LA Forward Endorsements for the March 5, 2024 Election
LA Forward endorses progressive candidates for local office after a comprehensive and deliberative process that ensures you can trust our recommendation. Our goal is to help you navigate the complicated choices on your ballot and which candidates are worth supporting. For LA City Council we’ve endorsed Nithya Raman, Ysabel Jurado, Serena Oberstein, Eddie Anderson, and Jillian Burgos, plus Yes on Measure HLA. For LA County we’ve endorsed George Gascon for District Attorney and Ericka Wiley, George Turner, La Shae Henderson, and Kim Repecka for Judge.
LAist has a nonpartisan guide to the Democratic Central Committee here. Another comprehensive but partisan source for endorsements for LA County Democratic Central Committee and many cities throughout LA County can be found on DailyKos.
You can register and vote at ANY in-person vote center in LA County even on Election Day. Find a convenient location for you at https://locator.lavote.gov/.
LA City Council
LA County
Volunteer Opportunities with our endorsed candidates
LA Forward Action is also a member of the Los Angeles Steering Committee of the California Working Families Party. Below are WFP’s Endorsements for State Assembly and Senate.
Assembly: Brian Tabatabai, District 48; Javier Hernandez District 53; Isaac Bryan District 55; Sade Elhawary District 57; Tina McKinnor District 6; Senate: Sasha Renee-Perez, District 25
Nithya Raman for LA City Council District 4
From a once-in-a-generation expansion of renters’ rights to groundbreaking environmental legislation to landmark ethics reforms to a more effective homelessness response, Nithya’s progressive leadership has expanded the scope of what’s possible in Los Angeles. LA Forward is proud to wholeheartedly and enthusiastically endorse Nithya Raman for re-election.
Nithya Raman was born in India and moved to Louisiana as a child before her family settled in Massachusetts. When she moved to Los Angeles, she found an incredible, diverse city that was the first place that felt like home. Motivated by the growing homelessness crisis around her, she co-founded a volunteer group called SELAH to help people experiencing homelessness in her neighborhood. Through this work and learning about the flaws in the system, Nithya decided to run for LA City Council. She was elected in 2020 to serve as the Councilmember for District 4, where she has decreased unsheltered homelessness in the district for the first time in years by providing housing and services.
She’s endorsed by dozens of groups including Planned Parenthood Advocacy Project, the LA League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, Working Families Party, community organizing groups like ACCE Action, and dozens of grassroots Democratic clubs and unions of essential workers.
She needs your help because police unions and corporate landlords are gearing up to spend millions of dollars to defeat her in the March primary. We can’t afford to lose her effective leadership for real policy solutions on LA City Council.
Eddie Anderson for LA City Council District 10
Council District 10 is one of the most racially, ethnically, and diverse districts in Los Angeles and we’re proud to endorse Eddie Anderson to represent it on the City Council. Eddie has a stellar record as a coalition builder across communities and he’s been a trusted partner in many of LA Forward’s campaigns for housing justice, criminal justice reform, and governance reform. Our membership believes he would make a rock solid addition to the City Council’s growing progressive bloc.
Eddie’s work in the community is seriously impressive. His current roles include:
Organizer with LA Voice, a multi-faith, multi-racial cross-class community organizing network of churches, synagogues, and mosques
Senior Pastor at a McCarty Memorial Church which has a long legacy of serving the community in West Adams and civil rights activism.
Co-Founder of Partnership for Growth LA, a Black and Jewish Community Development Corporation focused on improving the quality of life and offering economic empowerment for residents, which has brought millions of dollars of investment to the area
In his work at LA Voice, he was proud to play a role in campaigns for Measure J, which passed in 2020 to allocate 10% of the County budget into community services and alternatives to incarceration; Measure A to increase oversight of Los Angeles County Sheriff Department; and Measure ULA to fund affordable housing projects and provide more resources to renters at risk of falling into homelessness.
Eddie brings a wealth of perspectives to his policy advocacy, including lived experience with homelessness and economic struggles. Eddie is building a growing coalition with endorsements from the Los Angeles Times, LA City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, California Working Families Party, Run For Something, LA Voice Action, Asian Democrats of Los Angeles County, Bamby Salcedo (Founder of Trans Latin@ Coalition) and dozens of community advocates and faith leaders across the district and city. His opponents have big money backing their campaigns, so Eddie needs all the volunteer support and donations we can muster. Pitch in today!
Serena Oberstein for LA City Council District 12
LA Forward is proud to endorse Serena Oberstein for Los Angeles City Council. San Fernando Valley neighborhoods deserve ethical leadership in government and a representative who will focus smartly and compassionately on solving our city’s great challenges like housing affordability, homelessness, community safety, and climate change. It’s time to clean up City Hall — we can’t afford four more years of John Lee on City Council.
Serena was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley. She is a public servant, mom, and nonprofit leader who served on the LA City Ethics Commission from 2014-2018.
Serena is the only challenger to incumbent Councilmember John Lee, who’s been accused of blatant corruption by the LA City Ethics Commission. Lee is a former Republican who is one of the most consistently conservative voices on council and someone who hasn't delivered real solutions for his district.
Serena is endorsed by elected officials like Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo, unions like the National Union of Healthcare Workers, California Women’s List, the LA County Democratic Party and grassroots Democratic clubs such as the North Valley Democratic Club, San Fernando Valley Young Democrats, and Stonewall Democratic Club.
Ysabel Jurado for LA City Council District 14
Ysabel Jurado is running a campaign of, by, and for the people of CD-14. LA Forward’s membership believes that her unique combination of policy expertise, lived experience, and commitment to building people power are exactly what is needed after years of corruption, racism, and failed business-as-usual politics at City Hall. Her platform of expanding affordable housing, ending homelessness, supporting small businesses, tackling the climate crisis, and building a more just economy for all is deeply aligned with our work and we're confident that she will deliver for the community when she's elected.
Ysabel is a tenants rights attorney, affordable housing activist, single mom, and daughter of undocumented Filipino immigrants. She was born and raised in Highland Park. As a housing rights attorney and during her work at Bet Tzedek Legal Services, Ysabel fought to stop tenant evictions and stood with community organizations and small businesses at risk of losing their leases. Her practice has focused on building pathways to home-ownership for communities of color, the preservation of open space, and reparative justice.
Her endorsements include California Women’s List, ACCE Action, environmental group Food & Water Action, Democrats for Neighborhood Action, and LA City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez. Ysabel is running against disgraced incumbent councilman Kevin de León and is also competing with two incumbent assemblymembers. In her words:
The people of CD 14 have been betrayed by our elected leaders. Between FBI raids, backroom gerrymandering, racist rants, and corruption charges, our needs have been chronically ignored. City government has failed us. We deserve better…. We don’t need another career politician calling the shots. We need someone from and for this community who knows what it’s like to struggle to pay for rent and has stood alongside families as they’re evicted from their homes. We need someone who will make sure our local government leaves no one behind.
Jillian Burgos for LA City Council District 2
LA Forward is proud to endorse Jillian Burgos for LA City Council District 2 in the eastern San Fernando Valley.
Jillian is a health care worker and a small business owner, who has dedicated herself to her community in serving on the North Hollywood Neighborhood Council. Jillian was elected to the NoHo Neighborhood Council in 2021, and took on the roles of Treasurer and Chair of Housing and Services Committee. She has focused her efforts on solutions to help people experiencing homelessness, advocating for renters, and bringing housing issues to the forefront.
Jillian is running to bring a renter’s voice to City Council in a district that has never been represented by a renter. She is deeply aligned on policy with LA Forward’s members and is passionate about programs that support marginalized communities, protect renters, invest in compassionate solutions for the unhoused, expand public transit access, and much more. She is committed to continued governance reform in the LA City Council that will empower Angelenos and restore public trust.
Jillian is running a people-powered campaign and won’t accept money from police, prisons, realtors, insurance companies, or fossil fuel companies.
She's endorsed by California Women’s List, FIA (Feminists in Action), LA City Controller Kenneth Mejia, and Culver City Mayor Yasmine-Imani McMorrin.
George Gascón for LA County District Attorney
LA Forward is proud to announce our support for District Attorney George Gascón’s reelection campaign. Throughout George’s tenure, he’s fought to reform our criminal justice system to build an L.A. County that is not only safer but also fairer and more just. We’re proud to join George in that fight and look forward to what we will accomplish together in George’s next term.
George came to the U.S. at age 13 on a “freedom flight” from Havana, Cuba. He moved to Southeast Los Angeles and settled in Cudahy. In 2006 he was tapped to be Chief of the Mesa Police Department, where he famously squared off against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and anti-immigrant groups. In 2009, then-Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed Gascón to be San Francisco’s Chief of Police. As a result of his experiences working in police departments, he came to realize how broken the system of policing and prosecution was and how it failed to effectively promote community safety. In 2011, Newsom tapped Gascón once again to be San Francisco District Attorney. Gascón has earned a national reputation as a visionary in criminal justice reform. George Gascón brought his skills back to Los Angeles and was elected the 43rd District Attorney of the County of LA in 2020.
He’s been endorsed by the Los Angeles Times, Planned Parenthood Advocacy Project, California Working Families Party, the LA County Democratic Party, and LA County Federation of Labor, plus dozens of unions, Democratic clubs, and elected officials like State Senator Caroline Menjivar and Assemblymember Tina McKinnor.
In words of the LA Times editorial endorsing him:
L.A. voters picked him because he correctly saw the self-defeating nature of a system that does not know when to stop punishing. Studying the data, Gascón realized that punishment must be properly “dosed,” like medicine. Too much for too long, the numbers show, and the imprisoned offender is broken instead of corrected, loses the ability to responsibly reenter society and becomes more likely to reoffend. That phenomenon has endangered all of us for far too long — and it has perpetuated multigenerational racial inequities by disproportionately locking up Black and Latino Angelenos and leaving too many families without two parents present.
Gascón’s policies seek the most fitting rather than the longest possible sentences. This smart approach was such a departure from older, failed strategies that the MAGA right promptly distorted it into the false narrative that Gascón refuses to prosecute misdemeanors at all, and generally avoids prosecuting felonies.
This fairy tale is so entrenched that several of his challengers repeated it on the campaign trail — and one of them, former Assistant U.S. Atty. Nathan Hochman, told it to the Times editorial board. When asked to show evidence, he couldn’t — because there is no such policy. This is particularly troubling because the ex-Republican has attracted support from GOP donors across the country.
Besides, jurisdiction over prosecution of misdemeanors in more than half the county — including the cities of L.A., Pasadena and Santa Monica — lies with city attorneys, not Gascón’s office.
As for felonies, the number of cases filed during his tenure is on par with that of earlier administrations. The argument that Gascón is lax or lenient on crime simply does not hold up to the facts. The various crime surges in the last few years — wrongly attributed to Gascón — occurred nationwide and have largely abated. Prosecutorial policies have no short-term effect on crime.
LAist has a nonpartisan guide to the Democratic Central Committee here. One source for endorsements for LA County Democratic Central Committee and many cities throughout LA County can be found here.
About Our Candidate Endorsement Process
LA Forward endorses progressive candidates for local office after a comprehensive and deliberative process that ensures you can trust our recommendation. Our goal is to help you navigate the complicated choices on your ballot and which candidates are worth supporting with your time and money.
Our local candidate endorsements are the result of a multi-step process. We contact candidates for races we determine we will consider for our endorsement and ask them to fill out our candidate questionnaire. Our 20-person endorsement taskforce — with representation from our different issue teams, regional groups, and partner organizations — reviews the written questionnaires from each candidate and conducts interviews with the candidates who submit a questionnaire.
Based on questionnaires and interviews, our endorsement task force makes recommendations to our dues-paying members, who vote on them. To protect our process and the voices of our members, we don’t allow anyone – including candidates – to buy memberships for their supporters to attempt to influence our endorsement votes.
Due to our limited capacity, LA Forward does not endorse candidates in every race in the county. Our current priorities are Countywide seats, LA Citywide offices, LA City Council, some LA Countywide seats such as Superior Court, and several of the city councils in the San Gabriel Valley.
We don’t conduct our own endorsement process for candidates for state legislatives. Instead, share information about state candidates endorsed by the CA Working Families Party, where LA Forward serves on the Los Angeles Steering Committee.
For candidates: If we plan to make an endorsement in your race, we will contact your campaign to ask you to complete our candidate questionnaire to be considered for our process.
Our team has limited bandwidth to respond to a high volume of inquiries about individual races – but if you have an urgent or essential question, you can reach us via the contact form on our website.
Find official election info on the County Clerk’s website.
All U.S. citizens over the age of 18 can vote, even if they're not registered yet.
You can register and vote at ANY in-person vote center in LA County. Find a convenient location for you at https://locator.lavote.gov/.
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