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. She also opposed the expansion and remodeling of the Los Angeles Convention Center, which will be the venue for five Olympic sports.
More recently, Raman joined three other City Council members in voting against a deal with LA28 outlining how the city will be reimbursed for policing, trash collection and other expanded services that will be needed as fans flood the city during the Games.
Raman, who didn’t respond to questions from The Times for this article, has said that she accepts the reality that the Games are coming to Los Angeles and that her aim now is to ensure the city is protected financially.
“I want the Olympics to succeed. But that cannot mean giving LA28 a blank check while Angelenos carry the risk,” Raman wrote on X after voting Aug. 12 against the deal with LA28, dubbed the Enhanced City Resources Master Agreement.
In contrast to Raman, Bass has been a strong supporter of the Summer Games, while suggesting more needs to be done to make sure average Angelenos benefit.
“LA28 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to showcase Los Angeles to the world,” Bass said in a statement to The Times, “and, most importantly, to make sure the families, workers, and small businesses who make this city great share in the benefits of this historic moment.”
Bass contends that Raman’s stance on the Olympics threatens to “squander a chance to deliver real, lasting benefits to our city and the people who call it home.”
Raman’s backers see her as someone much more likely to push hard to get the private nonprofit running the Olympics to make sure Angelenos benefit from the event.
“Nithya Raman is more willing to buck the establishment, to call stuff out publicly and to put pressure on the committee to meet their commitments to the city,” said David Levitus, executive director of the progressive organization L.A. Forward. “She will use the power of the bully pulpit to get what’s needed.”
City Controller Kenneth Mejia, a Raman supporter, said that if she is elected Raman will support his demandsfor greater financial transparency from LA28 and apply pressure “to get the Olympics to benefit Angelenos, such as pushing for more transit projects and infrastructure improvements.”
Raman’s detractors point out her failure to build coalitions at City Hall, where not a single one of her 14 council colleagues has endorsed her. Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said in an interview that Raman did nothing constructive, for example, to strengthen financial protections for the city in its most recent contract with LA28.
“Running the city is challenging enough and the Olympics make it more difficult,” Harris-Dawson said. “I think there’s a difference between actually being able to run a city as large and consequential as Los Angeles and just becoming an elevated activist. It’s not a time to learn on the job.”
Bass and Raman disagree on how best to make sure the Olympics benefit average Angelenos. Their diverging approaches became most obvious this summer, when Raman cast one of four “no” votes, against the 10-person City Council majority, to approve the reimbursement agreement with LA28 for trash collection, policing and other services.
On social media, Raman called the deal “fiscally irresponsible” and said the city should have obtained the right to “fully audit” spending by LA28, the Olympic organizing organization, in the lead-up to the games, not just afterward.
The council majority and Bass disagreed, saying the contract provided sufficient protections. In her statement to The Times, Bass said the agreement established a framework for repayment of city expenses, along with “$270 million dollars in additional protection to ensure those reimbursements will be made.”
Just who will benefit economically from the Olympics has been a hot topic at City Hall, with city lawmakers, led by Harris-Dawson, saying that more needs to be done to assure that contracts and jobs go to residents and businesspeople within the city, not just those of the broader region.
Harris-Dawson proposed that as much as 40% of contract spending by LA28 go to businesses based in L.A. But Olympic organizers have said they must be free to seek out companies in a wider region, to assure they get the best deals.
Late last month, Bass and Lakers great Magic Johnson appeared together at an annual procurement “summit” at the Los Angeles Convention Center, to encourage small-business people to apply for work connected to the Olympics.
“Angelenos absolutely need special consideration for Games contracts,” Bass told The Times, touting the downtown meeting, and adding, “We also need a commitment from LA28.” She did not specify what kind of commitment she is seeking.
The candidates also disagree on who should lead the Los Angeles Police Department, now and during the heightened deployment that will be required during the Olympics.
Bass selected Jim McDonnell to lead the department in 2024 and Raman voted to confirm him. But, more recently, the councilmember has called for the chief to be replaced. She said it appeared the LAPD had been protecting federal immigration officers during their sweeps in the city, striking “fear in the heart of immigrant communities here.”
Raman declined during last week’s debate with Bass to say whether she would replace McDonnell before the Olympics. She said the decision would also take the approval of the Police Commission and, potentially, the City Council.
Bass disagreed, saying Raman had the primary power to remove the chief. The incumbent also said that McDonnell’s ouster, less than two years before the Olympics, could send the department into “disarray.”
“You have said that you would get rid of him before the Olympics,” Bass said. “What worries me about that is, I don’t think you have any idea what it takes to identify a [new] police chief.”
The candidates also staked out sharply divergent positions when it came to an Olympics-adjacent question: the future of the Los Angeles Convention Center. Workers have started a $2.6-billion expansion and remodeling of the aging facility, which will host fencing, judo, table tennis, taekwondo and wrestling in 2028.
Bass championed the work, saying it would help power the “massive economic driver” of tourism. She recently said the expansion had created thousands of union jobs, which already paid nearly $10 million in total wages, “delivering an economic boost for Los Angeles.”
Raman depicts the Convention Center expansion as a boondoggle, with the added cost of borrowing funds harnessing the city with payments of $100 million a year for 30 years. She cast one of just two votes on the City Council against the project, saying on X: “That’s enough money to hire 625 firefighters” or “remove 185 [million] square feet of graffiti.”
On one Olympics-related question, Bass and Raman agreed, at least for a time. It happened earlier this year, when LA28 Chairman Casey Wasserman’s name surfaced in the files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The files showed that Wasserman engaged in an exchange of racy emails with Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, in which the then-married Wasserman said he wanted to see Maxwell in a tight leather outfit.
Wasserman has said he regretted his correspondence with Maxwell, noting that it happened “long before her horrific crimes came to light.” Nonetheless, Bass and Raman joined others in calling for Wasserman to step down.
The LA28 board’s executive committee ultimately declined to remove Wasserman, saying his conduct came before revelations about Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes. The committee also praised Wasserman’s “strong leadership” of the L.A. Games.
Raman, who has been leading Bass in public opinion polls, told a podcaster earlier this year that if elected, “my goal would be to make sure that the Olympics are being executed in a way that benefits Angelenos and doesn’t harm them, and that we have the best possible event that we can have.”
One LA28 executive said the organization would have to adjust to a Raman administration, given her apparent skepticism about the Olympics. Wasserman declined to comment on the two candidates. But, in the past, the Olympics chairman has suggested his organization will be impervious to political changes.
“Transitions of politics, whether they happen or not, is part of the world we live in,” Wasserman said. “And we have been able to and expect to fully continue to have great relationships with local, state and federal partners.”
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