LA City Council Good Gov Ratings
Evaluations are not to be considered endorsements. Ratings are based upon good governance issues, and not a candidate’s overall platform or campaign.
They are based principally upon survey responses, their platform, campaign finance data, and their track record related to issues of combating corruption and advancing a more effective and representative local government.
Individual candidate evaluations were required to receive the approval of at least six out of eight review panelists. Panelists participated in an individual capacity, not representing any organization, and included Michele Sutter, Mike Draskovic, Carolina Goodman, Marina Mastros, Jamie York, Tony Weiss, Melanie Winter, & Rob Quan.
Scroll down to see full evaluations of the best/worst candidates on the ballot from a good governance perspective.
***Note, the campaign finance data re: small dollar donors referenced below is based upon figures reported through February 17th, 2024
1. Nithya Raman - LA CD 4
Councilmember Raman is by far the strongest advocate for governance reform on our council. We know from experience that the slightest of details can determine whether or not the city ends up with real reform vs. just window dressing. Sometimes, counterintuitively, reform requires pumping the brakes when flawed proposals are being pushed forward. Councilmember Raman has been essential to ensuring the council do the necessary work to advance meaningful change, and refrain from jamming through half baked reforms.
Last year we saw a few of Councilmember Raman’s progressive colleagues cling to their newfound power while shying away from previously-held positions on issues like council size. Councilmember Raman stands alone in her willingness to put aside self-interest. This extends to curtailing the discretion members have over land use. In addition to leading on these issues and independent redistricting, Councilmember Raman is the lead author of the motion that explores how we can improve upon our system for publicly financed elections. Many candidates and elected officials speak about the need to cut red tape, reform our land use policies, and limit the discretion members have over individual projects. This is something easy to speak about in theory, but we’ve seen almost no willingness outside of Councilmember Raman to take actionable steps to address these issues.
Once elected, most officials rely on big checks, special interest money, and fundraising by lobbyists. Councilmember Raman has maintained her 2020 commitment to running a “clean money” campaign while still raising over $22,000 from small-dollar donors. That is the second highest small-dollar donor haul of any city council candidate, and over three and a half times as much as her opponent Ethan Weaver.
2. Serena Oberstein - LA CD 12
If elected, Serena Oberstein would walk into City Hall with more experience on good governance issues than any candidate to run or be elected to LA City Council in the last fifteen years. It’s hard to know what you’ll get with some candidates once they end up on the Council, but Oberstein’s time on the city’s Ethics Commission gives us confidence that she is uniquely qualified to be an essential leader in efforts to reform City Hall.
In the wake of the Sea Breeze scandal, a motion to comprehensively overhaul our matching funds program was introduced. In spite of council showing no interest in even hearing the item before the fundraising cycle for 2020 opened up, the Ethics Commission stepped up to begin the work proactively. It was a slog. As we’ve seen with the City Council’s Governance Reform Committee, many of the Ethics Commissioners appeared unprepared and had a painfully difficult time wrapping their heads around the dense material that underpin our matching funds program. Oberstein and former Commission President Jessica Levinson were the only ones who had a firm grasp on its mechanics. Unfortunately, Levinson termed out before they could resolve their work. In addition to having a new President, the Ethics Commission would be welcoming a new commissioner at their next meeting.
Things were not looking good, so some of us reached out to Oberstein to meet in advance of the vote. She was extremely well prepared, gracious with her time, and talked through a long list of outstanding issues. Her previous work on campaigns gave her a leg up in appreciating how the program is actually utilized and the importance of creating a matching funds program that is accessible to grassroots candidates.
In their previous meetings, Oberstein’s colleagues were very skeptical of expanding the match rate to 6:1. They were even more skeptical of offering the same rate for the primaries (when it matters the most). Even worse, her colleagues were considering raising the qualifying threshold for council candidates from $25K to $38K. She patiently walked them through those issues, and many others, and was able to find consensus. There’s no way we would have gotten the transformative reforms we did without Oberstein’s work, and there’s no way the City Council was prepared to do it alone.
Before those reforms took effect, we had just two women on the City Council. It had been fifteen years since an incumbent had been voted out of office. In the elections since then, we’ve elected five women and voted out three incumbents. We’d confidently argue Oberstein had just as big of a hand in that change as any elected official, if not more. We hope to see her continue that work as a Councilmember herself.
3. Ysabel Jurado - LA CD 14
No council candidate running in the City of L.A. this year has raised more money from small-dollar donors than Ysabel Jurado. She’s amassed over $34,000 from donors giving less than $100 each. That’s over $3,000 more than the figure raised by all of her Council District 14 opponents, combined. Nearly one fifth of her donations come from small-dollar donors. Her campaign has done all of this while also taking additional steps to run a clean money campaign. Jurado has made anti-corruption a primary theme of her campaign’s messaging in a way not seen from any candidate in recent memory.
As a tenants’ rights attorney, she has a firm understanding of the structural challenges faced when taking on special interests. Recent scandals are not dismissed as mere personal failings, they are appreciated as an institutional failing that requires meaningful reform.
Politicians are often reluctant to concede their own power to benefit the greater good, especially if it threatens an easy path to re-election. Ysabel stands as a clear contrast, speaking about the power of holding elected officials accountable through competitive elections. She would be a fierce advocate for reform and someone committed to making city hall a more accessible place. She offers a chance to enhance the opportunities for everyday people to be heard by their local officials.
Jillian Burgos - CD 2
Over the last fifteen months, Jillian Burgos has been refreshingly proactive and transparent in conveying where she stands on many of the major reforms moving through L.A. City Council. Over 26% of her campaign contributions come from those donating less than $100, the highest percentage of any council candidate. Burgos doesn’t sit on a financial war chest like some of her opponents, but her impressive grassroots fundraising efforts have allowed her to secure $80,000 in matching funds thus far. This is particularly impressive when you consider that there are a number of incumbents and establishment politicians who have been unable to qualify for matching funds despite raising between $200,000 to $400,000 so far.
Pastor Eddie Anderson - CD 10
Pastor Eddie Anderson served on the 2021 L.A. City Council Redistricting Commission. He has commented on how the experience illuminated just how difficult it is to draw fair maps for a city of our size and diversity using just fifteen districts. As a commissioner, he pushed to ensure meetings would be accessible for all, regardless of what language they spoke. He’s come out to City Hall many times over the past two years to speak in support of independent redistricting and council expansion. Anderson’s experience advocating for reforms to our justice system offers a unique lens. There has been recent talk of revisiting the 2017 charter reforms that severely undermined our system for disciplining LAPD officers. Anderson would be an enormous asset to that conversation.
Aura Vasquez - CD 10
Aura Vasquez is a long time supporter of council expansion and public financing of elections. She has turned out at City Hall to offer her support for charter reform and democracy vouchers. Vasquez leads the field of candidates in Council District 10 with nearly $15,000 of her fundraising coming from small-dollar contributors (over $6,000 more than anyone else in CD 10). Through her work on campaigns to get the city off coal and on the path to 100% renewable energy, she understands the internal politics of City Hall. She understands first-hand what it’s like to go up against big money. There are a lot of young organizers out there who are now able to better navigate change at City Hall because Vasquez went out of her way to show them the ropes. We need advocates like this in office.
Grace Yoo - CD 10
Grace Yoo has never been afraid to speak truth to power. She has extensive knowledge of how City Hall works well, how it works poorly, and why. That is particularly salient when it comes to issues related to ethics and representative government. She was one of the most outspoken critics of the 2011-2012 redistricting process. When some of us were preparing for the most recent redistricting cycle, Yoo offered essential insights into what went wrong previously and what to avoid this time around. That conversation directly informed the reforms we proposed, and helped prepare us for the mess that would unfold in 2021.
Ethan Weaver - LA CD 4
Red flags for Ethan Weaver did not truly become warranted until some recent comments made to ABC 7. Weaver dismissed the extent to which Councilmember Raman was targeted during the last redistricting cycle. That undeniable reality was apparent at the time of redistricting, but it was made crystal clear in the infamous leaked fed tapes. Former Council President stated her desire to “keep [Raman] on a fence.” Councilmember Kevin de Leon laughed about her being “the one to put in the blender and chop up left and right.” The 2021 LA city redistricting cycle is a textbook example of ruthless, politically driven gerrymandering designed to punish political opponents. Competitive elections can lead to “being cute” with the facts, but wholly dismissing them on such an important issue is disqualifying in our opinion, and makes us question if he’s truly committed to independent redistricting at all.
Ethan Weaver decries a broken city hall that needs to be fixed, but offers little to no actual plans on how to address systemic dysfunction (beyond “working hard” and “being accessible,” a low bar. No one in Los Angeles is happy with the state of homelessness or the LA Homeless Services Authority’s performance. But his eagerness to disband the agency even if we have no apparent alternative is reckless, and would mean losing out on millions in federal funding.
Weaver is on record with LAist that he plans to restore trust by reducing council discretion in land use reform, but his broader land use beliefs and appeals to the Sherman Oaks HOA make it hard to believe this is a genuine commitment. His positions on council size are hard to tease out. He says (1:22:40) he’s not completely against it, but is absolutely opposed to the idea of simply increasing the size of council. He makes reference to the need to limit an individual councilmember’s discretion, but offers no insight on what models of representation he would want. Could his concerns about discretion be addressed in another manner? Perhaps multi-member districts, a blend of single-member and at-large districts, or a hybrid of single-member districts and regional representatives have all been discussed, yet he’s not on the record about any of those viable alternatives. Some of Weaver’s comments seem to imply a belief that good governance is unattainable and there isn’t a universe in which we can trust City Hall to spend another dollar…unless it’s on cops or firefighters. Between that and the special interests who have aligned behind him, spidey senses tingle.
John Lee - CD 12
Not much needs to be said beyond, “two counts of accepting excess gifts, three counts of failing to disclose gifts, four counts of misusing a City position, and one count of aiding and abetting the misuse of a City position.” Councilmember Lee is currently facing ten charges of violating local ethics laws. A trip to Las Vegas ultimately resulted in the arrest and conviction of Lee's former boss, Councilmember Englander, just days after Lee narrowly won reelection in 2020. After serving his prison sentence, Englander accepted responsibility when the Ethics Commission brought charges. On the other hand, Councilmember Lee has wasted the Ethics Commission’s time and resources by contesting the charges, further delaying enforcement by hiring our City Attorney’s former campaign opponent as counsel to trigger a conflict of interest. He then filed a lawsuit to prevent the Ethics Commission from bringing forward enforcement until after the election (like the 2020 Council District 12 contest, this is a one-on-one race that will be settled in the primary).
It’s important to highlight the specific acts that occurred after the infamous trip to Las Vegas. Councilmember Lee was interviewed by the FBI months later, and somehow his old boss Engalnder became aware of the FBI investigation in the month that followed. Then again, seemingly miraculously, Lee found himself circling up with Englander to coordinate delivering backdated checks that covered a fraction of tens of thousands of gifts doled out on their trip.
Lee appears to have learned nothing from this experience. In spite of laws banning elected officials from using their city positions or titles for political purposes, his campaign domain name is CouncilmemberJohnLee.com. It’s not unusual to see elected officials straddle the line with those laws in minor circumstances, but this is a blatant violation that flies in the face of longstanding ethics laws.
There is no candidate for LA City Council more reliant on big money than Councilmember Lee. About one fourth of one percent (0.25%) of his contributions come from small-dollar donors. From a policy perspective, Lee is one of the biggest opponents of government reform. He helped sandbag attempts to increase transparency with behested payments in 2019, and is firmly against increasing the size of City Council. Lee told LAist he believes redistricting reform will restore trust in City Hall, but that feels like an empty promise given new lines will not be implemented until 2032, when Lee would be termed out.
Kevin de Leon - CD 14
Councilmember Kevin de Leon’s disgraced status is known far and wide, ultimately resulting in the President of the United States calling for his resignation. Kevin de Leon has spent the last year and a half attempting to minimize his role in the fed tapes scandal as a “failure to speak up.” The reality is, Councilmember de Leon was an active participant who was, in many circumstances, the instigator of some of the most hateful and offensive conversations that occurred. We recommend revisiting this piece from Sahra Sulaiman on the, “The Seething Anti-Blackness of Kevin de León,” for a refresher. Since then, Councilmember de Leon has had his hands full, from fighting off a recall attempt, to literally fighting with a member of the public. He’s actively skirted public debates and carefully chooses what type of limited public appearances to make. Councilmember de Leon has zero credibility to speak on issues of reform, and his attempts to do so have been met with condemnation from his colleagues.
When asked by LAist how he plans to restore trust in City Hall, he touted the “over $150 million in funding” he’s delivered to the district, and said, “restoring public trust means delivering tangible measurable results for the residents of Los Angeles.” This is reflective of his own self-centered perspective. To him, restoring trust appears to mean using his money and power as a Councilmember to leverage others into being in his presence so that he can slowly ingratiate himself back at City Hall. The reality is, we could have beautiful parks, no traffic, everyone housed, and perfectly paved streets and it would not do a thing to actually restore trust in City Hall, so long as we have Councilmembers being charged with corruption on an annual basis. Kevin de Leon needs to go.