them. Ahuja is more forward-thinking and bring new energy to a stagnant office.
District 45 - Kim Nguyen-Penaloza
This is a purple congressional district in Orange County that is currently represented by far-right Republican Michelle Steel, who is extremely anti-abortion and has trafficked in outright lies and conspiracy theories in past elections.
Kim Nguyễ-Penaloza is an extremely well qualified city councilperson who’s been effective from a young age at advancing pragmatic reforms and working across party lines to solve problems in her city.
Also running is Aditya Pai, who accidentally withdrew from the race saying he would not be happy in congress, then re-entered the race saying it was an accident…which isn’t exactly the steady hand you look for to unseat someone like Steel.
District 47 - Dave Min
This race to fill Katie Porter’s old seat is an essential one for Democrats to win if they are to take back the house. It’s a challenging one, though—a formerly solidly red district which even Porter, a national figure and champion fundraiser, barely won re-election (no doubt due to the dozens of doors I knocked on for her in 2018).
The two candidates are Dave Min and Joanna Weiss. Dave Min has a strong record of service in the state legislature, particularly on housing issues, and is more center-leaning democrat who is well suited to the type of district it is: pragmatic and with deep ties and endorsements in the community. Joanna Weiss is a fundraiser and leader among anti-Trump suburban woman’s groups there, and is generally fine, but seems less likely to win and doesn’t have much experience—let alone the good legislative record that Min does.
State Senate
District 23 - Kipp Mueller
This is a swing district held by Republicans. There is only one viable Democratic candidate, Kipp Mueller, who has a solid background as part of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and conventional platform around improving health care access, building more housing, and seeking to bring a CSU or UC campus to the Antelope Valley.
His leading opponent is Republican Suzette Valladares, who fearmongers about out-of-control crime and whose solution to inflation is lower property taxes (when California has among the lowest in the country) and generally embraces blaming problems on right-wing bugbears rather than finding real solutions.
There are a few other minor candidates, but this will likely be the matchup in the general election as well should nobody win an outright majority and it go to a runoff.
District 25 - Sasha Renee Perez
Sasha Renee Perez is the strongest candidate in this race. She has a working-class background, was the first member of her family to graduate college, and was elected to be the youngest mayor in Alhambra’s history (at 28 years old). Since then she has had a strong record of leadership, particularly on housing and homelessness—where she has increased the effectiveness of local efforts to house the homeless and has won endorsements from pro-housing groups.
State Assembly
District 41 - Jed Leano
Jed Leano is a rare state assembly member running with full-throated support of housing reform—and has years of experience to back it up. He’s a great communicator, well-respected, and a person with a clear vision of how to improve California and a long record of working towards it as a mayor, immigration attorney, and small businessperson. I strongly endorse him.
District 44 - Nick Schultz
There are a number of viable candidates in this race who are splitting endorsements from prominent officials and organizations. I don’t have an extremely strong opinion, but Nick has won the endorsements of the best pro-housing organizations and legislators in the state—including California YIMBY and Abundant Housing LA—which is a good sign that he will be a solid vote for housing and potentially an author of needed reforms.
District 52 - Jessica Caloza
Jessica Caloza is a former chief of staff for Rob Bonta, the California attorney general who has been an exceptional force in holding cities that shirk their housing obligations (and hence perpetuate the state’s crisis) accountable. She has a long list of endorsements, including leading pro-housing organizations. She has personal experience with family members who have experienced homelessness and is well poised to continue her work in the state legislature.
District 54 - Mark Gonzalez
Mark is the chair of the LA County Democratic Party. This isn’t always a good thing as they have often been the source of our most intractable problems. But when it comes to housing, his goals center around the furthering of Mayor Bass’s Executive Directive 1, which has been a smashing success—creating over double the amount of income-restricted Affordable Housing as all of the city’s initiatives combined in a typical year. Expanding the initiative to apply to more projects and more areas is the most impactful thing the city is likely to do to solve the housing crisis (though the state legislature has done much of the heavy lifting and will continue to). His primary opponent (pun not initially intended but realized halfway through and I’m okay with it) is John Yi, who is great on transit and transportation (he is the leader of LA Walks, a pedestrian advocacy group) but whose solutions to the housing crisis revolve around co-op models that haven’t worked at scale and subsidies—which actually drive up housing prices during a shortage of available units.
District 57 - Dulce Vasquez
Dulce Vasquez is a longtime housing advocate who has put in a ton of work going door to door in lower-income areas to understand people’s needs. I have met her and seen her on panels many times, and she is a smart and hard-nosed advocate who is exactly the type of person you want on the front lines addressing the state’s crisis.
Propositions
Prop 1 - No
This is the hardest question on the ballot for me; I have gone back and forth between yes, no, and no endorsement.
It concerns whether the state should take out an expensive bond and shift some tax funding away from county mental health programs towards providing beds for homeless people experiencing substance abuse and mental health issues.
Nobody should be under the illusion that this will fix the homelessness crisis overall. It is a long term measure that will only address a fraction of the need. This is something that I hate because it’s exactly what LA did with Prop HHH: marketing something as a ‘fix’ to homelessness when they know it will only address a fraction of the need, leaving voters to feel betrayed when the crisis remains despite their votes and tax dollars.
The homelessness crisis will rage as long as California’s housing crisis rages. Progress is being made, but this is another and bigger band-aid. Which can be good and critically needed, but as one of our generation’s great poets said, they don’t fix bullet holes.
Metaphors aside, thousands of potential beds are at stake with this legislation that could change and save thousands of lives. Yet simultaneously this will shift resources away from some county-level mental health and homelessness-service programs. And if it does that immediately while beds take years to build and/or are produced in lower numbers than projected as with 2018’s “No Place like Home” initiative (which promised 20,000 beds and has delivered under 1,800), the crisis may even get worse in the short term.
From a structural level, it’s very hard to evaluate the overall impact on the effectiveness of care by shifting resources between hundreds of state and county-level programs across the entire state. Anecdotally, in my own county, I’ve seen some great organizations and some very ineffective ones. Ditto on the state level. I can’t begin to calculate whether it will be a net benefit over all 58 counties and probably hundreds of programs in California. There are also some improvements to county-level policy in the bill—allowing better coverage for substance abuse treatment, etc—and counties could potentially fill in the funding for these services if they choose—but that is a big if, since many are currently in a budget crunch and have many competing priorities.
Much of the pushback has been around a change that allowed the funding to go towards involuntary care facilities. Many people argue that voluntary care is preferable, and involuntary care can be cruel. I agree that it is preferable and don’t doubt that many people have negative experiences.
At the same time, the status quo I often see seems to be not voluntary care vs. involuntary care, but simply very little care. Outreach efforts from social workers are inconsistent and scattered, the positions understaffed. When there is outreach, there isn’t nearly enough housing or mental health beds to put people in. Seeing mentally ill people sleep under blankets in the rain near my house, I fear making the perfect the enemy of the good (or even just the “existent”). When we say that we “should” be doing more outreach and voluntary care, how many people will that care come too late to save? This proposition is not a choice between more funding of voluntary care or expanded outreach vs. more involuntary care, but going from about a broken status quo to a different status quo with more resources, which may be a bet worth making. There are a lot of organizations and papers who have endorsed the measure, so it seems likely to pass and I hope they have worked out the projections and feel confident it will be an improvement at scale. But similar efforts have fallen short in the past, and this overall just feels like a continuation of a California strategy that has failed to deliver its promises of ending homelessness and embittered voters—albeit even as the resources allocated have helped real people.
I considered just doing no endorsement, but I don’t really believe in that because it just passes the decision on to people who have thought less about things. And my default is to vote no on ballot measures because I think that it’s a bad system for governance for reasons like this: it throws to people decisions they cannot reasonably be educated on, confusing them, wasting time, and passing the buck on the responsibilities of government.
So I will vote no, but I understand people voting differently.
Measure HLA - YES
Healthy Streets LA is a critical ballot measure to improve the safety and quality of LA streets. Car crashes now kill more people than homocides do in LA, and represent the #1 killer of children in our city. Further, our transportation system is frankly terrible: no residents need to be reminded of our traffic and lack of mass transit coverage.
Measure HLA requires the city of Los Angeles to follow its own street safety and transportation improvement plan it formally adopted a decade ago, but has barely implemented 5% of—because the political will to overcome resistance to change on any one street isn’t something that most LA councilmembers have. A popular mandate will finally provide a systematic mechanism for improving our streets into a safe, well-functioning transportation network without the need to fight battles over every tiny block of changes.
The approach is also not draconian: no sudden overhaul of all streets will be undergone. Instead, when the city repaves streets, it will add the improvements that are in the plan as it is already supposed to do—but rarely does.
Los Angeles County
District Attorney - Jeff Chemerinsky
If you go on NextDoor or Fox News, LA is a dystopian hellscape of wanton violent crime, and it traces back to one man: incumbent DA George Gascón, who ran on a reform platform and won in 2020.
But then you look a little closer, and…
Crime is down.
The rate of charging felonies under Gascon is virtually identical to his predecessor.
Crime surged during the pandemic across areas with reform and hardline DAs, suggesting criminals may not actually investigate their city district attorney’s prosecution guidelines before deciding whether to rob a liquor store.
Other agencies, including LAPD and LASD, have had declining rates of solving crimes independently of the DA’s office.
In other areas where this narrative has played out - like San Francisco under Chesa Boudin or myriad other cases - the viral crimes that have led people to blame the DA have persisted even after the DA was replaced, leading critics to shift to another policy to blame—even when it exists red states perceived as being “safe,” whether or not they actually have lower crime rates.
There are three leading candidates challenging Gascon for the office. Hatami and Hochman are both promoters of the “LA = Escape from New York” narrative.
Jeff Chemerinsky is a more generic fit for the role in LA. He’s a successful career prosecutor who criticizes Gascon’s management and misdemeanor policies while promising to continue criminal justice reform efforts.
Gascon is expected to make it through the primary amid a fractured field, and I think having the option of choosing between suitable candidates like Chemerisnky and Gascon is a good choice for an election. If Chemerinsky was not running I would endorse Gascon, and may still do so in the general election, but I would not vote for the other candidates who promote a false and fear-mongering narrative in order to rollback criminal justice reform overall for little certain benefit.
Board of Supervisors
District 2 - Holly Mitchell
I do not agree with everything Holly Mitchell does. She opposed key housing bills even though, from hearing her interviews, I believe she knows better. That said, she is generally a competent leader who works hard and fulfills the responsibilities of the job competently. None of her opponents seem particularly serious—just repeating general complaints about other offices (e.g. George Gascón) or wanting to solve generic issues like homelessness without any clear policies or credible background that would help them succeed where others have failed. Mitchell is the best choice.
District 4 - Janice Hahn
Similarly to Mitchell, Janice Hahn is an unremarkable career politician. She does a generally competent job but I would be happy to support a candidate who was, for example, better on housing policy. That said, her main opponent is Alex Villanueva, a disgraced former sheriff whose department held parties during covid lockdowns, refused to enforce county health policy and raided the home of one of the previous members of the board of supervisors in seeming retribution. A less prominent opponent is John Cruikshank, a mayor of Rancho Palos Verdes who isn’t as bad as Villanueva but whose platform includes things like using Hyperloop to reroute freight around Los Angeles. I recommend Hahn.
District 5 - Kathryn Barger
Similar to Hahn and Mitchell, Barger is competent but unremarkable. She is better than average on housing, though, and her opponents - while more qualified than Hahn’s and Mitchell’s—are worse. State rep. Chris Holden was instrumental in strong-arming the state to let the rich NIMBY city of South Pasadena out of its affordable housing obligations. Konstantin Anthony is a former mayor of Burbank who fought tooth and nail to prevent a closed bowling alley from being turned into housing and ended up losing a lawsuit over it. Barger is endorsed by the LA Times, LA Daily News, Abundant Housing LA, and is the better choice for the seat.
LA City Council
District 2 - Adrin Nazarian
Nazarian has decades of experience as a state assemblyman and LA City Council Staffer. During this time, he’s pushed forward a variety of important but under-the-radar policy reforms. He does not have any major opponents and has won the endorsements of a very long list of credible officials and institutions; I look forward to him serving on the city council.
District 4 - Nithya Raman
Nithya has been the best member of the LA city council on housing since her election. She isn’t perfect, but she fundamentally understands housing and pushes real solutions to our housing crisis when most city council people are content to do whatever is most politically expedient in any given moment. Her district was changed very dramatically since her election (arguably unfairly) and it’s not clear whether she will be able to withstand her challenger—but she deserves your support.
District 8 - Jahan Epps
Most people are endorsing Marqueese Harris-Dawson, a powerful incumbent on the city council who is likely to be elected. However, Harris-Dawson has become a significant roadblock to key reforms in the city—most notably codification of Karen Bass’s Executive Directive 1, which has been vital in providing a streamlined pathway to 100% Affordable Housing in the city—and removing discretionary approval of developments by councilmembers, an issue which has led to numerous LA City Council officials being indicted. Epps is a successful local businessman from the area who’s been active in community nonprofits. He doesn’t have the government experience of Harris-Dawson and I don’t agree with all his positions, but his platform is normal good-governance stuff and I would vote to give someone else a chance.
District 10 - Reggie Jones-Sawyer
This race is an unusual one: it was left empty after Nury Martinez resigned in the wake of leaked conversations about her conspiring to gerrymander districts to give black people less power. Heather Hutt was appointed in her stead and is running for a full term, while other credible challengers have also joined the race. There are multiple credible candidates in the race: Hutt, former state assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, pastor Eddie Anderson, previous guide endorsee-Aura Vasquez.
Reggie Jones-Sawyer has the best record on housing as a member of the state assembly, and has the endorsement of prominent pro-housing groups. He also endorses charter reform to expand the number of council seats, which is sorely overdue in Los Angeles—which has 15 council members for about 4 million people, resulting in an astronomical 250,000+ constituents for each one relative to most cities where it is a fraction of that amount.
District 12 - Serena Oberstein
Incumbent John Lee is under investigation for the same acceptance of lavish Las Vegas gifts (read: bribes) that resulted in his former boss, Mitch Englander, pleading guilty to corruption. He’s a former Republican (now ‘no party preference’) who consistently votes against needed new housing and transportation improvements.
Serena Oberstein is a nonprofit director—currently for a liberal Jewish nonprofit, previously for one that helped vision-impaired children—who’s previously served in the mayor’s office as an analyst. She is a better choice for the seat.
District 14 - Miguel Santiago
Miguel Santiago is running against Kevin De Leon, a council member disgraced by his racist comments in a meeting that were leaked to the press in a major LA scandal. And truthfully De Leon was a disgrace before that, given his affiliation with slumlords and general incompetence in office. Santiago has emerged as a consensus candidate with endorsements from unions, businesses, the LA Democratic Party, the LA Times, Abundant Housing LA and others. The district he represents, which includes downtown, will be a key area in absolute numbers for housing production as LA seeks to crawl out of its crisis—and he is a solid choice for someone to lead a coalition to make it happen.
There are other candidates in the race, including Wendy Carillo—who has a decent record as a legislator on housing and transportation—but recently got a DUI for which she sought to deflect blame and has had prior ethical lapses. Ysabel Jurado is a person I’ve spoken to and is bright and passionate, but her policies on housing—which generally double down on often years-long “community input” processes that in my experience are often sparsely attended and a major reason that housing has not kept up with our city’s needs—don’t meet the needs of our city at this moment and are likely to exacerbate our problems given the importance of downtown to addressing our housing shortage.
LA Superior Court Seats
Generally I default to the LA Times recommendations here because I don’t have as much expertise as the journalists there—who I’ve hosted on a number of occasions on panels and show and always found thoughtful and insightful—do. However, I especially affirm one of their recommendations (Repecka for Office 124) due to knowing the candidate personally and disagree with one (in seat 39) due to new information coming to my attention.
LA Superior Court Office Number 39: George R. Turner
Turner is a qualified, reform-minded candidate endorsed by the LA Democratic Party and many others. The LA Times endorsed Steve Napolitano, but as a Manhattan Beach he’s shown flagrant disregard for state housing laws and should not be in a position where he might hear them (not to mention what it says about his judgement in other matters).
LA Superior Court Office Number 124 - Kimberly Repecka
Kimberley Repecka is running to unseat an incumbent who has been censured for missing work, which led the LA Times to issue a rare endorsement of a challenger to a seated judge. She has been a public defender for many years and is also a personal friend who I know to be of high integrity. I believe she will balance public safety with the desire for criminal justice reform and overall is a very competent individual with a strong worth ethic and moral compass. She will be a strong choice, all the more for an office which the incumbent has proven themselves unfit.
LA Unified School District Board
District 1: Sherlett Hendy Newbill
Sherlett Hendy Newbill and Didi Watts are both qualified candidates with similar platforms. Newbill has broader endorsements, including from the LA Times and other institutions I generally look to, while Watts’s platform also includes a mention of seeking to build housing for teachers—which is something I strongly support, though the idea doesn’t seem very fleshed out. The candidate that has raised the most money in the race, Khallid Al-Alim, had the endorsement by the Teacher’s Union dropped after controversy around social media activity that included liking posts about Jews controlling the weather, glamorizing guns, and more. Antisemitism is bad enough, but is it too much to ask that our kids’ education not be managed by people who believe a minority controls the weather? Is this whose critical thinking skills we want in charge of a school teaching our kids critical thinking skills?
Either Watts or Newbill would be a fine choice; I hope one or both makes it through to the primary.
District 3: Dennis Chang
Schmerelson is a veteran teacher and principal and the incumbent on the school board who I’ve endorsed before. He is generally competent, but his support of what seem like punitive restrictions on charter schools operating on school campuses is something I disagree with. Chang is a teacher who has taught at both traditional and charter schools and is more open to them. The LA Times endorsed Schmerelson on the basis of him being more stable while Chang is more of a change candidate. As the parent of kids who will likely be in LAUSD, and whose nearest local school is a well-regarded charter, I feel more supportive of Chang—though I would and have endorsed Schmerelson under other circumstances.
District 5: Victorio Guttierez
There are a number of veteran teachers and administrators running for this position. Victorio Guttierez is a former teacher and principal who, for lack of a better term, seems like the realest one in the race: speaking more out of personal experience than experience of the politics-and-grant-applications side of the school system. He also, despite being a longtime member of teacher and administrator unions, shows more independence from their platform around charter schools.
District 7: Tanya Ortiz Franklin
Franklin, the incumbent, has been a thoughtful leader on the board and faces a perennial and less-qualified candidate as a challenger. She deserves to be re-elected.