What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Los Angeles is at a turning point. We are living in a defining moment. What happens next is up to us. Over the past few years, problems and challenges have shaken this city -- and tremendous opportunities for change have presented themselves. How do we rise to this moment and emerge a better place to live? What will it take to create a more just and a more equitable community? Working together, how are we going to create a stronger, forward-thinking Los Angeles? Mike Bonin, writer, teacher, progressive activist and former City Councilmember, looks at the issues and problems facing Los Angeles, examines ideas, and talks with the people who will lead us to a brighter future.
Produced in partnership with LA Forward.
What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
MARISSA ROY: Candidate for L.A. City Attorney
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The office of Los Angeles City Attorney doesn’t always get the same attention as races for mayor or city council, but it plays a major role in how the city functions — overseeing legal advice to city departments, enforcement of city laws, and misdemeanor prosecutions, while also shaping how the city approaches issues like housing, labor standards, consumer protection, and civil rights.
Today’s guest is Marissa Roy.
Roy currently works as a Deputy Attorney General with the California Department of Justice, where her work has included consumer protection and tenant rights enforcement. Earlier in her career, she worked in the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, handling labor and worker protection matters.
Her campaign has focused heavily on using the office more aggressively to protect renters from illegal evictions, pursue wage theft and worker exploitation cases, crack down on consumer fraud, and take legal action against polluters and corporate misconduct. She has also argued that the City Attorney’s Office should play a larger role in challenging actions by the Trump administration that affect Los Angeles residents.
What's Next, Los Angeles? is produced and hosted by Mike Bonin, in partnership with LA Forward.
A deputy attorney general and former City Attorney's Office lawyer who says that Los Angeles needs a more aggressive approach to tenant protections, consumer enforcement, and government accountability, is running for Los Angeles City Attorney. Marissa Roy joins me to talk about her campaign and her vision for the office. That's on this episode of What's Next, Los Angeles. Hi everyone and welcome. It's Mike Vaughn and thank you for joining me. The office of Los Angeles City Attorney doesn't always get the same attention as races for mayor or city council, but it plays a major role in how the city functions. The city attorney oversees legal advice to city departments, enforcement of city laws, and misdemeanor prosecutions. The city attorney also shapes how the city approaches such issues like housing, labor standards, consumer protection, and civil rights. Today's guest is one of the candidates for city attorney, Marissa Roy. Roy, who used to be a frequent guest on this podcast before she ran for office, currently works as a deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice. Her work there has included consumer protection and tenant rights enforcement. Earlier in her career, she worked in the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office handling labor and worker protection matters. Roy's campaign has focused heavily on using the office more aggressively to protect renters from illegal evictions, pursue wage theft and worker exploitation cases, crack down on consumer fraud, and take legal action against polluters and corporate misconduct. She has also argued that the city attorney's office should play a much larger role in challenging actions by the Trump administration that affect Los Angeles and its residents. Here is that conversation. Thank you for having me, Mike. Glad to have you. You're you're you may be uh I would have to check. You might be my most frequent guest.
SPEAKER_00Godfrey has to beat me.
SPEAKER_04Uh oh well, Godfrey, everything blends together in my head between this podcast and the other one because Godfrey and I are so often doing um LA podcast. So uh yeah, you're probably right. You're probably right. Well, anyway, welcome back. Thank you. Uh last time you were here was just as you launched your candidacy for city attorney.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right at the beginning before it all got crazy.
SPEAKER_04Uh and when was that? Remind me.
SPEAKER_00You know, I launched my campaign on my birthday in 2024. So March 10th, 2024. I think the episode aired on March 11th.
SPEAKER_04Wow. Wow.
SPEAKER_00Right. So much has happened.
SPEAKER_04It's been over two years?
SPEAKER_00No, 2024. Wait, oh my gosh, sorry. You're right. 2025. Wow. I sorry, it feels like two years.
SPEAKER_04Sorry, March. I know campaigns feel longer than there.
SPEAKER_00Uh, I mean, you have no idea how long this uh next couple weeks is feeling. March 11th, 2025 is when uh this episode aired last month.
SPEAKER_04Okay, damn. So it's been over a year.
SPEAKER_00It's 14 months, not that anyone's counting.
SPEAKER_04Uh, in some ways, the the fastest, in some ways the longest 14 months of your life, I imagine. No idea. We'll we'll we'll get into all that. Uh, but first, let's start with uh the big news because just the other day uh you got a very, very big endorsement.
SPEAKER_00I know, Bernie Sanders. I was so starstruck when that came in. Um, we were just shocked. And and also, it is so cool that it is the whole LA progressive slate. You know, Fiza and I have been, I mean, we've been working together since we were tenants' rights attorneys. So, like it's been so fun to run with her and just have a friend in this. Um, Anises Hernandez, uh, Estuardo Maseriegos, who has become easily one of my favorite people throughout the campaign. And then, of course, Uco Sudomartinez.
SPEAKER_04Uh, yeah, that was that was uh that was that was big news.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um that was uh big news. He has not endorsed in a city attorney race before in Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_00Certainly not in Los Angeles, but I think it shows also how important this role is for the movement. I think that has become something that a lot of our progressive groups have understood because the focus is so often on city council. But if you're passing, you know, strong workers' rights legislation or strong renters' rights legislation, and then you don't have a city attorney enforcing that against the bad landlords and the bad employers, they're just protections on paper. And so the city attorney is a really integral part of this whole project.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, we need to hold the bad corporations accountable, not just kind of take stances and legislation. We need to make sure they really change people's reality.
SPEAKER_04Well, then let's back up then, because uh there are people who may not have heard you on previous episodes, people who are tuning in because they're filling out their ballot and they're like, okay, what the hell is city attorney's race? What does the Los Angeles city attorney do?
SPEAKER_00I love answering this question because I it is one of the most uh important and least understood positions on your ballot. So the city attorney, a lot of people might start and think the district attorney, you know, law and order, murder cases. That's that's the DA. That's completely different. The city attorney has a wide range of powers. So they are, of course, the attorney for the city. Anytime the city gets sued, they defend, they help draft ordinance language. When the city council passes a motion, they advise city departments. That's on the city side. They also represent the people. They represent the people uh in misdemeanors when you know there is a misdemeanor offense, which are the lesser charges. Um, but then they have this extraordinary power under state law to sue any business for anything unlawful, unfair, or deceptive. And when we say unlawful, that could mean anything. That could mean the companies that are stealing wages from workers, the landlords that are harassing tenants, the corporations that are polluting in our communities. We can really think of it so broadly. And there is such potential for this to be a public interest law office. We just aren't tapping that potential yet.
SPEAKER_04So three different functions, right? There's the the public interest law firm thing, which we'll get into. There's also the misdemeanor prosecution, and then there's sort of the the city's corporate counsel, I guess. Exactly. For for lack of a better way of talking about it. Let me talk, because it's what what pops into people's minds first is is the criminal stuff.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_04What is your approach to that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it's really important to understand that what the city attorney's office handles are misdemeanors. So these are the lesser and the more minor offenses. Um, the vast majority of them are nonviolent. Uh, the most recent study, which is a little bit old now, it was uh looking at misdemeanor filings in the city of Los Angeles from 2001 to 2017. Uh, but the top sorts of charges that arose were things involving a vehicle. Um, so if you don't pay a traffic ticket for a certain amount of time, or uh your registration runs over, it's kind of, you know, victimless vehicle offenses, um, simple drug possession, so not sale or anything like that, but just possession. Um, and public intoxication was another big one. And these are these are often offenses where there might be an underlying mental health or addiction issue. And the kind of one size fits all approach that we hear too often, um, the quote unquote law and order approach actually doesn't work to make people safer. It just cycles people in and out of our system and sets them up for failure. Um, so a lot of what I've focused on is how are we using the full range of options? Because there is an option called diversion, which is still accountability. It's a court supervised program where people are connected with the services they need, like mental health services or addiction services. And when we use diversion for nonviolent offenses, recidivism or the likelihood of reoffending goes down, which means someone gets back on their feet and the community is safer as a whole. So I want to make sure that we're using the full range of tools. We're developing tailored public safety solutions and we're being really smart about it. Um, the other thing is I want to bring back the connection between communities and the city attorney's office. The incumbent ended the neighborhood prosecutor program, which was where deputy city attorneys were embedded in neighborhoods, developed relationships, and built public safety solutions with communities. Um, she replaced it with like an outdoor court system, but it wasn't the same. That's just bringing lawyers in the outdoors. It wasn't having a neighborhood, you know, deputy city attorney who built relationships with the key stakeholders. Um, so I want to bring it back as a neighborhood advocates program where we don't just have deputy city attorneys. We have our community outreach specialists and you know investigators who can bring a full range of responses so that we can do preventative public safety work too. So we can work really closely with all of the stakeholders in a community so that the solutions we develop to address safety issues in the valley will look different from downtown LA, will look different from San Pedro. And so I think overall to characterize my public safety approach, it's one that's deeply community-based as well as one that acknowledges the full range of what misdemeanors are. So we're not just using one tool in the toolkit. We're trying to use all of them for real public safety.
SPEAKER_04And let's talk then about the sort of the corporate counsel for the city. This is the the city attorney is the person who uh defends the city of Los Angeles when it gets sued for a police abuse suit or a uh sidewalk trip and fall or any number of things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, so I think this is where the current city attorney has probably failed the most. So I'm sure people remember from last year, if they're listeners to the pod, um, we were in a billion-dollar budget deficit last year. What isn't talked about often enough is one third of that budget deficit was overspending on lawsuit payouts. And we have seen liability spending uh go up dramatically under this city attorney. You know, Mike Fuhr and past city attorneys were able to stay pretty close to the budget. But in her first year, uh, the incumbent overshot the budget by $100 million. In her second year, $200 million. And in her third year, nearly $250 million. Um, and it's because of two main reasons. She has increasingly outsourced the work of the city attorney's office to big pricey law firms that charge thousands of dollars an hour that are incentivized by hourly billing rates so they can drag out litigation and insert kind of unnecessary steps in motion practice. And she doesn't know how to correctly value a case. So she doesn't know when to settle or when to take something to trial. And it has led to unnecessary nuclear verdicts against the city. So one example is uh this was reported in the Times. Uh, a plaintiff's attorney tried to settle five cases for $10 million. All of the deputies recommended it. She refused, pushed it to trial, and it got $40 million.
SPEAKER_04Say those two numbers again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. We could have settled five cases for $10 million. That's what was offered. She forced it to a trial against the advice of her deputies, and it came back with a $40 million verdict. Wow. So when I think about how to be a responsible kind of municipal council, it's about making sure that we are not outsourcing, we're building the capacity of the workforce in the city attorney's office. Um, and that we're also trying to value cases accurately and early, bringing in best practices from other jurisdictions. And then the third piece is that we're actually working with departments on the front end to get them into compliance. If we're seeing repeat issues come up, you only want to be sued about something once. You need to take corrective action, you need to implement accountability, you need to make sure all the departments are complying with the law. So that's how you are being responsible on that side. And then again, saving the city money so it can spend our taxpayer dollars on infrastructure and services, the things that we actually rely on.
SPEAKER_04Okay. So you mentioned the public interest attorney. We talked about the the prosecutor part, we talked about the municipal council part. Uh how are you qualified for that? What makes you the right person to be managing an office of how many employees?
SPEAKER_00A thousand, it's 500 uh attorneys, 500 additional legal staff.
SPEAKER_04With those three huge responsibilities, why are you the right person for that job?
SPEAKER_00Well, I've spent my entire career as a government attorney working in the public interest. Um, and so I got my start actually at the LA City Attorney's Office, where I built out wage theft cases and was able to put tens of thousands of dollars back in workers' pockets. I went on to represent LA County in their uh litigation against the first Trump administration, was part of over a dozen legal actions. And then now I'm at the California Department of Justice, uh, where I'm in the consumer protection section. I have litigated against bad landlords that are abusing tenants. And in fact, just a couple of months ago, um we got a stipulated judgment that won back over $500,000 for tenants who had been subject to abuse. And I'm currently again litigating against Meta. 30 states are suing Meta for how Instagram and Facebook have developed the apps to induce addiction and trying to recover for the mental health harms they've caused kids and the deception.
SPEAKER_04Um done to adults too.
SPEAKER_00I know. Well, yeah, we're we're focusing uh definitely on the harms to youth, um, but also the ways that they've deceived the whole public about how uh harmful their apps actually are. Um, and so I have actually spent three times, I have three times the government experience of the incumbent. Um, I have the most uh government civil litigation experience. I have the most experience suing the Trump administration, I have the most experience suing abusive corporations. Um, so particularly when you're hiring an attorney, it's kind of like hiring a doctor. You, if you have a brain tumor, uh you don't go to an orthopedic surgeon, even if they have 30 years of experience. You go to the brain surgeon with nine years of experience who does a surgery every day. Right now, the incumbent is a corporate bankruptcy attorney who is bankrupting our city. Um, it's time to have an attorney who knows how to fight for the public, who knows how to fight take on the Trump administration. And that's my experience, the relevant experience for this role.
SPEAKER_04So you you talked about this office being a public interest attorney for the people of Los Angeles. Uh, let's go a little bit deeper into that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You you you take office uh December something, 2026. Uh, what are the first cases you're thinking of bringing on behalf of the people of Los Angeles?
SPEAKER_00This is the best thing, is that I actually have been using this campaign as a way to start to build some of those cases. That's actually what's been so exciting when we think of our conversation last year versus now. Um, you know, I've mentioned my experience in workers' rights, tenants' rights, uh, climate justice. Like those are gonna definitely be cornerstones and priorities. But now throughout the campaign, I've had the opportunity to talk with so many unions and workers' rights centers, um, so many tenants, and it has helped me really identify and crystallize some of the first cases. So I think what you can expect from me is that day one, you're definitely going to see lawsuits against the companies that have been enabling ICE. Um, so the, you know, companies like Palantir that are providing mass surveillance technology, private prison groups like uh Geogroup and Core Civic that have been running these private detention centers and keeping people in inhumane conditions. Um, you're going to see uh cases against, uh I've got a couple in line, I don't want to tip them off exactly, but um there have been a couple of landlords in particular who have been extraordinarily abusive, uh, rife with tenant harassment. Um, and then you're gonna see a couple of uh wage theft cases, uh sort of the classic, but also um cases against companies uh that have been using tech to abuse workers. And so that it's I won't, again, don't want to give too much of it away, but um our goal is that uh my my kind of dream is that you're going to kind of it's gonna be December, it's gonna be right around the holidays. So we might just do the 12 days of lawsuits.
SPEAKER_04And do you need uh the city council approval to bring these suits?
SPEAKER_00Or this is what's fun. It's in the name of the people. So it's in the independent discretion of the city attorney that's afforded by state law.
SPEAKER_04Um and does the council have to sign off on like costs associated with it?
SPEAKER_00Here's the other great thing. I it's one of the things where it's like it almost sounds like it's too good to be true, right? Um, when you file these lawsuits, um, what you win at the end of the day is you win an injunction, which is a court order against the business telling them to stop engaging in this behavior or engage in certain corrective behavior. Number two, you win restitution, which is the money that goes back to the people who were harmed. And then three, there are mandatory civil penalties which go to the government. It's up to two hundred, uh, up to 2,500 per offense. Um, so each instance of a harm would be the offense. So those rack up very quickly. And those civil penalties can only be used for future consumer protection litigation. They can't go into the general fund, they can't go to other functions of the city attorney's office. So the more you you do, the more you win for renters and workers, um, the more you can do. And so San Francisco, um, which about 15% of so I should also contextualize for people, out of a thousand attorneys, less than 5% do public rights at the city attorney's office. Now in San Francisco, it's around 15%. Um, and that section is revenue generating, which means it doesn't depend on the municipal budget. They actually operate at a surplus that could last them a couple of years if they didn't win a case. Um they manage it very smartly. And just a couple of years ago, um, the San Francisco City Attorney got a grant to start a new workers' rights division. It's already won back, you know, 15 or 20 million dollars.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00So really, when we start filing these cases and getting to work, it becomes self-sustaining. And so it's not something that the city council has to allocate money for. Um, we can let it fund itself.
SPEAKER_03Have you thought about what kind of immense pushback you're gonna get on this?
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04I mean, from from a couple of different right, I mean, you know, you go after Palantir, Palantir is gonna come after you, right? I mean, you know, Trump might start tweeting about you or social truth socialing about you at two or three in the morning or whatever. But you you're also gonna get like the civic establishment saying this is too activist a role, this is not what the city attorney does. How do you intend to deal with all that?
SPEAKER_00Well, here's the thing. Um, I can't go beyond the law. So if I'm filing a lawsuit, trust me, that complaint is gonna be filled with factual allegations and we're gonna have them dead to rights. Every single case I've ever filed, we've done a very thorough investigation. You can read those complaints, they're hundreds of pages long. They lay it all out. Um, and so it puts the other side in a very difficult position where their misconduct is laid out and their violations are laid out. So I think it's hard to push back against, but of course they will. No, no corporation likes accountability. But that's also what I've spent my whole career doing has been suing the Trump administration and suing these abusive corporations. And so there really is no, I mean, I'm litigating against Meta right now. There's no company that's too big for me to sue or that I'm afraid of. Um, and sure, they'll come after me, but I've also been very transparent about what my plans are through the whole campaign. Um, I've talked about Palantir and Core Civic and Geogroup, I've talked about suing the Trump administration. Um, so it's it's laid out and it's transparent. Um, so this is exactly what's coming if I'm city attorney, is that, you know, unfortunately the law is often used to be a shield for the powerful, but it doesn't have to be. And so I'm going to be using it for corporate accountability.
SPEAKER_04As you go out and you campaign in the city, uh what what are you hearing from people about what they want the city attorney to do? Like are people talking about Palantir?
SPEAKER_00You know, people it's funny. I think people generally haven't heard of the city attorney's office. And so we start from a place of asking them kind of what what the the top issues are for them, just in what are the top things also that they're worried about or have been experiencing? What are some of the top injustices? Um, because anything anyone cares about, the city attorney probably does have an impact. So what we hear, what we heard most on the doors, um, first is you know, concern about the Trump administration. And the the city attorney's office is uh the probably the most uh powerful uh advocate we could have against the Trump administration. Um suing the Trump administration is one of the most successful strategies. So the California Department of Justice, for example, they have sued the Trump administration over 66 times. They've won in 80% of those cases. It's protected $168 billion of funding for education and research and public safety. Um so it is a winning strategy. We we hear often, and I know this, and We hear often about the Supreme Court and it causes people to lose faith. But Supreme Court can only take 80 cases a year. We can file a hell of a lot more.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and so it's a it's a winning strategy. Um, it's a powerful strategy. Um, and it's one that our city attorney isn't using. When Trump had the executive order banning birthright citizenship, the city of San Francisco and the California Department of Justice sued. LA didn't join. When the National Guard was sent into our streets, the city attorney didn't file the lawsuit. The California Department of Justice did. It took a city council motion in July to force this city attorney to join the ACLU and public counsel's lawsuit against ICE for racial profiling, the Perdomo case. Until then, she hadn't even joined a single case and she hasn't still hasn't led a single case. And so my platform is we are going to we're gonna bring LA to the game. The LA City Attorney's Office is gonna start suing the Trump administration, is gonna prosecute rogue ICE agents, as I mentioned, is going to sue the companies that have been enabling ICE with mass surveillance technology and the private prison companies. And so that is a big issue I talk to voters about when I'm at the doors. Um, and I think it gives them, frankly, a sense of hope and protection that they have an attorney who can fight for them in court. And so that's that's one big issue. I would say the other big issue that I hear about a lot are the two issues that, again, are my experience, um, wage theft and tenants' rights. It's why I talk about it so much. Um, and so with wage theft, a lot of people don't realize that the biggest theft in Los Angeles is actually wage theft. Billions of dollars are stolen from workers' pockets every year. Um, and it's in the form of unpaid overtime, or you're not getting paid for all of the hours you're scheduled for, or you're misclassified as an independent contractor, a gig worker when really you're doing the main work of the company. So you should be an employee getting minimum wage and benefits. Um, that is a major driver of poverty and keeps people in these cycles in an increasingly unaffordable city. So making sure that we're fighting for workers, like that is something that the city attorney's office could be doing. And right now, out of 500 attorneys, this city attorney only has six that do workers' rights, less than 1%. And then I think the third issue, of course, is tenants' rights. You know, we corporate landlords, the mega corporate landlords, they own two-thirds of the rental stock in Los Angeles. Um, there have been 23,000 complaints of tenant harassment. Our city attorney has cited only one landlord. My background is tenants' rights. So I will be scaling up those actions too and making sure that we are responding to every single complaint of tenant harassment we're investigating and we're suing where necessary. And so that's what I'm hearing on the doors. I hear the issues that people are facing about a landlord who is denying repairs or a company that is, you know, um, misclassifying someone. And I get to respond to someone, do you know you have an attorney? And that is a really powerful thing when people know that their city attorney's office could be fighting for them.
SPEAKER_04When it comes to the wage theft and the tenant rights stuff, how do you uh effectively do that so that you wind up uh doing not just sort of individual relief for a particular worker or workplace or a particular um uh building and and make it so that the the impact is systemic?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, I think that the great thing about the cases that the city attorney brings too is that they can also create precedent that can be used also by, you know, people bringing their own private lawsuits. So when the city files, uh the city attorney files these cases, we're filing as the people of the state of California. So it's not gonna be an individual eviction proceeding or an individual's wage theft case. It's going to be against the building, the landlord, um, the company, uh, which is why it's going to, one of the big pieces of relief is changing the practices at the company, is getting that court order and injunction, um, as well as returning the ill-gotten gains, um, but really changing the corporate practices. And I think when we take our cases um and look at how we go after a common business scheme, the moment we win that first case that finds the business scheme to be illegal, we now have a judgment and a precedent that we can start going to other companies with and ask if they want to pay the same penalties and the same restitution or if they want to get in line.
SPEAKER_04With wage theft in particular, I imagine that it's harder to get people to come forward. Like I know I I've known people who have been victims of wage theft, and they've been afraid to complain because they or a family member may be undocumented, and they were afraid that if they complain, the employer will then report them to immigration.
SPEAKER_00This is exactly why the city attorney's office is important because we offer anonymity. My it's actually my favorite case I've done my entire career was at the city attorney's office. Um, it was against two car washes in Silver Lake. They were paying workers as little as $450 an hour. And these workers were undocumented. It was the first Trump administration. They knew, of course, their rights were being violated, but they weren't going to bring a lawsuit in their own name. They couldn't. They would face immigration consequences. Um, but when we bring the case, we bring it in the name of the people of the state of California. We don't have to name any names. Um, and so we built that case with Clean Car Wash, which is a workers' rights center. Um, and when we sued, again, no one, no one was named in the lawsuit. We had documents um that we could anonymize. And since the practices were very consistent, it's hard to to know uh to pin it on one person. When we issued subpoenas for depositions, I mean, people have to comply and come in for depositions. And no one, no worker in that course of that case was retaliated against. And in less than a year, because again, it was a pretty clear-cut uh factual situation, the case settled and the workers got between $10,000 and $40,000 each back. And I remember just thinking, um, it was such a formative case in my first year as an attorney, realizing this is the importance of the city attorney's office, because this is a case, frankly, that was too small for the California Department of Justice. It's too small for the district attorney. Um, and it's not something anyone could bring in a private sector with a with a lawyer, first of all, to imagine the people who are already having their wages stolen, having the resources to go retain an attorney. Yeah. Unrealistic. But also, even if they got a pro bono attorney, they can't put their name on it. And so the city attorney's office, had we not filed, no one else would have. And that was life-changing money for those workers. And so that is what I want to do times 100.
SPEAKER_04There's a particular tenant case I wanted to reference uh and wanted to see if you can talk about how you would have handled it differently than Barrington. Barrington Plaza, yes.
SPEAKER_00Um, I've been thinking a lot about Barrington Plaza. Um so Barrington Plaza, it was the largest mass eviction uh in our city's history. Um, Douglas Emmett, the corporate landlord, used a loophole in the Ellis Act, which is a state law. Um, the state law provides the different scenarios where rental housing is taken, can be taken off the market when you want to change its use or something like that. Um, but it's often been abused. And Douglas Emmett, in response to being ordered to upgrade its safety infrastructure, gave Alice Act eviction notices to all of the tenants. These are rent-stabilized units, um, tenants who had lived there decades. And it was very clear from the face of the documents that Douglas Emmett wasn't going to change the use of this property. Right. They were going to remodel it into luxury housing and then re-rent it at a market much higher rate. They were trying to make a buck.
SPEAKER_04And they weren't particularly shy about that either.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's the thing. It was almost so obvious from the face of the papers. Um, the lawsuit kind of wrote itself. And I remember I was organizing with the tenants and you and um helped them draft a letter, ghostwrite a letter, because of course uh didn't want to, you know, I was already on the incumbents radar at that point. I just didn't want to work against them. So, but helped them ghostwrite a letter begging the city attorney to get involved. But here's the thing Douglas Emmett spent $150,000 to help her in her first election through an independent expenditure campaign. So she looked the other way. And the tenants who did stay have won their case in court. Yeah. The thing is, it's a Pyrrhic victory because, you know, so many had had left and had been pushed out. And had this city attorney done something, we could have prevented that. And as city attorney, what I would have done is immediately subpoenaed and sued Douglas Emmett to prevent the eviction, prevent the eviction as we go through an investigation and then hold them dead to rights for lying on those applications. And so I will be making sure that we are doing everything to close these loopholes and hold landlords accountable. And I think it's actually also the best way to prevent our homelessness crisis from growing. Because when you think about all the strategies we need to take to address homelessness, probably the most powerful way the city attorney could help is stem the unlawful eviction to homelessness pipeline, keep renters housed, hold bad landlords accountable so people aren't falling into homelessness. Who knows where those tenants have ended up?
SPEAKER_04When you've been in candidate forums with uh your opponents, the incumbent and and the other challengers. When you talk about the fact that the city uh did not join other cities in suing the Trump administration, or the city has only brought, you know, one or two cases uh on behalf of the people of Los Angeles, what does the incumbent say?
SPEAKER_00You know, she she likes to think that she is doing enough. She can do no wrong, if you've ever heard her speak. Um and so she will talk about the one lawsuit she was forced to join. Um, and she'll take credit, frankly, for other lawsuits. She likes to say that she got the National Guard. She would say that in some forums in the beginning, and then I would correct her as someone who works at the California Department of Justice. And this is all publicly available. So I have no idea why you'd even try to fabricate it. Um, but I remind her that no, if the California Department of Justice filed that lawsuit. And then she'll give some excuse that, oh, well, I didn't want to file it because they were filing in the Northern District of California. And for anyone who is uh who has done Trump litigation, the Northern District is the best place to file. So of course it was filed there. Um, but again, this is not her expertise and it shows. Um, and then the other candidates' responses have been interesting as well. So there are two other challengers. Um, John McKinney has not really taken as much of a response. He's taken the vague response of, well, you know, we'll look at a case-by-case situation. It doesn't matter who's in the White House. Um, and then uh Ida Shorey um has actually said that we need to, you know, be cautious about suing the Trump administration. Um and I think again, none of them, none of the other candidates have real experience suing the Trump administration. Um, and so, because I can tell you this is not a time for caution. This is a time when we should be using every single legal tool we have and they work.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Um again, you won't win every case, but 80% is a pretty good rate from the California Department of Justice. And people are looking for someone who is going to fight for them in this moment, not someone who is going to say they want to exercise caution when literally immigrant families are are being kidnapped and split up.
SPEAKER_04You definitely have a more activist vision of this office than the current city attorney, but the city attorney has been activist in certain ways over uh housing issues uh in Los Angeles. Can you contrast how you approach housing issues and what role you think the city attorney should play?
SPEAKER_00Sure. I think the the reframe I would offer also to your question is that I know where the discretion in this role is and isn't. So when I when I talk about having a vision for this office, it's a vision that is fully again within the bounds of law. It's it's bold, um, but it also follows the examples of some of the best fighters in the country, like Attorney General Rob Bonta and the San Francisco City Attorney. I think what the difference is between one of the main, many, many differences between me and the incumbent is that she politicizes the non-discretionary parts of the role, um, violating her ethics often in doing so. Um, so she has used her role to obstruct several housing projects. Of course, the most notable is Venistel. Um, and so I'll kind of walk through it from a housing but also a legal perspective. So, Venistel, um, as I'm sure many of your listeners know, uh if if people listen to this or Ali Podcast, they're familiar with Venistelle. I'll give the very, very quick redo uh redox. Um, city-owned parking lot um that was uh selected for an all-affordable housing project to add 120 all-affordable units. It would double the parking, it would add canal access, went through 16 to 18 public meetings, was approved twice by council while you were on council, and the Coastal Commission. Um, this city attorney, and along with councilwoman Tracy Park, ran in 2022 on the promise of killing the project. When they got into office, the city attorney obstructed the project. It has invited three lawsuits against the city, which have lost at every stage, have cost taxpayers a million dollars to not build affordable housing in a housing crisis. Now, obviously, from a housing policy point of view, everything about this is wrong. We are in a housing crisis. Our city attorney should not be obstructing affordable housing. But I also think about it from the attorney's point of view. In when you are in the municipal side of the office, your client is the city council and the departments. You are not the 16th council member. So if council approves a housing project, it doesn't matter what you think of it. It went through the lawful processes, um, it went through the public meetings. She has no discretion to block that project. It's the reason why we're losing all of these lawsuits, is because she is being an inappropriately activist lawyer and she is violating um her duties to her client and to the city.
SPEAKER_04Since you were last year, you you know, you you just launched your campaign. Uh, there have been a lot of different dynamics, a lot of changes in the campaign. Uh, I want to talk about some of the the more recent dynamics, but before I do, I want to ask just how you how have you gone about building this campaign and what sort of coalition have you put together?
SPEAKER_00You know, it's it's so crazy to, I know it's been 14 months now, but it feels like it's been years. Um, when I had talked to you, I came to you with a vision, a few day one endorsements, um, huge shout out to Eonisis Hernandez, Councilmember Hernandez, um, and council member Herado for very bravely stepping out on day one to Supervisor Horvath, Assemblymembers McKinner, Al-Hawari, uh, and Senators Menjavaris Mawit Cueva. So that that core eight that stood with me at the beginning. Um, but I had my vision and I had my track record. And off that, kind of started trying to tell people what the city attorney's office could be. And I think what was amazing is the contrast between me and the incumbent is so clear. Um, just our our different experience. I'm a government public interest attorney. She's a corporate bankruptcy attorney. My priorities for workers and tenants and her protection of landlords and, you know, bad corporations. And actually the contrast between us started allowing coalitions to come together. And honestly, my track record, um, both as an attorney, but also as someone who's volunteered in in progressive political spaces for a long time, actually started to build a really strong coalition. You know, I was amazed that the Teamsters remembered me from my first case where I was fighting misclassification of, you know, truck drivers down at the port. Um, you know, I had organized with UAW to organize a union at USC. So eventually, as these started to build up, we earned the endorsement of the LA Federation of Labor, which is kind of unheard for of for a challenger. Um, it's only happened a couple of times. Um and that was when I think people started to really take our campaign seriously. Um, we actually we out-fundraised the incumbent in the first fundraising reporting period, even though I'm taking no corporate money and she does. Um and that started to build momentum for our campaign. And suddenly a lot of the work, again, I had done volunteering and volunteering for so many years brought others into our coalition, uh, different Democratic clubs, DSALA, LA Forward. Um, and then it built up into the Democratic Party endorsing, um, which again, uh endorsing a challenger to an incumbent is a huge statement. And so we built this coalition. And I think one of the things I'm so proud of is we built this coalition starting with vision, starting with just a message people hadn't heard from the city attorney's office and a track record to back it up. And as we started, you know, bringing more and more people, it was a domino effect. And so it's it's just so crazy to look back on the past year because um, yeah, when I talked to you, I just I had the ideas and the messages. And now we have the largest coalition of unions and advocacy organizations, the Democratic Party. Um, our cash on hand is equal to the incumbent, roughly. We have more in matching funds. Like we have put up a truly competitive campaign to an incumbent. And I am so proud of that without compromise, without corporate donations. Um, and that has been, I just such an amazing feeling.
SPEAKER_04And up until about a month ago, this race seemed to have a sort of regular dynamic to it. Uh it it felt to a lot of observers that it was, you know, the two main candidates were were you and the incumbent, Heidi Thelistine Soto, uh, and the other candidates weren't as much of a factor. Um, you know, you had the endorsements you were listing, the the city attorney had um the police protective league, for instance. Uh, and then some stuff happened where she wound up losing the police protective league. Um, and then some other stuff happened where other candidates sort of got a lot of wind at their back. Talk to me about what precipitated the her loss of the police union endorsement.
SPEAKER_00You know, it was sort of stunning uh to watch it all happen. Um, because uh, you know, this city attorney, one of the common themes um is is honestly what a poor manager she is. It's funny because she often likes to tout her years of experience managing, but no amount of years can teach you how to be a kind person, how to respect people, how to listen, if if that's not your natural inclination. Um, and so we've, you know, we've heard for years about her retaliation against whistleblowers, her surveillance of her employees' emails, things like that. Um, and one of the things that has kept coming up is her lacks uh data privacy protections. This has been actually a subject whistleblowers have brought it up on the criminal and the civil side in the city attorney's office, and she's responded by retaliating against them. There are two pending lawsuits about this subject right now. So it all kind of came to a head in a way that could have been so preventable. Um, a couple of months ago, uh like end of March, um there was a hack because about 300,000 litigation files had been kept in the city attorney's office in an unsecured dropbox, no password protection. And um, just to give you an idea, because I think she's she's also tried to downplay it as these were civil, these weren't criminal. Civil litigation, this was all litigation about police misconduct. So it's going to include victims' health records. It's going to include personal identifying information, it's going to include whistleblowers. Whistleblowers, personnel records, like very, very sensitive confidential information. That was in a Dropbox without password protection. And not only was this preventable, because again, whistleblowers. Had raised the issue. But then once she received this information, according to the police protectively, she didn't communicate it to them. She had an interview five days after she was put on notice and didn't mention it. And so I think their anger was completely understandable. They withdrew the endorsement. And I remember in that moment just being so stunned. And we didn't really know what was going to be the next step on the campaign. I mean, as someone who has spent the entire campaign talking about how, talking about police accountability, talking about how I want to bring the police department into compliance with the law, we uh we definitely know that that's not a popular message. So we were wondering what this was going to mean for the campaign. And what ended up happening was the Police Protective League and district attorney Nathan Hawkman endorsed a latecomer candidate, uh, John McKinney, who had, I think, filed in the last possible week you could. Um, at that point, had raised less than $75,000 over a few months, um, hadn't really been a factor. Um, suddenly the Police Protective League endorsed him. Nathan Hoffman endorsed him. Um, and the Central City Association, one of the business associations, endorsed him. Um, and there has been um an IE funded with $1.5 million from Airbnb supporting uh John McKinney. And so suddenly it went from a kind of two-candidate race to a three-candidate race. Um and in this last basically like month of the election, suddenly there's an injection of millions of dollars. Uh, and who knows how it's going to turn out? It it brought some uncertainty, certainly some excitement to this race. I think what I will say um is that my priority and and vision and kind of message has very much been unchanged. I am, I am the always, I'm still the candidate who is strongest on fighting the Trump administration and fighting abusive corporations, but it has made, I think, the line and the sort of lane between um the incumbent and Mr. McKinney a little bit blurred. So where are your conservative voters? Who are they going to gravitate to? Um the business interests are now gravitating toward Mr. McKinney. It seems um kind of your more traditional conservative votes will gravitate toward him as well. So, kind of what is left of the incumbent's constituency? It doesn't really pull from me, but um it's it's fascinating. It'll be interesting to see how it it shakes out.
SPEAKER_04Connect the dots for me if if if you can. What is Airbnb's interest in this race?
SPEAKER_00You know, I I think that I think for any business, um the thought of a consumer protection attorney as the city attorney was terrifying. You know, I've spent my entire career suing businesses um of all sizes, uh, including now, I mean, one of the richest and most powerful companies in the world. Um, and I think you can see with Meta, um the our case, 30 states, goes to trial in August, but New Mexico's case uh was resolved by a jury for $375 million. So these government lawsuits, um, they have the power to to really deliver some accountability. And the LA City Attorney's Office just has not been in the game. And if you have someone who has the vision and the experience to get into the game, I mean, suddenly the days of corporate impunity are over. Um, and I can completely understand how scary that is. And I think the reason you didn't see them um supporting a city attorney early is because you know, the incumbent city attorney, even though she will not sue businesses, um, she has obstructed so many projects and contracts and just made the city so inefficient and run so slowly that I think it's almost a their business interest, I think, see that as a negative too. The city has been slowed down by one rogue person. Um, and so there wasn't, there wasn't also enthusiasm for her. So my a lot of what I had been thinking is I I guess they're just gonna stay out, um, which is great. Please stay out. Um, and I think what's different now is at the last moment, um, they've realized that this incumbent is looking pretty dead in the water, and we don't want a consumer protection attorney as the city attorney.
SPEAKER_04And uh who's jumping in and doing independent expenditures on your behalf?
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, I can only know what's reported, but what's been reported so far um is consumer attorneys, predictably. Um uh the people who also sue uh corporations on the on the private side. Um Smart Justice, um, which is a criminal justice reform uh organization, and um SCIU 2015, I think has also donated. Um, and actually, I just saw this filing this morning, Engineers and Architects Association, which I think is really significant because they are the union that represents the staff of the city attorney's office, the paralegal, the investigators. Um, so I think that tells you a lot. Obviously, um, you know, we don't coordinate at all. It's kind of a surprise every time I see a filing, but I think um the money that lines up tells you something of like, oh, my support comes from consumer attorneys and criminal justice, you know, reform organizations and unions. And the money that is backing up Mr. McKinney is law enforcement unions and uh powerful corporations.
SPEAKER_04So for listeners who aren't familiar uh with the intricacies of campaign finance, there's essentially this is a dramatic oversimplification, but there's essentially two different campaign finance systems going on. One is candidates raise individual contributions uh from individuals, or they can raise them from companies as well. And the max donation for a citywide race is eighteen hundred. And uh but then there are also independent expenditures, which could be done by a labor union or by a political action committee. Uh, and uh those cannot be coordinated with a campaign. So candidates often don't know about those until they see an ethics filing, uh, or they get a piece of mail or they see an ad attacking them or in favor of them one way or another. Uh and those are more and more a huge factor in Los Angeles elections uh as they are in this one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Um and, you know, I think that another component that, you know, we have been running a very people-powered campaign. So we have been focused the entire time on making sure that we're building our coalition of community groups that were out on the doors. And so I think a lot of this uh again was sort of a surprise at the last minute how it shook out on all sides. Um, but I think we've also been doing the work to make sure that we're we're running a grassroots campaign to get our message out through grassroots channels.
SPEAKER_04Uh a couple final questions. Uh one, um I'm just curious because I found campaigning to be campaigning can be uh really energizing, campaigning can be really exhausting, and campaigning can be really surreal sometimes. Uh tell me about a weird or surreal experience you've had as a candidate.
SPEAKER_00There's been so many. Um I really, there's part of me that's like I should have been journaling better through this whole experience. But I think uh the craziest moment um was my first debate against the incumbent. Um I have uh I have a chronic uh condition, diverticulitis, um, that can flare, uh, get this when you have a poor diet, aren't exercising, and are under high levels of stress.
SPEAKER_04So when you're a candidate.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Um and so that morning, um we discovered internal bleeding. And I remember it was the first debate, you know, for to get matching funds, which is the city's um program where you donate a dollar, uh, you you the city gives us six. It's incredibly important, especially when you have a campaign like mine that only doesn't take corporate money and relies on individuals. And you need a debate to qualify. And so this was the qualifying debate, the first debate. And I was like, calling my campaign manager, like, can I stick it out? And she's like, You have internal bleeding, go to the hospital. So I went to the ER and like as I'm in the ER, I keeps texting, it's like, maybe they'll like we'll be able to fix it and like I'll be able to make the debate. And I had like brought a change of clothes and everything. And she was just like, you're crazy. Um, is calling the debate organizers um this for this forum. It couldn't be moved. Um, but they, you know, they were okay with me calling in. And so from the emergency room, I am on the phone. I have my um my mom standing guard outside because, you know, they had to be monitoring my vitals to make sure my blood pressure didn't suddenly drop. And I was like, no, no, no. There's one hour where I just need uninterrupted time. You'll know if something goes wrong because I'll stop talking. And um, and I will say, you really don't realize how much you gesticulate until there's an IV in your arm. But I did that whole debate. Um, they apparently um at the debate, it was, you know, Heidi sitting and then they were holding up the phone to the microphone and I was answering all the questions.
SPEAKER_04So it wasn't Zoom, it was just audio.
SPEAKER_00No, it was literally I was on my phone um like looking at a timer and giving my answers. Um, and the, you know, the thing I'm actually really proud of, it was an endorsement forum. So it was a debate, and then they were going to vote on who they endorsed. Um, they voted to endorse me. So I'm like, I beat you from an emergency room. Take that.
SPEAKER_04Uh that's a great story. Uh, yeah, you should be journaling as a candidate. I always wish I had. Uh, last question. This is a question I've been asking everybody I've interviewed during this campaign season is we're we're living through such scary, depressing times. The economy, the immigration raids, the uh sort of collapse of democratic norms, that it it's really easy to get discouraged and to lose faith. Uh where are you finding faith?
SPEAKER_00I I I think I'm honestly, I mean, maybe it's just because it's the only thing in my life, but I do find faith through this campaign because this uh the city attorney's office really can be doing so much to fight the Trump administration. And I still believe in our courts. Um, I still believe in the power of our laws, and I think what's giving me faith is the idea that we can be using this office to fight back. And what's giving me faith is how many people are still leaning in because I I completely understand if people just are so done and are tired of politics and don't see a reason to have faith. But I think every single time I see someone get excited, I see someone volunteer, I see the energy, I know that that is so much more powerful because it's the good thing the Trump administration, what they really want is for us to get tired and to give up and to check out. So every time we lean in and we keep organizing and we keep having hope, that's an act of resistance. And I think my act of resistance um is finding my faith and hope in law and in the city attorney's office that it really can be the public interest law office that takes the Trump administration to task.
SPEAKER_03Marissa Roy, thanks for joining me.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Mike.
SPEAKER_04And that's it for this episode of What's Next, Los Angeles. My thanks to Marissa Roy for joining me. My thanks also to Tonya Wistias for editing and producing, and my thanks to LA Forward for sponsoring this podcast. And of course, my thanks to the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs for supporting these conversations and civic dialogue around the future of LA and California. A quick note: we want to give listeners the opportunity to hear from a range of candidates and perspectives. So, for the other candidates who are running for city attorney, if you'd like an opportunity to be on this podcast and join the conversation, you would welcome hearing from. Please also tune in to our sister podcast, LA Podcast, where I am part of a stable of co-hosts discussing and analyzing the latest news about politics and policy and government in the LA and California area. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts. And as we approach the June election, stay tuned for more episodes of this podcast. Until then, thanks for joining me. Peace and take food care.