The head of the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, blasted Nithya Raman on Wednesday, calling the city council member an "opportunist" for launching a campaign to unseat Mayor Karen Bass after previously signaling her support for Bass. Federation president Yvonne Wheeler said in a statement that her organization, which represents an estimated 800,000 workers, will "use every tool" in its arsenal to get Bass reelected.
On the last day of January, hundreds of people filled the pews of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Koreatown to hear not the word of God but the gospel of the Democratic Socialists of America. It was the local chapter's bimonthly meeting and also a kickoff event for a year during which they planned to build on an already impressive foothold in L.A. politics.
I had to set fire to my scorecard, and to the column I had just drafted, which touched on all the expected big-name challengers who had bowed out of the mayoral race in the past several days: L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, billionaire businessman Rick Caruso (who forced a runoff with Bass the last time around), and former L.A. Unified schools chief Austin Beutner.
