Your guide to the L.A. City Council District 14 race: Kevin de León vs. 7 challengers

Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin de León was enveloped in scandal in 2022, with a vast array of political leaders — including President Biden — calling for his resignation. Those demands were issued after De León was caught on tape participating in a conversation featuring racist and derogatory remarks and behind-the-scenes machinations over the city’s redistricting process. Protesters packed council meetings and demonstrated outside his home.

De León apologized, disappeared for a while, and returned to the council after a two-month absence. Since then, he’s been working alongside many of the colleagues who called for his removal. He’s also running for a second four-year term at City Hall and facing seven challengers, several of whom are waging highly competitive campaigns.

• Kevin de León

A onetime labor organizer, De León was elected to the state Assembly in 2006 to represent an L.A.-based district. Four years later, he won a seat in the state Senate, serving for a time as that chamber’s president pro tempore and eventually mounting an unsuccessful challenge to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. While serving on the City Council, he has been a steadfast ally of organized labor, while also pushing for new laws to prevent the displacement of low-income families in his district, particularly in downtown L.A. and Boyle Heights. At the same time, he has drawn furious protests from some homeless advocates, who oppose his efforts to clear sidewalk encampments.

• Wendy Carrillo

A resident of El Sereno, Carrillo has spent more than six years in the Assembly, representing a district that takes in parts of the Eastside. She has picked up endorsements from state Treasurer Fiona Ma, former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. During the campaign, she has touted her success in securing $50 million in state funds for the conversion of Los Angeles County General Hospital into a “restorative care village” offering housing and social services. Her detractors have focused on her recent arrest on drunk-driving charges, following a late-night collision in which she struck two parked cars. She pleaded no contest in January.

• Miguel Santiago

Elected to the Assembly in 2014, Santiago represents a district that takes all in or part of downtown, Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights, as well as a number of communities outside the 14th Council District. He is promising to deliver “real change” to the district, saying the only way to move past “the controversies of the past” is to elect a new representative at City Hall. Santiago, 50, has been endorsed by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and a wide array of labor groups, including seven locals of the Service Employees International Union and several construction trade unions. A former community college board member, Santiago has been touting his work in Sacramento increasing the state’s minimum wage and ensuring that students’ first two years of community college tuition is free.

• Ysabel Jurado

A first-time candidate, Jurado is looking to push the council further left by expanding its progressive voting bloc. In a race where three of the eight candidates have served in the state Legislature, she says: “We don’t need another career politician calling the shots.” Jurado, 34, has been working as a tenant rights attorney, helping renters stave off evictions. She has the backing of the L.A. chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, which has been door-knocking on her behalf. She also has endorsements from a range of DSA-backed politicians, including Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez and L.A. school board member Jackie Goldberg. If elected, she would be the first Filipino American to serve on the City Council, according to her campaign.

• Eduardo “Lalo” Vargas

Like Jurado, Vargas is a first-time candidate running with a socialist message. Vargas, 28, has called for an end to “luxury” real estate developments in the district and across the city, a citywide ban on tenant evictions, the removal of police officers from public transit and greater investment in unarmed “violence interruption” programs. He touts endorsements from the Peace and Freedom Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, as well as from Elizabeth Blaney, a founding member of the tenant advocacy group Unión de Vecinos. A resident of Lincoln Heights, he teaches biology and environmental science at Franklin High School in Highland Park.

• Teresa Hillery

A resident of downtown Los Angeles, Hillery has spent the last 20 years as a lawyer, working much of that time for Fidelity National Financial, which provides services to the real estate industry. She retired from the company last year to devote more of her time to public service, joining the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council’s government liaison committee. She is a trustee with the Los Angeles County Bar Assn., where she advocates for diversity and equitable practices in the legal profession. A self-described housing justice advocate, Hillery, 56, has promised to push for increased mental health services and diverse models of housing for the district’s unhoused residents. She is waging her first run for political office.

• Nadine Diaz

Diaz, 61, is making her second run at the council seat. She waged a long-shot campaign in 2015 to unseat then-Councilmember Jose Huizar, who was running for his third term and was recently sentenced to prison in a sweeping corruption case. (She came in a distant third, behind former Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina.) A third-generation resident of Boyle Heights, Diaz is now a geriatric social worker with USC’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. She also spent slightly more than a year on the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council, stepping down in August.

• Genny Guerrero

A resident of El Sereno, Guerrero has a business that helps people form nonprofit groups. She worked for about a year for Huizar and has served on the Community Police Advisory Board of the LAPD’s Hollenbeck Division, which patrols portions of the 14th District. She has also volunteered with the El Sereno Bicentennial Committee, which has organized food giveaways and staged El Sereno’s Independence Day parade. As a candidate, she has called for strengthening the social safety net to keep renters from slipping into homelessness.

The 14th District takes in much of downtown, including all of Skid Row, as well as all or a portion of Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights, Eagle Rock, El Sereno and Hermon.

A major backdrop to the race is the audio leak scandal, which drew outrage from a wide array of political and civic leaders. In 2021, De León took part in a secretly recorded conversation with two other council members and a high-level labor leader that featured, among other things, racist and derogatory remarks about then-Councilmember Mike Bonin, who is white, and Bonin’s son, who is Black. The audio became public a year later.

Faced with demands for his resignation, De León apologized on Tavis Smiley’s talk show, offering his “deepest, deepest apologies” to the Black community, both in L.A. and elsewhere. He said he should have spoken up or walked out of the room during that conversation. “I’m sorry for what I did and didn’t do,” he said in a recent campaign mail piece.

De León’s many critics, including Bonin, say he has not shown public remorse or accounted for his own remarks on the recording. After De León launched his bid for reelection, Bonin remarked: “I hope he gets crushed.”

The candidates are split on some of the anti-crime initiatives being pursued by Mayor Karen Bass. The mayor’s first budget called for the hiring of about 1,000 police officers, a strategy aimed at rebuilding the ranks of the LAPD after three years of decreases.

De León voted to approve the mayor’s budget. Five other candidates — Carrillo, Diaz, Guerrero, Hillery and Santiago — spoke in favor of the mayor’s spending plan and her push to hire more officers. “There’s a lot of crime in the community,” said Diaz.

Jurado and Vargas told The Times they would have voted against the mayor’s budget. Both called for a reduction in police spending, saying the savings should be shifted into other social programs, such as housing and mental health.

Vargas, Jurado and Diaz also said they oppose the recently approved package of pay increases for police officers negotiated by Bass.

“They already make enough money,” said Vargas. “If anything, they make too much money.”

De León voted last year in favor of the four-year police contract, which also increased officers’ starting salary. Carrillo, Santiago and Guerrero voiced support for the deal as well, saying it is needed to keep LAPD officers from taking jobs with other law enforcement agencies.

“We need to be able to recruit and retain qualified police officers in our communities,” said Santiago.

Hillery said she does not have strong feelings for or against the police contract, and wants to know more about the deal’s long-term financial implications — and the reason for the LAPD’s hiring woes.

De León has been running on his work building interim homeless housing, boasting that 2,000 beds have been added to the district since he took office in 2020. He has opened two tiny home villages — one in Eagle Rock, another in Highland Park — with a third soon set to open in Boyle Heights. That neighborhood is also the site of a new homeless shelter for women and families. Meanwhile, in El Sereno, two motels have been converted into transitional housing under the Project Homekey program.

Despite those efforts, De León’s rivals say progress on homelessness has been too slow in the 14th District, particularly in Skid Row, home to the largest population of homeless people in the city.

All of the candidates voiced support for Bass’ Inside Safe initiative, which has been moving homeless Angelenos out of encampments and into hotel and motel rooms. Still, some voiced concern about the way the program is being carried out, and whether the $250-million initiative is receiving enough oversight.

“We need more accountability for this money,” Guerrero said.

The candidates are divided on one of the city’s other strategies for responding to homelessness — Municipal Code section 41.18, which allows the council to ban homeless encampments next to libraries, senior centers and other locations designated by the council.

Carrillo, De León, Santiago and Guerrero favor the law, which also prohibits encampments within 500 feet of schools and day-care centers. “There are places where people need to feel safe, and they need to be able to use their public spaces,” Santiago said.

Carrillo offered a similar take. “No child should have to walk in the middle of the street or outside the sidewalk because of an encampment,” she said.

Two of the eight candidates oppose 41.18, saying they would work to repeal it.

Jurado said 41.18 causes homeless people to lose their IDs, their medications and other essential possessions. Enforcement of the law simply moves homeless people from one location to another, she said.

De León “continues to criminalize our unhoused neighbors and antagonize certain groups that are providing necessary support,” she said.

De León, who has won approval for a number of anti-encampment zones, responded to the criticism, saying his office makes offers of interim housing — hotel rooms, motel rooms, tiny homes, shelter beds — when encampments are cleared in the district.

“My criteria is to stop the immediate suffering — get folks off the street so they can have heat when it’s cold and air conditioning when it is scorchingly hot,” he said.

Diaz said she supports 41.18 as long as housing is available for those who are relocated. Hillery called 41.18 a tool she “wouldn’t use broadly.”

“I would not use the energy to repeal it,” she said. “Whether I use it or not is a different story.”

The vast majority of the candidates favor the idea of expanding the size of the City Council. But some have been more specific than others about what they want.

Guerrero said she wants at least 21 council members, up from 15. Jurado said the council should have at least 25, while Vargas called for 51. Santiago, Carrillo and Hillery voiced support for expansion but did not recommend a number.

Diaz said she favors an expansion to 20, but only if council members’ salaries are reduced.

Meanwhile, the one outspoken opponent of council expansion is De León, who argued that a move to add more politicians will not make city government more effective.

“From my experience serving on this council, the biggest challenge is having sufficient staff to manage the incredible influx of requests for services to address the city’s problems,” he said.

Any proposal to add more council districts would require voter approval.