The 2026 Primaries and California’s Future

The Los Angeles primary elections, held June 2, 2026, were the source of great debate and not a few surprises. In this episode, David Myers, in his farewell episode as founding host of The History-Policy Podcast,  interviews longtime LA public official and frequent LCHP collaborator Zev Yaroslavsky to discuss what the primary elections tell us about California’s political climate and what the future might hold. The discussion begins with Zev’s observation that inflation, cost of living, and the high price of gasoline have led to discontent throughout California. This sense of frustration played out in the LA primaries, with Republican candidate Steve Hilton advancing to the final two of the California governor's race. Meanwhile, Xavier Becerra set himself apart by refraining from vitriolic attacks on other candidates. Whether Becerra or Hilton can serve as California's chief executive once elected, rather than simply as a legislator, remains to be seen. At the local level, incumbent LA mayor Karen Bass faces surprisingly stiff competition from Councilmember Nithya Raman, whose platform drew attention to the failures, real or perceived, of Bass’s tenure. As the general election approaches and preparations for the Summer Olympics in 2028 continue, the trajectory of LA and California overall is very much in question.

Read Sueño Incomplete: A History of the Latino Wealth Gap in the United States.

Read The Making of a Crisis: A History of Homelessness in Los Angeles

Zev Yaroslavsky is the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the Luskin School of Public Affairs. He served as LA City Council Member from 1975 to 1994, and as a member of the LA County Board of Supervisors from 1994 to 2014. In 2023, Zev released a memoir, Zev's Los Angeles: From Boyle Heights to the Halls of Power, in which he reflected on his long career in politics. 

Transcript

Narrator 0:12

Welcome to the History -Politics Podcast: Putting the Past to Work from UCLA's Luskin Center for History and Policy. We study change in order to make change, linking knowledge of the past to the quest for a better future. Every other week we examine the most pressing issues of the day through a historical lens, helping us understand what happened then and what that means for us now.

David Myers 0:39

Hello, I'm David Myers, host of today's episode of the History- Politics Podcast. I'm delighted to welcome back Zev Yaroslavsky, former longtime public official and UCLA lecturer. Zev and I will be talking about the recent primary elections in California, what they tell us about the state of our state in political terms, and where we might be heading in the generals. In addition to his very busy public life, Zev has been a frequent guest on this podcast. In fact, he was the first guest more than six years ago on April 13, 2020, when he spoke about the crisis of confidence in then County Sheriff Alex Villanueva. Even before Zev co-authored a report on the 1984 LA Olympics that gave rise to the Luskin Center for History and Policy. And so as I step down from directing the Luskin Center after nine years and take a break from hosting this podcast, it is fitting that we return to Zev to offer insight into our current political situation, the upcoming Olympics, and the Luskin Center for History and Policy. Welcome to the podcast, Zev.

Zev Yaroslavsky 1:46

Good to be back.

David Myers 1:47

Yeah, it's a opportunity to remember that you were the very first guest of this podcast in its original iteration, then and now.

Zev Yaroslavsky 1:54

I should be in the Hall of Fame, absolutely.

David Myers 1:57

You're in a few halls of fame. Uh but now you get into this one as well. So let's jump right in. Um how do you assess the overall political climate of our state at this moment?

Zev Yaroslavsky 2:08

Well, I think I think people are unhappy uh statewide. Uh inflation, cost of living uh is affecting everybody. Uh it's it everything is relative. Cost of living is lower than the inland empire, but it's higher than it was a few years ago. And of course, in coastal California, uh cost of living has been off the charts. And uh and now with uh the Iran situation and the inflation uh of uh gasoline prices and uh that sort of thing, uh it's it's a uh it's it's not a very happy uh uh electorate. Uh in LA County, where we do uh you know a survey every year at the Luskin School, uh we asked people to rate, we asked, we asked county residents to to rate their quality of life on a scale of 10 to 100. And uh the inflection point came with the can with the pandemic in 2021, 2022, when it was at its peak. And people really uh got hit hard. Uh and I don't think they've I I know from our survey that they've never fully recovered. Uh you had uh you you had people who who uh had children in school who now weren't going to school, and the parent, one of the parents had to stay home with them and work with them on the computer to make sure they were keeping pace with the with their studies and with their class class uh sessions. Uh you had people who lost their jobs uh and uh didn't get reimbursed for the loss of jobs. Some people did and a lot of people didn't. You had people who whose income has never recovered to what it was before uh before the pandemic. Uh and basically in in Los Angeles, let's talk for a second about Southern California. We've had uh we've had a bad five years. Uh the pandemic was one thing. Uh the fires last year were were a huge thing. The ice sweeps was another thing. Uh and uh it was just when you thought you were gonna you know get your head above water and catch your breath, then you get hit with something else. And uh and the impacts of all of these things uh well went well beyond the footprint of the events themselves. For example, the fire. Uh the fires in Al Tadena and and Palisades, of course, they hit the people hardest who lost their homes and some people lost their lives. But it also impacted people who lost their jobs. Take a gardener, for example, who had a lot of clients in the Palisades or Altadena, and all of a sudden, no clients. And he lost a lot of income. Uh a significant percentage of the people we surveyed countywide said they were impacted by a reduction in income as a result of the fire.

David Myers 4:49

Um I just want to I just want to uh say that I remember, I don't know, four or five years ago, I remember you shared some of the findings of the the quality of life survey, and um the percentage of people who felt uh housing precarity was astonishingly high. Um a third of the residents of LA County. And um this year you report that people's sense of the quality of their life is the lowest it's been in the 11 years you've done the survey.

Zev Yaroslavsky 5:19

It's the lowest it's been uh in the this was the 11th survey. We started it in 2016. This is the lowest it ever was. Um we asked people to rate their quality of life on a scale of 10 to 100. 55 is the midpoint. The first few years we had the survey, was it 59 in the first two years? It dropped to 58. These aren't percentages, these are values. So to go from 59 to what we had this year, 52, is a humongous drop. And it requires that in the nine categories we survey, that virtually every category either has to stay the same or go down. And in fact, this year, uh, eight of the nine categories that we survey, whether it's cost of living, jobs, your neighborhood, healthcare, education, the usual suspects, uh, that eight of the nine categories went down. And six of the of the nine or six of the eight uh that uh went down hit the all-time low in that in that category. Uh so yeah, this was this was this was a uh a monumental drop.

David Myers 6:21

Does this uh qu quantitative piece comport to your own anecdotal sense of things? You're a guy with a lot of experience in government and uh are uh a lot of experience observing political change over time. Does this moment compare to anything that you call to can call to mind? I mean, does it seem on the basis of what you've lived and observed to be as bad as it's been?

Zev Yaroslavsky 6:49

Well, I think I think it's it's bad. Uh I think in the last 11 years since I've been back at UCLA, it's certainly gone downhill since I got there. I hope I had nothing to do with it. Uh and uh uh as to whether in my lifetime uh, you know, what what are the political implications for all this? Obviously, when gasoline goes up a buck and a half a gallon, uh whether somebody can afford it or not, and a lot of people can't, uh it it's it's it's a negative and uh it it frames your attitude about things that are going on. It becomes a kind of a metaphor for everything else that's gone wrong. So people are angry about the fires, they're angry about the streets not being fixed, they're angry about the lights going out and waiting nine months for them to be repaired. Uh but more importantly, uh the cost of living has gone up. The cost of housing has gone up, as we know. Uh, and uh despite the fact that the legislature has passed over a hundred bills to promote more housing and more densification in urban areas, uh it continues to be uh uh the single most important factor in why people rate the cost of living the lowest category that we have. I mentioned that 50 is the overall category, uh the overall survey uh result. When we break it down in category by category, the uh the cost of living was at 39. That's the all-time low of any category, including cost of living. Uh, and um, we ask people when they rate their categories, uh, we give them four or five options. What is the primary reason that uh or the primary factor that informed your rating of this category? So in the case of cost of living, we'll say cost was the cost of housing, was it taxes, was it cost of household goods, uh, things like that. Uh, and cost of housing has always been the number one factor that informed people's rating of cost of living. So yeah, we saw this uh, and I I will say that our survey was um was a kind of a canary in the coal mine because in 2016 and 2017 caught the cost of housing was high, but it was it was on an ascendancy, the the curve was getting steeper and steeper. Uh and after the pandemic hit, uh one of the things that we we found, and it's pretty obvious now to everybody who's done surveys, is that the people who uh who uh uh were were principally impacted and and uh for for whom the the uh pandemic was uh the seminal event of their last few years, uh it was it was younger people, uh not the youngest, but the people between 30 and 39 years of age, that demographic, and especially white people who were between the ages of 30 and 39, they are the people who feel they have been screwed the most in this in this period of time. Uh and there are reasons for that. Uh if when you're between 30 and 39, you're too old to be living with the parents, so you got to go out and find your own apartment.

David Myers 9:49

You're in the middle of building a family. That's another thing that's going on when you're between 30 and 39.

Zev Yaroslavsky 9:55

Yeah, you you may be starting a family, you may have kids, they may be going to school. Uh and if you're an Anglo, uh you might have had an impact, uh, an income that was up here. Uh, you know, uh you may have been making $120,000 a year or $150,000 a year as an as an attorney, as an entry-level attorney, they actually make a little more now. Uh a lot of them lost their jobs during the pandemic. They never, they were never hired back. Uh, and uh and so their drop was more significant than people who are already at the low end of the economic spectrum. Uh it it's a it's a fascinating irony uh of uh of what's what's happened. Uh but generally speaking, everybody is is uh anxiety-ridden over cost of living uh in the immigrant community uh or people who look like immigrants. Uh the sweeps have been horrendously uh uh destabilizing to in their lives. There are people, I'm sure you know them too, uh, who won't leave their house uh or who won't leave their house without their passport if they uh if they have a passport. Uh and so you have all of these pressures on people uh that they haven't recovered yet from the completely from the uh from the pandemic. Uh now that now ice is sweeping through uh the communities. Um then you have a fire uh that may or may not have impacted you directly. Uh and even if it's indirectly, people who inhale that smoke uh for for two days, uh it was so dark in my neighborhood in the Fairfax area that birds stopped chirping. They thought it was nighttime, it was like a solar eclipse. And it was all of these impacts that people had, and and uh, and so when you look at it from a political point of view, you know, how through a political prism, why are people so unhappy? Well, aside from the fact that they don't get their their street lights fixed uh quickly and and be because there may be a homeless encampment near their neighborhood. Uh aside from all of that, more more fundamental issues like I can't afford to live the way I was living before, uh, cost of gasoline, I use my gardener uses a pickup truck. When the price of gasoline goes up, his cost of doing business goes up, uh, and so forth.

David Myers 12:12

Yeah, I just want to pause here to commend to our listeners a report produced by our colleagues at UCLA from the Latin Policy and Politics Institute uh called Sueno Incompleto. It's a study of the yawning um gap in income um uh between um Latinos and the white American population. Um, a really compelling statistical and historical analysis uh that relates to some of the things you were talking about. But maybe let's turn our attention now to uh the state races um and uh the race for governor. Um and I'm particularly interested in hearing how what are we to make of Steve Hilton's second place finish? What what is this is this a shot across the bow to Democrats in in the state of California, or simply a case, a reminder that there are a few republic Republicans sprinkled uh across our blue state?

Zev Yaroslavsky 13:06

I think I think it's more the latter. Uh it would have been very surprising if there were two two Republicans who ended up in the top two, uh, which there was a concern about that for for quite a few weeks because there were so many candidates, serious candidates or quasi-serious candidates on the Democratic side, that they were splitting up the vote. So the two two people, Hilton and and uh the Riverside Sheriff, Bianco, might have ended up in the top two. Uh no, I think uh I think there are a couple of factors, and we don't have to look too deep uh to understand this. Uh Trump endorsed Hilton, and in the Republican primary or or the Republican portion of the pro of the nonpartisan primary, Republicans, as we know from across the country, and we know it here too, that when Trump endorses somebody in a Republican race, uh that's a huge boost to that candidate. And Hilton got Trump's endorsement. Uh Bianco didn't have the resources or the public relations know-how to get himself out in front of the voters the way Hilton did. Uh, I think Hilton had a a pretty compelling uh argument. You know, the Democrats have been in power for 20 years or more, and you know, maybe it's time to try somebody else. Uh I I don't think it was that compelling, but it was compelling to the Republicans uh who feel that way. Uh so I I don't think that that uh that Hilton is uh uh has a snowball's chance in hell of becoming governor of California.

David Myers 14:37

I I just let me just ask you why I have you, because you're also you know a student of principles of good governance. And I'm wondering what you think of the nonpartisan primary system.

Zev Yaroslavsky 14:49

Well, you know, there's there's uh there are pluses and minuses, and I I hate to sound like a lawyer on the one hand, but on the other hand, but uh but there are pluses and minuses. What are the pluses? Uh when you have a partisan primary where only Democrats and Republicans can vote for their party candidates, uh you you tend to get more you get you tend to nominate people who are more on the extremes of those parties. Um the people who vote in uh in primaries historically are people who are more politically active, uh whether they're young or they're old, mostly older people and middle-aged people, uh, but also more ideologically uh motivated people tend to vote in primaries. Uh so one of the reasons, or the main reason that the people who put that nonpartisan primary up on the ballot uh to amend the constitution was to give people in the middle of the political spectrum a shot. Um and so we have uh we have a race for the state senate in West Los Angeles, um, where you have two Democrats who are now uh in a predominantly democratic district. You have a a race between uh uh John Erickson, who's a city councilman in West Hollywood, who's uh you know self-identified as uh as a lefty, as a progressive, uh uh, and uh and Brian Goldsmith, uh who is a more moderate uh to liberal, old-fashioned liberal, uh and the two of them are neck and neck uh in the top two and will be in the top two. Um so that's a that's unusual uh to have a close race where either one of those guys can win. And it'll be a contest between a very progressive candidate and a liberal but less progressive candidate. Uh it's an interesting district because it's not only the west side of Los Angeles, it's also the South Bay, which tends to be a little more conservative, a little more moderate. Um but the statewide on so back to the uh the nonpartisan primary. Uh the advantages are you give people who are not in the extreme of either party, whether you're a Republican, far right guy, or a very far left Democrat, you give the people in between those two extremes a chance.

David Myers 17:09

Uh so to wit, Steyer didn't make it. He's to the left of this era. Beyonce didn't make it, Hilton, uh he being to the right of Hilton.

Zev Yaroslavsky 17:18

So Yeah, I think I think there are a number of reasons Steyer didn't make it, but that's one of them. Uh he he he tried to put paint himself as as the progressive in the race. Uh hard to convince people, voters, that a billionaire who spends 200 million dollars to get elected governor is is uh is really a progressive, uh even though he is a progressive.

David Myers 17:40

He is. And he was he was running on his opposition to the uh supported the billionaires tax, amongst other things, which was beyond the ironies. But I'm wondering how you understand the Bacera phenomenon. I mean, he was um dwelling in complete anonymity and then sort of like a bolt of lightning shot out of uh uh out of the pack and and they became the you know the presumptive winner. How how did that happen?

Zev Yaroslavsky 18:04

I I suspect that there will be a couple of pup PhD dissertations written about that that question. Uh I think it's I think it's pretty simple. Uh if you watch the debates, and a lot of people did watch the gubernatorial debates, uh, it was what we called a blankety blank show. Uh it was it was not a it was not a pretty picture. You had a lot of candidates who were behaving like children. And there were only two people, uh I shouldn't say only two people, but two of the primary candidates uh who behaved more like adults. Becerra was one of them. He didn't take the bait, he didn't attack the other candidates. Uh Steyer did, uh, and uh and Antonio Villaraigosa did. I was surprised uh at how how vitriolic uh that got between him and Becerra. Um and uh and even Hilton uh in his attacks on the other candidates were more attacks on policy and history and and the political history of the last 20 years than it was a personal attack on people. Becerra did not did not get into the into the gutter with with everybody else. And so uh if you listen, paid attention to what people were saying about the debates, they were people were were appalled at the uh at the nature of them.

David Myers 19:20

I mean it's so rare that debates are dispositive. Do you really think that that's

Zev Yaroslavsky 19:24

Yeah, I do I do think I do think they they were not not that everybody sat and watched the debate for an hour and a half or two hours, but the snippets that they saw on the news uh those snippets were of the uh of the catfight that was going on. Uh so whether you were Kate uh Kate Port uh Porter or or uh uh Steyer uh or even uh uh what's uh Mahan uh who was supposed to be the you know the the well-behaved moderate, the messiah, and uh he ended up getting into the gutter, and I think that did not do him very well. So at the end of the day, uh Becerra was the cream that rose to the top, and he was somebody that they could envision. Uh and by the way, he got 20, 25, something like that percent. It's not like a landslide, but in that kind of a crowded field, I think that made a difference. People say, well, as we when Swalwell dropped out, everybody uh, you know, a lot of people gravitated to Becerra. I don't think he was already moving before Swalwell dropped out of the race, before that became a public issue. Uh Becerra, I've I've known Becerra for a long time. Uh worked with him, uh, you know, he was in Congress and the Ways and Means Committee, and I was on the Board of Supervisors and Healthcare. Much of the healthcare legislation goes through the Ways and Means Committee. So we worked uh pretty closely together. He's a very smart guy, he's very cerebral. He's not a he's he's not a polemic type of person. Uh and uh which makes it all the more interesting that he rose to the top. Um, and I think people uh yeah, and and we'll find out. Look, he's never been a politically uh hold he never he has never held a political office that re that was an executive office. He was head of the uh Department of Health and Services, but but that's you know, he was really

David Myers 21:18

That's isn't that presiding over a huge bureaucracy?

Zev Yaroslavsky 21:21

It's a huge bureaucracy, but but it's really run by uh these days it's run by the White House. I mean, you do what the White House wants you to do. And uh uh and and it's so big that he he he i he's not his own man. Now he's gonna be his own man, he's gonna be

David Myers 21:38

And your assessment is he's up to the job, he's up to the job.

Zev Yaroslavsky 21:41

I think he is up to the job, but we'll see. You know, uh there's a difference between being a legislator, which is what he was for 25 years, and a very effective one. He was in the leadership of the Democrats in the House. Um, but being a legislator and being the chief executive of a government are two different things. Things. Um, I had it personally when I went from the city council, which is a legislative kind of a job, and I became a county supervisor, which is a very much an executive job. And it took me about eight months to figure out uh that I'm now an executive. Uh it happened quite

David Myers 22:16

Because it it it seems and presents uh to the outside observer, to the Martian, as a legislative job. You're one of a member of a uh of a legislative body, but in fact you're the lord of a fiefdom, as you know, but communicated on many occasions.

Zev Yaroslavsky 22:31

But it's all about uh you when you compare that with Karen Bass, who's a legislator for a good part of her adult life, uh, and part of the reason she's in the in the race she's in is because uh she has not totally embraced the I think she's done better in the last in the last year, year and a half, but she hasn't been, she didn't step into the executive role as uh quickly as as uh it would have uh better served her. Uh and that happens a lot to different people. Some people embrace the executive uh responsibilities, and some never quite get it. And uh and but and we'll see whether Beccera's will likely be elected, and uh and and he'll have to be be uh you know judged by his performance.

David Myers 23:20

Yeah. Okay, well let's turn our attention to the uh what you were just talking about, which was the uh the the race for LA mayor, in which incumbent Karen Bass will face off against City Councillor Nithya Raman. Um what are the issues here?

Zev Yaroslavsky 23:36

So I think that's a that's a question that has yet to be answered of what the issues are. There are two possibilities. Uh it could be uh Karen Bass defending her record and Nithya Rahman going after her record. Of course, Nithya has been there for six years herself, uh, overlapping some of the responsibilities of the mayor, too, on homelessness. She criticizes Karen on homelessness. She's got a record to defend herself. She chaired the committee that oversees the homelessness issue. So it could be it could be uh, you know, on issues, and and what uh Nithia has tried to make this so far with some success, clearly, uh, is the city is not working. I I want a city that works. Uh and I can tell you uh from personal experience, uh in my daughter-in-law is a city councilwoman, uh, so I I live through osmosis, but what goes on uh in in city government, uh you know, when when uh when somebody steals the copper wiring in the street light on your block, and you call the city and you ask them to fix it, they'll say, Okay, we'll put you on the list, but just so you know, we're not gonna get to the to your light for nine months. And you it's like it's like a shock. Uh people who live in smaller cities, and I mean big cities but smaller than LA, Pasadena. Uh in Pasadena, when something goes wrong with your lights or when you have a pothole in your street, within 48 hours it gets fixed. In Los Angeles, it's nine months.

David Myers 25:09

Uh but that's not Karen Bass's problem. I mean, that's years and years and years and years of deferred maintenance.

Zev Yaroslavsky 25:15

That's true. It didn't start with Karen Bass, uh, and and it didn't start with the current city council. It's been going on for a long time. It was that way when I was a councilman, and that's that's almost a half a century ago. Uh, but it wasn't this bad. Uh you didn't have to wait nine months to fix a street light. Uh, and uh and and so one of the things that the so it could be an election that's based on the city isn't working, I can make it work. She's had her four years and she can't make it work. That's one narrative. The other narrative is a generational ideological narrative. Uh and uh and that is, you know, and that very well may be the way it turns out, or maybe a combination of the two. Uh, you know, I'm young and more vigorous, and uh, and I've you know, and and she's starting to talk a little bit about the special interests who control City Hall, which I uh I think is an interesting tack. Uh something that I have been infuriating.

David Myers 26:11

You're talking about Raman is talking about Raman.

Zev Yaroslavsky 26:13

Raman, Raman is and she's she's cast some

David Myers 26:16

And what are those special interests?

Zev Yaroslavsky 26:18

Well, uh there are there are several. I mean, there's the downtown business community, there's the organized labor, there's uh uh Airbnb, uh which put a million dollars into an independent expenditure campaign, at least that much, uh, for the mayor. Uh and um

David Myers 26:34

and feel that they're paralyzing.

Zev Yaroslavsky 26:38

I know they are.

David Myers 26:39

They are.

Zev Yaroslavsky 26:39

I know they are. I mean, I I will just give you an example, which was the the vote to uh to uh spend two and a half billion dollars to expand the uh downtown convention center. And uh I I I take it kind of personally because when I was a councilman, when people asked me what's your greatest, what was the one vote you wish you had not cast? It was the vote to expand the convention center back in the late 80s, early 90s. And I was on the council at the time because I drank the Kool-Aid. They said, Oh, if you if you expand it, we'll get more more convention business, and if we get more convention business, we'll get more people in hotel rooms, they'll pay the hotel tax, and it'll help our treasury, et cetera. And it made perfectly good sense, except for one problem. It wasn't true. Uh, it did not increase the uh uh significantly increase the number of of conventions we had. Uh we we deferred uh the the hotel bed tax on hotels. We were if you wanted to build a new hotel and we needed some, we would exempt you for 20 years from having to pay the bed tax. So we ended up having to spend $55 million a year every year out of the general fund to service the debt for that expansion. That was back in the in the 90s. Uh that project was 500 million. Now they they wanted to expand it even uh further, two and a half billion, somewhere between two and a half and three billion dollars. The annual debt service on that will be somewhere between 150 and 200 million dollars out of the general fund. That's money that could be used to fix street lights, uh, to pave the streets, to trim the trees, and uh and provide uh fire trucks for the fire department, etc. Uh and and uh and why did why did the council vote for that measure? I mean, there were two members of the council who didn't vote for that. One was Katie Aroslavski and the other one was Nithya Rahman. Uh Katie is the chairwoman of the budget committee, so she understood what the as everybody else did, what the implications of of committing to this kind of an expenditure. Uh, but the powerful interests, both uh labor and business, coalesced to um uh to to twist people's arms to vote for this thing, even though many of them knew that it was the wrong vote, they voted for it anyway. And that that's that's a problem. Anyway, Nithya is is channeling that problem, uh, which uh I think is a very powerful uh powerful issue that she can uh use uh in uh in the campaign beyond any ideological issue. But she's also a very progressive person, she is a uh density uberalis kind of a person. Uh she she's a YIMBY uh uh uh uh channels the yin the YIMBY uh philosophy that uh single-family homes uh uh are a thing of the past and should be eliminated. Uh I'm I'm maybe exaggerating a little bit for illustrative purposes, but basically that's it. She supported uh the legislation that uh uh you know that that basically put most of the single-family neighborhoods in the flatlands of Los Angeles uh uh in jeopardy. Uh and uh and I and I think there was a nuanced way to approach that, uh, which the state legislature was not interested in doing. And and uh uh so I think she's gonna have to answer for that to some degree. Uh now here's the thing about the election. Uh the general election will be uh there will the number of people voting in the general election will be significantly higher than the number who voted in the primary. That's always the case. Uh and the difference between the who the people who voted in November who didn't vote in in uh June tend to be more uh more democratic, uh younger, uh probably more progressive. And I think that in urs to uh Nithya's uh uh advantage going in. Uh where does Karen get her votes? She's at 34% of the vote now. That's probably where she will end up. Uh she's got to get another 16% of the vote. Does anybody who voted for Spencer Pratt vote for Karen Bass? I think at first blush, uh a lot of them uh will not vote for her, or if they do, they're gonna break their nose, holding their nose, uh voting for her, because they don't like her. Uh that and and then people who uh yeah, I assume that the people who voted for her uh will continue to vote for her. But when you look at the growing pot of voters, uh it may be uh that uh I I would say Nithya, if she performs well as a candidate, uh I think she has a slight edge. I wouldn't I I wouldn't bet a nickel on it. Uh, but I think it's uh, you know, I and she's and it's a generational thing. Yeah uh she's younger. Uh Karen is is of my generation, uh maybe a little younger than my generation. I I think there are a lot of there are a lot of uh uh elements in this.

David Myers 31:33

She's part of the Nithya Rahman phenomenon, also the kind of um current of democratic socialist um fervor that has uh has manifested itself, uh most prominently in the city of New York, which elected um Zorhan Mamdani as as mayor, but also in Seattle, where Katie Wilson was elected uh as a democratic socialist. To what extent do you think that's a factor?

Zev Yaroslavsky 31:56

Well, she's uh you know, when she got elected, when Nithya Raman got got Raman got elected to the city council in uh six years ago, uh 2020, she defeated an incumbent, David Rue, who is a first-term incumbent, who was a very fine councilman, uh nothing wrong with him. Uh, but it was the first time that that this that the city elections, city of LA elections were held in even numbered years. Prior to that, it were always they were always in odd numbered years. That's probably the most significant change that political change that has taken place in Los Angeles in 150 years. Uh, because in in the odd numbered years, the the vote, the voter turnout was a fraction of what it was uh just last week. Uh and uh uh so uh I I think that uh Nithya uh associated herself, I think she was a member of of the DSA Democratic Socialists of America at that time in 2020. Uh she had their support, they walked precincts for her. They have they're very they're very well organized. Uh but since she became a councilwoman, she has kind of distanced herself from DSA.

David Myers 33:06

Uh and her DSA colleagues endorsed Karen Bass on the council.

Zev Yaroslavsky 33:11

Uh all of the DSA can the four members of the DSA out the three other say of the people who are affiliated with them uh vo endorsed uh Karen Bass. I don't think that was for any logical reasons, I think it was more political reasons, but they did. Uh and uh and not a single member of the city council endorsed Nithya, uh, and I don't expect that any any of them will. Uh and so I I think she's she understands that being completely identified with DSA, uh lockstock and barrel is not necessarily politically uh sustainable. And uh, but she's no question she's a progressive. And she got the progressive vote. Uh there was a DSA candidate in the mayor's race, Ray Wang, uh, who uh ended up with two point uh maybe three percent of the vote. Uh she was polling it much higher than that. She was polling at 7 to 9 percent. If she had gotten 7 to 9 percent uh of the vote, uh Nithia probably would not have made it into the runoff.

David Myers 34:12

And what what do you make of the Spencer Pratt phenomenon? The rise and fall thereof.

Zev Yaroslavsky 34:19

15% of the registered voters in LA City are Republicans. Uh and then there's the declined estates who make up, I don't know, another 20, 25 percent. And a portion of the declined estates are conservatives. And uh so there are conservative voters in LA, believe it or not. And uh and they did not uh they did not like Karen. Uh a lot of them lived in the fire area, uh in the Palisades, uh not a whole lot uh in terms of numbers, but but it it was you know, the fire became aside from the fire itself and and all that surrounded it, uh it also became a metaphor for everything else that's that people think has gone wrong in the city. Now, you know, I'll say this, uh I don't mean to be uh you know exclusively critical of Karen Bass. Uh there's no question she did not handle the fire well in the first week or two. Uh, she'll be the first to admit that. Um, but uh the mayor gets no credit for the things that go well, but will get all the blame for anything that goes wrong. Uh I remember we, and this applies to most politicians. When I first got sworn in as a city councilman in 1975, uh the council president said uh at my swearing-in ceremony, today you get sworn in, the rest of your career you get sworn at. And there's a lot of truth to that. And uh, and so I think that the the mayor has gotten more blame than she deserves. And not no credit for uh what she what she's done on the homeless front, for example. Uh and she in fact she gets criticized on the homeless issue, uh, because you know, there's been a waste of money, there's fraud, there's this. Uh you know, I I I I say tongue in cheek, but I don't think it's that that much of a tongue-in-cheek. If she if she if if she finds a cure for cancer in the next three months, uh the cr the criticism will be what took you so long? Uh you know, nonetheless, Jesse Jackson had.

David Myers 36:21

You're giving a slight edge to Nithya Raman.

Zev Yaroslavsky 36:23

Yeah, I I am because uh because the the demographics of the electorate are gonna be uh to her favor, at least on today's facts. Uh and uh and Karen has uh has a record to defend. And the question is gonna be can Karen define who's gonna define whom first? And uh and and Karen came out of the starting gate uh right after the election saying, you know, uh she wants to defund the police, she wants uh Nithya wants to defund the police, she wants to uh allow people to uh homeless people to to to uh camp out in front of schools and churches and synagogues and mosques. Uh that's not exactly what what she believes now. I mean, she did take a pretty left-wing position back in uh 2020. I think the reality of being a councilwoman and happen and representing people and understanding what the downsides of having encampments in front of a school uh with people uh using you know needles and you know narcotics and stuff, that maybe maybe there are some places where we don't want to have that. Uh and she's she's moderated her views on that somewhat. Uh she's gonna have to do that in order to win because the single biggest issue other than the cost of housing in Los Angeles uh is the homeless issue. And uh that's our survey has shown that, every survey has shown that. Uh I mean when you when you ask people uh on on homelessness, 85% of the people will say that's my number one concern. Uh it's unanimous on this. And even people and Karen Bass has done a job on that. She's done, she's done, she's made some progress on it. And she's the only mayor in my lifetime who has actually uh put the issue of homelessness on her shoulders and taken responsibility for it. Garcetti didn't do it, Villaraigosa didn't do it, Jimmy Hahn didn't do it, uh Dick Reardon didn't do it, Tom Bradley didn't do it. We know that from a paper we did at the at the Luskin Center uh for history and policy on the history of homelessness. Why, why is that? Why was why did nobody else, no other mayor, do that? Because it's impossible to solve the problem in the lifetime of a politician, in the term that a politician has. Uh and and and so the politician ends up making, I think, the wrong mistake, uh, the the wrong choice, uh the mistaken choice of saying, since I can't solve it, if I don't, if I take it on and I don't solve it, I'll be viewed as a failure. So I'm not going to touch it at all. And uh, you know, I learned that the hard way, uh, trying to work with some of the people who when I was on the county board of supervisors, I had a lot of city council members that I represented, a lot of city council districts. Most of the city was in my supervisorial district, and I had a hard time getting them to partner with me on these things. And so we just ignored them and just did it ourselves, and which they didn't stand in the way of, but they didn't want to get in the middle of it. So Bass has has uh taken it, you know, taken the first thing she did as a council as a mayor was to declare the state of emergency on homelessness so that she could have some power to do some things about it. Now, did the did it all go perfectly well? No, of course it didn't go perfectly well. Unlike the rest of us, uh she's not perfect. Of course, we're all in we're all imperfect. And don't don't blame somebody uh for taking on a very tough issue and not solving the problem in four years uh when she's made progress. I can tell you that in my neighborhood, uh and even in neighborhoods that have been even more adversely impacted by homelessness in the central part of the city, in the lower income parts of the city, there have been improvements on that front. And that didn't happen by accident. Uh close to 20% of the homeless encampments uh are gone uh in her four years. The big mistake that everybody uh forgets is both she and Caruso four years ago said we will house 30,000 homeless people in the first year of my of our term. Uh and and that was such a preposterous promise. Uh not only you're not gonna house 30,000 people, you're not gonna in one year, you're not gonna house them in your first term, and you probably won't house them in your in your two terms. But you know, the old the old line uh from from uh from from the Mishnah or uh you know wherever it's from uh you you're not obligated to uh to finish the job, but you're not free to desist from from uh from doing from doing some of it, from from starting it. And uh and I think she's uh she deserves a lot of credit for that. And uh and and I give her a lot of credit for that because I know how hard it is uh to take on this issue uh because it's it's fraught with risks.

David Myers 41:08

Well, I just want to um note that the Luskin Center report that you made reference to is called The Making of a Crisis: A History of Homelessness in Los Angeles County, and it is available on the Leskin Center website. And if people are interested, they should take a look at it. Um this is obviously an extremely important issue, and uh um in the if we had another hour, we would devote it to this question. But I want to turn it on.

Zev Yaroslavsky 41:30

By the way, that's that is that is a great paper, and I really uh to anybody in listening, I would encourage them to read that paper. Uh read the paper on the history of rent control, which is that it addresses the the housing issue, uh the good, the bad, and the ugly. Uh and of course, the first one we did was was on the Olympic Games, which is

David Myers 41:49

That's what I want to turn our attention to now, uh, because the next mayor of Los Angeles will be the host of uh the Summer Olympics in 2028. Um Do you think we're ready for the Olympics?

Zev Yaroslavsky 42:01

I don't know. Um I I know that we are physically ready for it in terms of the the venues and things of that sort. The beauty of LA is that uh let's just compare 1984 to the present. Uh in 1984, we did not have a single rail system in LA. We now have light rail, we have a subway. By the time the Olympics opens, before the Olympics opens, it's going to go all the way to UCLA and the VA in West LA. Uh we didn't have any of that in in 1984. We didn't have uh new dormitories at UCLA and USC. All of all of the Olympic villages, the the press village at SC and the Athletes Village in UCLA are all new units built since 1984. We have stadiums that we didn't have in 1984, SoFi, uh the uh Staple Center, uh Galen Center at USC, the remodeled poly pavilion at UCLA, two soccer stadiums, one at next door to the Coliseum and one down in Carson. And I may be missing uh one or two. Uh that's incredible. We we have incredible riches in terms of uh venues in in LA. The only cost they're gonna have to incur of any consequence is they have to rebuild, they have to raise the floor of the Coliseum to put the track in so they can put a 400-meter track in. And that'll cost some money. And they're gonna build a swimming pool at SoFi Stadium, which is gonna be a great thing because you'll have you'll be able to have 40 or 50,000 people instead of 20,000 people we had in 1984. And and swimming is a much more popular sport today than it was 42 years ago, 44 years ago. So uh I'm you from that point of view, everything is is teed up. Uh what what the city doesn't uh what what what the city doesn't know is what is the financial condition of the games. Uh the unlike 84, in 1984, when there was a charter amendment, which I helped write, uh that prevented, prohibited the From using taxpayer money for the games to underwrite the games. So it private, as a result, the 84 games were privatized. It made a profit. Peter Uberoth ran it like a business. The rest is history. But that only applied to the 84 games, uh, that charter amendment. Uh we never, none of us ever thought we'd live long enough to see uh yet another Olympics come to in our lifetime. So there is no such prohibition in the charter for the night for the 2028 games. And uh as the city had to sign a contract with the International Olympic Committee that assumed all responsibility for the staging of the games, including the finances, so that if the games go belly up, it's the taxpayers who are gonna have to make up the difference. And so now the city is the guarantors, like the banker, right? And there if you're a banker and and I come to you and I say I want to build an apartment building, you're gonna ask me, uh, you know, what's your show me your pro forma, what's it gonna cost you to build it? What how much are you gonna pay for construction, how much in contingencies, how much for uh you know, for for materials, and uh, and then how are you gonna pay me back? Uh that's what you're gonna say to me. Uh, and I'll have to tell you, well, I'm gonna charge so much for rent and for the one bedrooms and so much for the two bedrooms, and either they're gonna believe you and say that that that's a financially uh uh sustainable uh plan, or not. Uh the city of LA is the banker here, and uh they need to know, and the Olympic Committee needs to share with them, be open about it, maybe not publicly open, but the mayor and the city council need to know uh what where are you on your on your revenues? Where are you on your expenditures? The games they say uh the last time I heard that the cost of to stage the games in 2028 will be over seven billion dollars. In 1984, it was uh the games cost 500 million, so it's gone up 12 or 13 times. So are the revenues gonna go up 12 or 13 times? Uh you so they need to know that. Uh that's what worries me. Uh look, the games should make a profit uh for the reasons I indicated before. The venues are there, the the the the upfront costs are are minimal compared to what other cities have to uh incur. Uh it should make a profit, but why the city and the LA 28 committee are still arguing about uh how much money they're gonna reimburse the city for police protection, for example. Uh police are gonna have to work overtime. Uh this is the the single biggest target for terrorism on the planet is the Olympic Games. It's the single biggest uh uh athletic event. Uh maybe uh world World Cup may be in the in the running for that category for that uh moniker. But nonetheless, uh the the city can't the the the promise that the city made to its taxpayers, we will not pay for more than what we normally would pay for the same period during that time. So any anything beyond what we would normally pay for police, uh because the Olympics are here, you guys have to reimburse us. And there's an argument now, there's a debate going on between the LA 28 committee and the city. They're gonna have to resolve that. If they don't resolve it, at the end of the day, the city has no leverage other than the bully pulpit. So I hope they do. This should be a great event for the city. I'm a big fan of the Olympics. I uh, you know, I uh with all of my skepticism in in about the 84 games and even about these games, I like to remind people I ran track at Fairfax High School. Uh I lettered in my final year, uh, thank God. And uh uh and and I was the only member of the city council who was a subscriber to track and field news. And so so I love this this sport. And to have the best athletes in the world right here in my backyard is is uh is is is worth worth worth worth waiting for, we're worth being excited about. But as Peter Uberoth himself wrote in his memoir about the games, he said he voted for the charter amendment. He lived in the valley, he voted for the charter amendment prohibiting the city from using taxpayer money for the games, and he added that uh no no sporting event, either even a sporting event as important as the Olympic Games, should be fined subsidized by the taxpayers. And that should be uh you know the way the way they look at it. And I worry about that. But in terms of the staging of the games, I think a lot of the concerns about traffic, there won't be a traffic issue. Uh I think they will have a bus system like they had before, and now we have a more modern transit system, uh, and you'll be able to get around. Uh you know, people didn't didn't go to work during the uh 84 games. Uh, people for first of all, a lot of people left town because they thought it was going to be a disaster. It wasn't a disaster. A lot of people, myself included, didn't go to the office during those two weeks. We watched it on TV. It was it was a two-week festival in LA that was that was second to none. And and I think anybody who lived through that period will tell you it was really one of the great 17-day periods in the his in their history as LA residents. So I'm I'm excited about that. Uh, I'm I'm can I'm disappointed uh that uh there's not going to be a uh a uh an arts festival, an Olympic arts festival uh like we had back in 84, which was a huge success. Um it's what got us the LA Opera uh company. Uh Placido Domingo was here in 84, saw what was going on, the arts festival, and he and he realized he was he was informed that there was no opera here, uh opera company in LA. So he was the one who put the uh he was the engine that got the LA Opera Company started, and this year the opera is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Uh, t hat

David Myers 49:55

The history of the LA opera is the subject for another topic, but I want to just um wrap up by um where we where you know where in a certain sense you and I started in our in our short work uh at the Olympics, because really that first paper that you mentioned that you worked on with Alyssa Katz and Caitlin Parker um on the 1984 Olympics, uh what went right there um uh and what went wrong, um that paper really laid the foundation for what became the Luskin Center for History and Policy. And over the course of the last nine years, when I've served as the director, you and I have had the opportunity to work together on reports and on strategizing about the center. And I just want to say it's been such a great pleasure to have that opportunity to work with you both as a fellow researcher and a strategizer.

Zev Yaroslavsky 50:43

Um, I appreciate that, but uh let me reverse the uh the compliment because uh I remember when this got started and Meyer Luskins kind of uh spawned the idea of of connecting history to policy, which is something that when I came to you back to UCLA uh in 2015, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted not just to study history, but to apply the lessons of history to today's policy decisions. And and if I had known a fraction of what I know now when I started my public service career, I would have been uh a much better public servant. And uh, and you have been uh you have been this the center. Uh you have been the engine that kept this that started it, that kept it going. And uh, and I'm very, I think we all who have been affiliated in one way or another with the with the center are uh uh are holding our breath because uh because you're stepping aside. Uh but you have made uh you have made a difference. And I can tell you, David, what you you probably don't know uh to the extent that I do is is how much some of these papers, at least on the local level issue papers, uh have influenced people's uh thinking. Starting with the Olympics, uh they didn't didn't necessarily learn uh learn the lessons of the of what we laid out there, but it certainly got their got it on their radar screen and on the history of homelessness. I can tell you there have been time and again, I've talked to supervisors, council members, the mayor, uh who have uh understood the context in which this problem has had arisen, and it helps inform how they're gonna solve the problem. And that's what the vision was when you started this thing, and uh and it's been it's been a privilege to be a part of it. Uh beyond the teaching and the survey that I do, I think this is this this really gave me the greatest satisfaction on doing that research.

David Myers 52:40

We're both going to be great and remain involved in the work of the center under the leadership next year, Professor Tawny Paul and uh Zev, thanks for being with us on this podcast and for the friendship over the years.

Zev Yaroslavsky 52:52

And it will continue. Thanks, David.

Narrator 53:03

Thank you for listening to the History Politics Podcast, Putting the Past to Work, from UCLA's Luskin Center for History and Policy. You can learn more about our work or share your thoughts with us at our website, LuskinCenter.history.ucla.edu. Our show is produced by David Myers and Rosalind Campbell with original music by Daniel Reichman. Special thanks to the UCLA History Department for its support, and thanks to you for listening.