Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman slammed each other Wednesday over their handling of homelessness, public safety and many other issues during the first face-to-face debate of the Nov. 3 election campaign.
During a series of sharp-edged exchanges before the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., Bass said Raman struggled to work collaboratively with her colleagues, treating city business as a series of academic exercises. She also accused Raman of missing thousands of votes.
Raman, in turn, chided Bass over her track record on homelessness, saying she achieved big reductions in her Hollywood Hills district even as the numbers worsened citywide.
“Guess what that takes? Work,” she said. “That takes action. That takes leadership. That takes management. That takes data. That takes oversight. That’s what’s missing in City Hall right now.”
Bass said her Inside Safe program, which has moved more than 6,200 homeless people indoors, is one of the reasons Raman saw success in her district. The mayor also criticized Raman’s leadership on the council’s homelessness committee, saying its meetings were repeatedly canceled — including on Wednesday, after Raman failed to show up.
“You have lots of plans and lots of ideas, but have done very little,” Bass said.
Bass and Raman were the top vote-getters in the June 2 primary, with the mayor winning 34% and the council member securing 29%. Reality television star Spencer Pratt failed to make the runoff, coming in third.
The most recent campaign finance reports showed Bass with a big financial lead, taking in more than $510,000. Raman raised just over $170,000 in the same reporting period.
Wednesday’s debate was acrimonious almost from the beginning, with the two interrupting each other throughout the night. At one point, Raman told her opponent: “You’ve got to let me answer, Mayor Bass.”
A few minutes later, Bass shot back: “Wait a minute now, it’s my turn.”
Raman hit Bass early on in the debate, saying the mayor negotiated an expensive package of police raises that the city couldn’t afford. That, in turn, forced city leaders to cut basic services, such as street resurfacing and streetlight repairs, she said.
Even after those raises went into effect, the LAPD has lost officers and has been struggling to fill its Police Academy classes, Raman said.
“Our city’s hiring and personnel programs, which she’s promised to change, have never been changed,” Raman said.
Bass said the LAPD pay raises were needed to keep more officers from leaving for other law enforcement agencies. She argued that Raman had “a lot of nerve” talking about the police hiring after voting against the hiring of 170 officers in January.
“I think that she’s irresponsible in what she talks about, because she talks out of both sides of her mouth,” Bass said.
The two candidates spent much of the night skewering each other over their respective track records.
Bass said Raman had been unresponsive to her constituents, forcing the mayor’s office to step in and work with them when Raman’s office wouldn’t. District residents reached out to the mayor’s office over homelessness in the Sepulveda Basin and problems facing local businesses, Bass said.
“[Your constituents] were very concerned when you decided to run for mayor,” Bass told Raman. “Because their concern was, if you treated them this way … then how on earth were you going to manage the city?”
Raman quickly shot back, saying she hears criticism of Bass from residents across the city who have had to contend with diminished services and deteriorating streets and sidewalks.
“Two-thirds of primary voters said no to this incumbent mayor because they see the evidence in front of their eyes,” Raman said.
Bass touted her support from a wide array of labor unions, business organizations and even the three other council members who were elected with major support from the Democratic Socialists of America.
Raman said council members picked Bass over her because they were asked to do so early on in the campaign. Raman entered the campaign in February, on the last day to file.
Bass and Raman were political allies at one point, with Raman even endorsing the mayor before launching a campaign to unseat her.
Bass, a veteran Democrat who served 12 years in Congress, has attempted to torpedo Raman’s image as a foe of the status quo, pointing out she’s been on the council for nearly six years. She also criticized Raman’s tenure as the chair of the council’s homelessness committee.
Raman, first elected to council in 2020, countered that she is just one out of 15 council members and lacks the power wielded by Bass. She contends that Bass failed to act with urgency on the city’s most pressing problems, including housing production and homelessness.
Last week, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson announced he is removing Raman from her post as homelessness chair, effective next month.
Raman responded by suggesting she was being punished for running against Bass, a Harris-Dawson ally, and for calling for a city controller audit of the mayor’s work on homelessness.
Harris-Dawson denied that the move was punishment and said Raman will remain on the five-member homelessness committee, just not as chair.
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