VOTES CAN take days, or weeks, to count in California. But Nithya Raman’s election night gathering on November 3rd felt like a victory party. Young voters, campaign staffers and union members flooded the courtyard of the Greek Theatre to watch returns roll in. When Ms Raman, a millennial city-council member affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), took the stage, cheers echoed through Griffith Park.
“I’m very hopeful,” she told the crowd. “I’m also really superstitious, so we’re all just gonna be cool, OK?”
Voters reeling from the fires were disillusioned by their government’s response to homelessness and poor public services, too. This year he veered left and picked Ms Raman. “Everything is wrong in the city. Ms Raman will be sworn into office next month. What can Angelenos expect? Though she is a member of the DSA’s LA chapter, her relationship with the organisation has been rocky. She is more of a wonk than an ideologue and years on city council have familiarised her with the torpid nature of municipal government. She gestures at big ideas, such as expanding publicly funded child care. Yet her immediate plans favour incremental progress, such as speeding up the permitting process for new day-care centres—as well as for housing and film shoots. Initially, at least, she will have to triage mounting problems. A bloated budget and massive liability settlements have led to structural deficits; it can take a year, on average, for the city to replace a streetlight; and Pacific Palisades is in the midst of rebuilding .
In the 2022 mayoral race Rolando Cuevas, a 58-year-old in government affairs, voted for Rick Caruso , a billionaire developer and Republican-turned-Democrat, whose campaign focused on crime and quality of life issues.
“We just need new ideas in LA,” he says. At Ms Raman’s party he ran into his young neighbours, whom he called “hard-core DSA”. “We were opposites but now we’re on the same side!” he told them.
