Supervisor Lindsey Horvath endorses Nithya Raman in LA mayor's race

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman has routinely opposed efforts by her colleagues to block homeless encampments in their districts, voting more than 60 times since 2021 against measures to ban them near schools, libraries, parks, freeway overpasses and other public areas. After announcing her bid for mayor, however, Raman took a sharp turn on the issue. “When I’m mayor, if the council wants to create new [no camping] zones, I’m not going to stand in the way,” she told an audience in May. Add the no-camping turnabout to a list of political issues on which Raman took one position only to later shift her stance — or in some cases, reverse it completely. During her first run for City Council in 2020, Raman called for the defunding of the police, telling her followers that “the path is not complicated.” Two years later, she voted for a nearly 3% increase in spending on the Los Angeles Police Department, allocating an additional $82 million.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath will endorse Nithya Raman’s bid for mayor on Tuesday, giving the City Council member a boost in the battle for votes on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley. The endorsement also gives Raman newfound clout in an area where her campaign has struggled: securing support from her fellow elected officials. Thirteen of her council colleagues have endorsed her opponent, Mayor Karen Bass, while a fourteenth — Councilmember Traci Park — said she is voting for the incumbent despite reservations. Horvath, whose district takes in 2 million people, said Raman will shake up the status quo, bringing a new approach to homelessness, housing affordability, emergency preparedness and other issues. “It’s been said that she doesn’t have many friends at City Hall, and I know what that feels like,” Horvath told The Times. “When you take on institutional inertia and decades of refusal to change, that kind of shake-up can feel disruptive to people.

Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso declined once again to endorse either incumbent Mayor Karen Bass or challenger Nithya Raman in the Nov. 3 runoff election, but expressed what he called “extreme concern” about Raman’s plans to remove Police Chief Jim McDonnell. The billionaire developer lost to Bass in the 2022 election, and was a staunch critic of the mayor for her response to the 2025 Palisades fire. Even so, he appeared with the mayor at his upscale Palisades Village shopping center Tuesday to promote a new program to streamline city utility services. While declining to endorse Bass, Caruso commended the mayor by saying “she’s done her work, and she’s worked with the team, and I compliment this.” “In comparison, Councilwoman Raman has made statements that we should all ask for an explanation to,” Caruso said, citing her plans to replace McDonnell. “I do show extreme concern when a candidate is talking about firing a chief of police.”Raman’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- With Election Day two weeks away, one of the nation's most closely watched mayoral contests is drawing renewed attention to rising utility costs, as Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman on Monday outlined a plan to address complaints about high LADWP bills. Raman spoke outside an LADWP facility in North Hollywood alongside customers who said their bills have surged in recent months. The issue has gained attention following claims by local resident Micah Reed regarding fees on LADWP bills that many customers said they were unaware of. Raman, who is challenging incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, said LADWP bills have increased 40% citywide during Bass' tenure. LADWP operates under the oversight of the mayor's office. If elected, Raman said she would pursue a three-point plan that includes auditing LADWP with City Controller Kenneth Mejia, including a review of executive pay; requiring LADWP officials to appear before the City Council to publicly explain rates; and repairing and modernizing the utility system. "The public deserves transparency about the cost that they are experiencing. They deserve a public justification of these enormous costs," Raman said.

The next mayor of Los Angeles will preside over what many are calling the largest athletic event in U. S. history — and that mayor could be someone who didn’t even want the 2028 Summer Olympic Games here in the first place. When she ran for City Council in 2020, Nithya Raman gave a clear “no” when asked if she supported the Olympics coming to Los Angeles. But if she beats incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in the Nov. 3 election, Raman will take center stage during the international sports extravaganza. Raman’s stated opposition to the Olympics came in response to a questionnaire to council candidates from the Democratic Socialists of America. Asked if she supported having the 2028 Summer Games here, Raman wrote: “No — especially not after the way it was approved. There was no vetting of this process, extremely rushed budgeting outreach, and the residents of our city had no say in any of it.”After she was elected, Raman was one of two councilmembers to vote against the primary contract outlining the partnership between the city and the Olympic organizing committee, LA28.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has launched a new line of attack against City Councilmember Nithya Raman, accusing her opponent of romanticizing the era of former police chief Daryl F. Gates. Bass, surrounded by about two dozen Black community leaders at her campaign headquarters Thursday, said Raman’s mention of Gates during their televised debate this week showed a lack of knowledge about the city’s history of police abuse and the suffering of Black and Latino residents during the former chief’s tenure, including the 1991 videotaped police beating of Rodney King. Raman brought up Gates briefly while criticizing the mayor over the Los Angeles Police Department’s handling of federal immigration enforcement during Tuesday night’s debate. She said the LAPD under Bass’ watch shared information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, undermining the trust of the city’s immigrant communities. “This city used to be the gold standard in terms of noncooperation with immigration enforcement years ago, under the era of Daryl Gates,” Raman said.