It was a big and bold promise by Karen Bass as she campaigned to be LA’s next mayor: get 17,000 unhoused Angelenos into housing during her first year in office. The homelessness crisis plays out daily on city streets — confronting residents, business owners and visitors with the visible failure of public policy to keep people sheltered and safe. When LAist asked Angelenos what issues most urgently needed Mayor Bass’ attention, 63% of respondents said homelessness and a third listed it as their biggest personal stressor.
Category: Politics
Posted inPolitics
Transgender Latina making history at the 21st Annual Latino Spirit Awards
Earlier this month, the 21 Latino Spirit Awards were held at the State Capitol in Sacramento. To coincide with the state celebration of Cinco de Mayo, like every year since 2002, prominent, talented, Latinos, who are leaders of their fields from across California were honored by the California Latino Legislative Caucus. Among the honorees was Bamby Salcedo, the first transgender woman activist to be recognized with these awards.
Posted inPolitics
What 4,339 Southern Californians Say Needs Immediate Action From LA Mayor Karen Bass
We asked and you answered. Here are some key takeaways from responses we got to the question about what feels most urgent to Angelenos as the new mayor’s policies and priorities take shape. That’s why LAist launched a 12-question survey during L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ first three months in office to understand what you think her administration should tackle first.
Posted inOpinion
COMMENTARY: Tributes to Trailblazer Gloria Molina
Molina was the first Latina elected to the California State Assembly and served there from 1983-1987, and then became the first Latina elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1987, followed by being the first Latina elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 1991. She served on the powerful and influential county board for 23 years, retiring in 2014 due to term limits, capping 32 years in public service in the state’s largest city and the second-most populous in the country.
Posted inOpinion
COMMENTARY: Who will fill the void left by Nury Martínez on the LA City Council?
There are seven candidates and a write-in running for the 6th District, including four Latinos. Few voters usually participate in the midterm elections. And the more candidates who split the vote, the better. That means that in order to win, they need a fraction of what they normally should get.
Posted inPolitics
COMMENTARY: Marco Davis and cultivating Latino Leaders
Marco Davis, a former Obama administration official, grew up in the New York City area as the son of a Jamaican father and Mexican mother, and is a graduate of Yale University. He brings more than two decades of public policy and community service experience as CHCI’s sixth president and describes how he felt when he was first approached for the top CHCI job.
Posted inOpinion
COMMENTARY: We need more Latinas in political leadership
Latinas represented in politics
Posted inOpinion
COMMENTARY: Could California have two U.S. Latino/a/x senators?
Politicians are eyeing the senate seat of Dianne Feinstein. Could California see two Latinos in the U.S. Senate? One name floating around is former Los Angeles congressman and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. While he hasn’t commented about it – and wouldn’t as a sitting Cabinet secretary anyway – Becerra is on a hypothetical short list that includes former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, among others.
Posted inOpinion
COLUMN: Don’t ban the term Latinx or the culture
The new governor of Alabama, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has banned the word Latinx in state government business. Republican governors, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, are waging a cultural and political war against immigrants and people of color.
Posted inOpinion
COMMENTARY: Biden Administration must do more on immigration
Biden has not done enough on immigration. The Biden administration promised to get rid of the Trump-era Title 42, a presidential executive order that allows U.S. immigration officials to turn away migrants at the U.S. borders without a hearing. Immigrant advocates called the program a clear slam at immigrants, and while the current administration says it wants to see it end as it wends its way through the courts, the Biden White House has proposed to deal with an influx of immigrants by allowing a certain number of migrants each month – 30,000 – from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela on “parole” if they pass a background check and if they have financial sponsors here in the states. The White House has not said why migrants from those particular countries would be allowed in and others left out.
Posted inOpinion
COMMENTARY: Why I left the Republican Party
As a disciple of Reaganomics and a proponent for a strong nation, the choice was clear: I registered as a Republican. Through the years I never imagined the journey that decision would bear in my life. As a student of political science at a very liberal university, I was accosted by fellow students and even faculty. As a Youth Advisory Council representative to Mayor Tom Bradley, I was an anomaly as a Latino Republican. Many chucked in confusion. But I have left the Republican Party for becoming a rudderless entity that has been overtaken by nativists and coincidentally can’t even agree on who will be speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Posted inOpinion
COMMENTARY: Congress wraps with no action on farm workers or DACA
The massive $1.7 trillion – trillion with a T – bill of which the farmworkers and DREAMers legislation would have been a part of includes a funding boost for the U.S. Border Patrol, which is in line to hire several hundred new agents for what the agency says is an expected influx at the U.S.-Mexico border if Title 42 ends.