INSIDE L.A. CITY HALL, City Controller Kenneth Mejia and Councilmember Nithya Raman are perhaps the two public officials least likely to be invited to sit with their elected colleagues at lunch.
Mejia has blasted Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council for trimming his budget, undermining his ability to audit city spending and foiling efforts to establish independent funding for his office.
For her part, Raman tore up political alliances by jumping into the mayor’s race at the last minute, finishing second and forcing Bass into a runoff in November — all without a single peer on the City Council stepping up to endorse her. But Raman and Mejia’s sometimes tense relationships inside 200 N. Spring Street are also part of their appeal to voters, with both branding themselves as outsider mavericks who are unafraid to upset the proverbial apple cart.
On Thursday, the duo joined forces at a park in Echo Park where Mejia endorsed Raman as L.A.’s next mayor in her bid to unseat Bass. Mejia is a member of the Green party and Raman is a registered Democrat who also identifies as a democratic socialist.
Mejia framed Raman as a government reformer who made tough calls — like voting against a budget-busting police union contract — without regard for the political price.
“The people are fed up. The old way of operating at City Hall in Los Angeles is failing,” Mejia said. “Nithya will bring the change we need at City Hall.”
Raman diagnosed a chief cause of the city’s failings as “pay-to-play politics” where “oversight has been treated as attack, and problems have been allowed to grow into crises.”
“Somehow we have all been told to accept this as normal,” Raman said. “Kenneth and I are standing together today to change that.”
The endorsement by Mejia marks something of a restart of Raman’s campaign after her second-place finish in the primary, and it comes as Bass faces a string of challenges, including the cleanup of the Lineage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights, a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power water main break Thursday that shut down Sunset Boulevard, and staffing upheavals on her campaign and communications teams.
Bass’ campaign manager, top pollster, researcher and direct mail chief all opted to depart her campaign last month. Bass’ longtime unpaid adviser and communications strategist, Yusef Robb, announced last weekend he was halting his work for the mayor after L.A. Material and other outlets reported that Robb was also doing paid work on behalf of Lineage, owner of the cold storage warehouse that ignited in Boyle Heights. Another top communications staffer, Kolby Lee, resigned this week after mere months on the job.
Although it's unclear how much the endorsement might boost Raman, Mejia’s backing provides Raman with the support of one of L.A.’s most popular, if polarizing, politicians. In 2022, Mejia trounced the longtime L.A. politician Paul Koretz to win the controller’s race with more votes than any other controller candidate in city history. He won again in June, defeating challenger Zach Sokoloff despite Sokoloff’s mother pouring millions of dollars into an independent committee to attack Mejia.
Raman said that she was committed to ensuring Mejia’s office was strengthened, including fully funding the team that audits fraud and waste in city bureaucracy.
Raman, in a swipe at Bass, also vowed not to stand in the way of Mejia’s work, including auditing homelessness programs.
“This issue, on which we spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually, deserves much more than defensiveness or closed doors.”
Enjoying this story?
Become an L.A. Material member. Your support helps us keep really good, really independent journalism alive in Los Angeles.
Matt Hamilton can be reached at [email protected].
