La Defensa recommends Nithya Raman for Mayor. Raman rejects the idea that public safety comes down to a binary choice between defunding the police and defending business as usual. She argues instead for a system that builds in accountability and stops sending armed officers to every call for help, while organizing LAPD to respond quickly when an armed response is truly needed.

Her platform rests on three commitments. First, she would expand unarmed crisis response to every neighborhood and build it directly into 911 dispatch, so that the right responder arrives the first time and use-of-force incidents and the liability costs that follow them go down. Second, she would restore accountability and trust. That means working with LAPD on deployment so calls are answered in a timely way, holding all public safety responses to public performance standards through a weekly Mayor-led review, strengthening civilian oversight by backing the Police Commission and its Office of the Inspector General, and taking on the department’s massive liability costs. Third, she would invest in prevention by funding community violence intervention at scale. She would also create a Mayor’s Office of Community Safety to coordinate every department working on safety, and she would invest in youth opportunity and reentry support.

Her record on the Council backs up her concerns about police spending. In 2023, she was one of three councilmembers to vote against the roughly $1 billion LAPD contract. The three said the money would be better spent on housing, social services, and a new crisis response system for mental health and other non-violent emergencies. Her opponent, Mayor Karen Bass, supported this contract. Raman has since argued that the contract deepened the city’s fiscal crisis and the imbalance between police and other city services. She and the same colleagues later voted against a contract extension for LAPD’s command officers, citing concerns about the city’s budget and priorities. 

On homelessness, Raman believes housing is a human right and that criminalization is neither effective nor humane. She voted against expanding Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 41.18, the city’s anti-camping ordinance, arguing that it simply moves people down the street. As a Councilmember, she created the Bureau of Homelessness Oversight and the city’s first system to track whether homelessness programs are working, which her campaign credits with raising shelter occupancy from 80% to 94%. Her campaign also says street homelessness fell 49% in her district while rising 8% citywide. As Mayor, she would establish a single point of accountability for homelessness spending, manage the city’s transition away from LAHSA, expand time-limited subsidies and shared housing, and deploy street medicine teams citywide. She supports harm reduction as part of a comprehensive public health approach, including naloxone distribution, mobile outreach, and low-barrier treatment connected to housing and mental health care.

On immigration, Raman co-authored the city’s Sanctuary City ordinance, which bars the use of city resources, personnel, and data for federal immigration enforcement. As Mayor, she would audit every department’s compliance, including LAPD’s data-sharing practices, and hold departments accountable when they fall short. She also voted for the Council ordinance requiring LAPD to verify the identity of anyone claiming to be a federal agent. She would expand funding for deportation defense, work with the City Attorney to challenge unconstitutional raids, and appoint department leaders, including police chiefs, who understand that public trust depends on immigrant communities knowing the city is on their side.

On housing, she helped lead the first reduction in allowable rent increases under the Rent Stabilization Ordinance in more than 40 years, expanded Just Cause eviction protections to all rental units, and passed Right to Counsel for tenants facing eviction. She would create an Office of Renters’ Rights and expand eviction defense and rental assistance.

Raman also supports the findings of the City’s Reparations Advisory Commission, including both monetary and non-monetary reparations for Black Angelenos. In 2022, she introduced a motion to inventory underutilized city property that could be transferred to historically marginalized groups and community organizations. She would expand participatory budgeting with a focus on historically underrepresented communities. She would give the city’s Transgender Advisory Council a formal role in reviewing LAPD policy and crisis response protocols. She also supports the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination in a state free of occupation.