LA Forward Endorsements for the November 5, 2024 Election

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.

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 Working Families Party, California Nurses Association, National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), California Women’s List, Streets for All, Sunrise Movement, Initiate Justice Action, Dolores Huerta, Kenneth Mejia, and many more progressive groups and individuals.

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.

Jurado is endorsed by the LA Times, the LA County Democratic Party, the LA County Federation of Labor, the California Working Families Party, LA Forward, CHIRLA Action Fund, LGBT Victory Fund, Community Coalition Action Fund, LUCHA Action, Supervisor Hilda Solis, Mejia, Hernandez, Raman, Soto-Martinez, Mike Bonin, Dolores Huerta, LAUSD Board Member Rocio Rivas, Speaker Emeritus Anthony Rendon and many others.

Konstantine Anthony for Burbank City Council

Eddy Polon for Burbank City Council

Eddy is a Burbank Transportation Commissioner who’s been an outstanding leader for walkable, bikeable, and transit accessible streets. He’s running for to be a leader focused on real challenges like the need for safer streets, the lack of affordable housing, and confronting the climate emergency.

After interview all three progressive candidates, our endorsement taskforce was especially impressed by his potential as a coalition building who could get good things done effectively. He’s knowledgeable and practical and poised to work with the public in a positive and fruitful way.

He’s backed by current progressive councilmembers Nick Schultz and Nikki Perez, plus organizations like Los Angeles Democratic Party, Sierra Club, Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters, Asian Democrats of Los Angeles County, Americans for Democratic Action, SoCal Chapter, Burbank Democratic Club, Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley, San Fernando Valley Young Democrats, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, multiple unions, and Media City Indivisible.

Rachel Forester for Claremont City Council, District 1

LA Forward is excited to announce our support of Rachel Forester for Claremont City Council in District 1, as she challenges conservative Republican incumbent Corey Calaycay.

She’s going to bring the change we need to Claremont’s City Council and help make LA County a fair, flourishing place for everyone by working to protect tenants, create affordable housing, expand unarmed crisis response options and much more. If she wins, it'll change the entire dynamic of the city council. She’s endorsed by Claremont Democratic Club and Claremont Streets for People, plus dozens of community members and leaders.

This is going to be a close race and Rachel needs your support to win it, especially as a grassroots candidate.

Nancy Barba for Culver City Council

We ran our own endorsement process for this race and ended up with the same endorsements as our friends at the Our Culver advocacy group. We’re happy to quote from their voter guide.

“Nancy Barba served as a Culver City Planning Commissioner for four years, including a term as Chair. In our city, we’ve seen Planning Commissioners who are real estate investors or lobbyists representing developers, the Chamber of Commerce, or downtown businesses. But there are other commissioners who bring a different kind of expertise: architects or civil engineers, for example. Nancy Barba is a clean energy professional.

While an architect’s input might improve the aesthetics of a project, Barba’s guidance resulted in buildings that are more sustainable, better integrated into communities, and with less pollution — growth that reduces climate impact instead of worsening it. This is exactly the experience we need to tap as a city set for significant growth in the next decade.

Outside the Planning Commission, Nancy Barba has dedicated significant time and effort as a community advocate for affordable housing, tenant protections, permanent supportive housing, and public transit, including not just speaking before the City Council, but also organizing with her neighbors to get more people involved in the process of deciding how the city government approaches these important issues.

Despite her accomplishments, Nancy Barba was denied reappointment to the Planning Commission this year by her opponent in this election, Albert Vera. It’s not lost on us that, in 2020, Vera took campaign money from a fossil fuel company and the biggest lobbyist for commercial real estate in the nation, and then he acted accordingly: Vera replaced a clean energy professional on the Planning Commission with a commercial real estate investor.”

Bubba Fish for Culver City Council

We ran our own endorsement process for this race and ended up with the same endorsements as our friends at the Our Culver advocacy group. We’re happy to quote from their voter guide:

“Bryan ‘Bubba' Fish would be only the third renter to serve on the City Council in Culver City, and his platform on tenant protections is the most comprehensive we’ve seen at a local level, including eviction protections for those owing less than one month’s rent, proactively contacting tenants who are served eviction notices to connect them to services that can keep them housed, and providing legal representation for renters facing eviction.

Policies like these are essential to addressing homelessness, because hundreds of people become homeless every day in Los Angeles County.

Bubba served on the city’s Advisory Committee on Housing & Homelessness for four years. While this committee is an important touchpoint for public input on city policy, if you look at the meetings since Bubba’s term ended in 2023, you’ll see that half the meetings have been canceled and the committee doesn’t produce much output otherwise. Bubba’s tenure was a different story. He pushed the committee to pass resolutions recommending policies to City Council, to highlight state housing bills that the city could support, and to tour facilities that provide services to unhoused people.

Professionally, Bubba is a transportation policy professional with experience at the LA Department of Transportation and the LA County Board of Supervisors. More than anyone else running, he understands that our city is rapidly growing and we just don’t have room for more lanes of car traffic, so we need alternative forms of transportation. For many in our community, Culver City simply doesn’t offer a safe, affordable, and convenient way to get from one place to another. This must be addressed, and Bubba brings the necessary expertise to tackle it.”

Yasmine-Imani McMorrin for Culver City Council

We ran our own endorsement process for this race and ended up with the same endorsements as our friends at the Our Culver advocacy group. We’re happy to quote from their voter guide:

“Mayor Yasmine-Imani McMorrin is the first Black woman to serve as Mayor of Culver City and for the last four years she’s been a leader, fighting for renters, workers, people of color, and anyone else whose voice is not typically heard at a City Council meeting, all while making sure we have a city that is well-run and works for everyone.

While some other council members use their time on the dais to give speeches, Mayor McMorrin is asking insightful and probing questions, often lifting up concerns raised by the public and holding city leaders accountable. 

Her persistence pays off. After years without progress on the city’s Mobile Crisis Team, Mayor McMorrin’s public questioning on the matter pushed the city to hire and train the mental health crisis response team that started serving the city earlier this year — six months ahead of schedule. 

And her drive to dig deep on important details materially improves city policies and programs. Mayor McMorrin brought attention to the fact that some unhoused residents in city-leased motels were going hungry, resulting in the creation of the city’s Nutrition Program to provide them with three meals a day. She also pushed the city to provide more frequent reporting and data on homelessness, which led to the city’s new Homeless Reporting Dashboard.

She guided development of the city’s homelessness programs on the Homelessness Subcommittee, including successful application for $26.6 million in state grant funds from Project Homekey in early 2022. She saved the Sustainable Business program from being cut in the 2023 budget meetings, and she put Measure BL on the ballot, bringing in essential revenue by making big corporations like Amazon pay their fair share in taxes.

At every opportunity she’s pushing for a more progressive approach to local issues: a higher minimum wage, more parks funding, safe and reliable transportation options, police oversight, and building more affordable housing.”

John Nolte for Pomona City Council, District 1

Nolte first served from 2012 to 2016. In this term, he stood up against polluters, and worked to secure approval for two low-income housing complexes that offer dedicated units and wrap-around support for people recovering from mental illness. Elected again in 2020, he pushed for rent stabilization, supported affordable housing, and expanded youth programming, supported policies to fortify the City’s reserves and fiscal position, brought large grants for violence prevention and environmental justice, and created a jobs program. In tandem with community organizing groups, he pushed Pomona to become the most housing-friendly City in the region – passing an inclusionary housing ordinance and emergency rent stabilization ordinance, building two low-income housing projects, and greenlighting many other housing projects.

Miranda Sheffield for Pomona City Council, District 6

Miranda Sheffield is a lifelong resident of Pomona and a current professor at Cal State LA. She’s an active board member of Pomona United for Stabilize Housing (PUSH) where she fights to lower the cost of housing for tenants in Pomona. Her career and campaign is about my dedication to fighting for working families. As a rank and file member of the California Faculty Association, she was involved in organizing fellow faculty and students during the most recent strike at Cal State LA. She’s the only progressive candidate in her race and she’s running to give voice and power to my community. Pomona can be a leader in fighting for progressive policies that benefit the people, but we need progressive leaders in positions of power to bring this change.

Dan Hall for Santa Monica City Council

LA Forward is proud to announce our support for Santa Monica City Council candidates Barry Snell, Dan Hall, Ellis Raskin, and Natalya Zernitskaya, who are running together as the United Democrats slate.

Santa Monica’s municipal governance has been plagued by dysfunction the past four years, in large part due to the current conservative majority. That majority has aligned itself with a vocal “law and order” contingent within the city. The result has been incoherent and contentious, and sometimes outright cruel.

The United Democrats slate offers a real opportunity to elect leaders to the Santa Monica City Council again who believe in humane approaches to tackling homelessness, building affordable, transit-accessible housing in high-opportunity areas, protecting renters, listening to and supporting workers, and who present a forward-looking vision for a more diverse, inclusive Santa Monica.

Santa Monica has an outsized influence on the region for a city its size and has an impact on policy trends, especially when it comes to housing, homelessness, sustainability, and transportation. Santa Monica will soon face some major decisions that also have regional implications, like what to do with the Santa Monica Airport land once the airport closes and how to meet its State-mandated affordable housing requirements. The current Council majority is not up to the task.

They’ve also earned the endorsements of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, Santa Monica Democratic Club, Santa Monica Forward, Sierra Club, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, the LA County Democratic Party, UNITE HERE Local 11, and many other organizations.

Ellis Raskin for Santa Monica City Council

LA Forward is proud to announce our support for Santa Monica City Council candidates Barry Snell, Dan Hall, Ellis Raskin, and Natalya Zernitskaya, who are running together as the United Democrats slate.

Santa Monica’s municipal governance has been plagued by dysfunction the past four years, in large part due to the current conservative majority. That majority has aligned itself with a vocal “law and order” contingent within the city. The result has been incoherent and contentious, and sometimes outright cruel.

The United Democrats slate offers a real opportunity to elect leaders to the Santa Monica City Council again who believe in humane approaches to tackling homelessness, building affordable, transit-accessible housing in high-opportunity areas, protecting renters, listening to and supporting workers, and who present a forward-looking vision for a more diverse, inclusive Santa Monica.

Santa Monica has an outsized influence on the region for a city its size and has an impact on policy trends, especially when it comes to housing, homelessness, sustainability, and transportation. Santa Monica will soon face some major decisions that also have regional implications, like what to do with the Santa Monica Airport land once the airport closes and how to meet its State-mandated affordable housing requirements. The current Council majority is not up to the task.

They’ve also earned the endorsements of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, Santa Monica Democratic Club, Santa Monica Forward, Sierra Club, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, the LA County Democratic Party, UNITE HERE Local 11, and many other organizations.

Barry Snell for Santa Monica City Council

LA Forward is proud to announce our support for Santa Monica City Council candidates Barry Snell, Dan Hall, Ellis Raskin, and Natalya Zernitskaya, who are running together as the United Democrats slate.

Santa Monica’s municipal governance has been plagued by dysfunction the past four years, in large part due to the current conservative majority. That majority has aligned itself with a vocal “law and order” contingent within the city. The result has been incoherent and contentious, and sometimes outright cruel.

The United Democrats slate offers a real opportunity to elect leaders to the Santa Monica City Council again who believe in humane approaches to tackling homelessness, building affordable, transit-accessible housing in high-opportunity areas, protecting renters, listening to and supporting workers, and who present a forward-looking vision for a more diverse, inclusive Santa Monica.

Santa Monica has an outsized influence on the region for a city its size and has an impact on policy trends, especially when it comes to housing, homelessness, sustainability, and transportation. Santa Monica will soon face some major decisions that also have regional implications, like what to do with the Santa Monica Airport land once the airport closes and how to meet its State-mandated affordable housing requirements. The current Council majority is not up to the task.

They’ve also earned the endorsements of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, Santa Monica Democratic Club, Santa Monica Forward, Sierra Club, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, the LA County Democratic Party, UNITE HERE Local 11, and many other organizations.

Natalya Zernitskaya for Santa Monica City Council

LA Forward is proud to announce our support for Santa Monica City Council candidates Barry Snell, Dan Hall, Ellis Raskin, and Natalya Zernitskaya, who are running together as the United Democrats slate.

Santa Monica’s municipal governance has been plagued by dysfunction the past four years, in large part due to the current conservative majority. That majority has aligned itself with a vocal “law and order” contingent within the city. The result has been incoherent and contentious, and sometimes outright cruel.

The United Democrats slate offers a real opportunity to elect leaders to the Santa Monica City Council again who believe in humane approaches to tackling homelessness, building affordable, transit-accessible housing in high-opportunity areas, protecting renters, listening to and supporting workers, and who present a forward-looking vision for a more diverse, inclusive Santa Monica.

Santa Monica has an outsized influence on the region for a city its size and has an impact on policy trends, especially when it comes to housing, homelessness, sustainability, and transportation. Santa Monica will soon face some major decisions that also have regional implications, like what to do with the Santa Monica Airport land once the airport closes and how to meet its State-mandated affordable housing requirements. The current Council majority is not up to the task.

They’ve also earned the endorsements of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, Santa Monica Democratic Club, Santa Monica Forward, Sierra Club, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, the LA County Democratic Party, UNITE HERE Local 11, and many other organizations.

Brian Calderón Tabatabai for West Covina City Council

Brian led the successful fight with organized labor to keep an Amazon warehouse out of his community. He has been a strong and humane voice on homelessness, renter protections, racial and economic justice, and alternatives to incarceration. He has taught special education, English, and Social Sciences, and has coached youth basketball and football.

He's been endorsed by Dolores Huerta, Hilda Solis, CA Working Families Party, UNITE HERE Local 11, Sierra Club LA, Teamsters Local 396, California Environmental Voters, Stonewall Democratic Club, the LA County Democratic Party and many more community groups and leaders.

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 15-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 city councils in San Gabriel Valley and Westside, and other places where we have a base of supporters.

For candidates: If we plan to make an endorsement in your race, we 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.

Make sure your voter registration is up-to-date so you can make your voice heard! If you aren’t sure which districts you live in, you can look that up here.