The election of the next mayor, who will succeed outgoing mayor Eric Garcetti, is the one with the most impact on the City of Los Angeles. In the close race, Karen Bass and developer Rick Caruso will go head-to-head. Bass, a native of Los Angeles, has a substantial background in politics. Six intriguing details about Karen Bass, a candidate for mayor of Los Angeles:
She has excelled in both the California Assembly and the House of Representatives of the United States
The Democratic Bass was elected to the Assembly in 2004 and now serves the 47th District, which includes parts of the west, central, and south LA. She was re-elected for two further two-year terms, serving as the Majority Floor Leader from 2007 to 2008 and the Majority Whip from 2005 to 2006. She was elected to the Assembly Speaker position in 2008, one of the three most important posts in the state of California together with the Governor and Senate President. The California Budget Crisis of 2008 was a very divisive and important period in state government, and Bass served as Speaker throughout this period.
After leaving the Assembly in 2010, Bass was chosen to represent California’s 33rd Congressional District (which was later redistricted to the 37th District). Bass has been elected five times since then and is still serving in the House today. She was a member of several significant committees and, when she assumed leadership of the Congressional Black Caucus in 2019, she became the organization’s first female chair.
She was (very) shortlisted to be Biden’s vice president
When competing for president in 2020, Joe Biden pledged that if he won the Democratic primary, he would pick a Black woman as his running mate. Later, the list was condensed to just three individuals: Karen Bass, then-CA Senator Kamala Harris, and former National Security Advisor Susan Rice.
It was widely documented that Harris vigorously lobbied for the vice presidential nomination, and during the screening procedure, a video of Bass praising Scientology at the inauguration of a Los Angeles location surfaced. (You may recall the speech from the anti-Bass campaign ad put out by the Caruso campaign.) “Since then, documented first-hand testimonies in books, interviews, and documentaries have revealed this group,” Bass said about the Scientology appearance.
She attends First New Christian Fellowship Baptist Church in South Los Angeles and, according to Bass, is not a Scientologist.
Biden ultimately chose Kamala Harris, another presidential hopeful. Bass’ name was mentioned as a potential for a cabinet position once Biden was elected president, but she was ultimately not nominated.
She is an insider in local, state, and federal politics, but she is an outsider in the election for mayor of Los Angeles
Contrary to popular belief, Bass is the outsider among the two contenders for mayor of Los Angeles. Contrary to how both campaigns have portrayed their candidates, Bass has sought to win over voters by showing herself as the seasoned political leader, while Caruso has sought to appeal to a different voting demographic by positioning himself as a businessman and political outsider.
These responsibilities are flipped. That’s because Bass has never been elected to local office, despite her extensive experience in state and federal administration. Federal and state lawmakers like Bass may be well-known to Angelenos and other Californians as political figures—and so look like local insiders—but their professional lives have very little to do with local governance, as Zocalo Public Square illustrates.
She is opposed by Rick Caruso, a developer and city commissioner who, although never been elected to public office, has been a familiar face at City Hall for decades.
Voters must determine if they view prior involvement in local politics as a plus or minus.
Bass worked as a physician’s assistant and volunteered for a pro-Cuba organization before entering politics
In addition to having a BS in Health Science from Cal State Dominguez Hills, an MA in Social Work from USC, and a degree as a physician’s assistant from USC, Bass also graduated from Hamilton High School. She held positions as a physician’s assistant, nurse, and USC instructor before being elected to public office.
According to Tablet, Bass visited Fidel Castro’s Cuba eight times in the 1970s and was “a ‘brigadista’ and later organizer for the Venceremos Brigades.” According to the Atlantic, the Venceremos Brigades was a pro-Cuba organization that arranged labor trips to Cuba for young American lefties.
Karen Bass, a candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, has a unique quality: she is a gun owner
Bass’s house was broken into in September, and two firearms were taken. The firearms were lawfully registered and kept in a secured box, according to Bass’ office. According to the L.A. Times, Bass “first learned how to wield a firearm in Los Angeles in the late 1970s when she was a California organizer for the Venceremos Brigade… Bass claimed she kept pistols for personal safety.” According to her, an LAPD officer instructed her.
Before the break-in, Bass was asked to rate her neighborhood’s safety on a scale of 1 to 10, and she chose “10” as her answer.
Bass claimed that after the intrusion, she felt as though her feeling of safety had been “shattered.”
Bass is single and had a daughter who died in 2006
Bass and Jesus Lechuga, with whom she had a biological daughter named Emilia, wed in 1980. Following their divorce in 1986, Bass and Lechuga continued to share custody of Emilia and four other children. Sadly, Emilia and her husband, both 23 years old, died in an automobile accident in 2006. According to Bass’ congressional website, Emilia, who “intended to follow in her mother’s footsteps campaigning for social change,” continues to be an inspiration to her. Her stepchildren’s two grandkids are hers.
