In 2022, Los Angeles voters chose Democrat Karen Bass over Democrat Rick Caruso in the mayoral election. Mayor Bass has been criticized for her performance during January’s Los Angeles fires, which killed 30 people, destroyed over 16,000 structures, and may cost $250 billion in total damages.
California has a no-party-preference voting system for most political races, in which the two candidates with the most primary votes advance to the general election. Because Republicans account for only about one in four registered California voters, the top two primary candidates in California elections at all levels are frequently Democrats.
California’s voting system often poses a challenge to the Democratic Party in endorsing a specific candidate. But for the 2022 LA mayoral contest—in an unprecedented level of national engagement for a local race—national leaders in the party overwhelmingly favored Bass, particularly as Caruso began to gain ground in polls, drawing to within 3 points of Bass.
The national Democratic leadership’s push to elect Bass over Caruso is even more surprising given that both candidates were Democrats. Vice President Kamala Harris made two trips to Los Angeles to show her support for Bass at election rallies. Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton visited Los Angeles to provide her endorsement to Bass. https://www.dailynews.com/2022/07/28/4232241/ President Joe Biden and former president Barack Obama also endorsed Bass, as did Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and former Speaker of the House (and current House member) Nancy Pelosi. There was also Senator Alex Padilla and LA City Council President Nury Martinez endorsing Bass.
Which Democratic politicians endorsed Caruso? Three of the 15 members of the LA City Council. Bass won the contest with about 53 percent of the vote.
The endorsements for Bass from Obama, Biden, Clinton, Sanders, and Warren are particularly striking since none are Angelenos and thus presumably had little local knowledge about the issues that might guide them in endorsing one Democratic candidate over the other in terms of candidate merits.
But their endorsements didn’t really seem to be about merit. If they had been, they would have endorsed Caruso, because being Los Angeles mayor means being the CEO of a 50,000-person organization with chronic, enormously expensive challenges of homelessness, housing, and crime, and with a budget exceeding $12 billion. This is an enormous job, one that requires a high volume of high-level organizational decision making.
At the time of the election, Caruso had decades of experience as a CEO, leading one of the most successful real estate development firms in the state, one that he founded in 1987 at the age of 28. Caruso’s projects include the Grove at Farmers Market in Los Angeles, the Promenade at Westlake Village, Palisades Village in Pacific Palisades, and the Rosewood Miramar Beach Hotel in Santa Barbara. Caruso is one of the most important CEOs in the state, and his projects have significantly expanded state economic activity and created new jobs throughout Southern California. Caruso has a long track record of running an exceptional organization and getting things done in a state where it is anything but easy to get things done.
In contrast, Bass didn’t have the experience needed to be CEO of such a large and complex organization. Before becoming LA mayor, Bass was a member of the US House of Representatives. During her tenure in Congress, she was known for her devotion to criminal justice reform, child welfare, and foster childcare. Her accomplishments in Congress did not seem to stand out significantly relative to her peers. While she did chair some subcommittees, she did not chair any committees, nor did she write much legislation.
So why did Obama, Clinton, Biden, Sanders, Harris, and Warren all pick the Democrat without CEO experience to manage the city of Los Angeles over the one who did have such leadership experience? Because Caruso was not part of the party faithful, having been an independent since 2019 and registering as a Democrat shortly before filing his mayoral candidacy. Before 2011, and between 2016 and 2019, Caruso had been a Republican. Caruso’s recent Democratic conversion, and his previous connection with the Republican Party, made him a nonstarter for national Democrats, particularly for Los Angeles, the second largest city in the country, within perhaps the bluest state in the country. There was no way the national Democratic Party would welcome Caruso.
Following the LA fires, which began on January 7, the differences between Caruso and Bass stood out even more clearly. Bass was in Ghana for the inauguration of its president. She said that she was not aware of the critical fire danger in Los Angeles. However, more than one hundred individuals within city government received a January 3 email warning of critical fire conditions, including a National Weather Service forecast featuring a large red flame under the headline “Critical fire conditions,” which included the risk of potential gusts of 80 miles per hour beginning on January 7.
Whatever happened that led Bass to leave the city and fly to Ghana—whether she wasn’t advised at all, whether it fell through the cracks, or whether the urgency of the situation was misinterpreted within her office—can only be called a massive organization failure that may have contributed to 30 deaths, possibly $250 billion in total damages, and thousands of lives that have been changed forever.
In contrast, Caruso hired private fire fighters with private water tenders from Arizona to protect his Pacific Palisades center which he knew was particularly vulnerable to fire. The Arizona fire crews arrived in time to protect that center, which is home to 42 businesses and which he hopes to reopen in 2026—probably years ahead of the rest of the Palisades. And with that reopening comes jobs for those 42 businesses that otherwise would have been destroyed.
Had Caruso been mayor, fire protection for Los Angeles would almost certainly have been greater than it was. With Bass in Ghana, no additional fire resources were deployed in the Palisades, where the homeowner who first reported the fire also reported that 45 minutes may have elapsed between the time of that report and the time that water was first poured on the fire. The Palisades had been identified by the Fire Department as a high-risk area. With additional fire trucks and personnel deployed at LA Fire Department Station 23 in the Palisades, which is only about three miles from where the Palisades fire began, there would have been a much greater chance of containing the fire. Even at 11:06 am, about 38 minutes after the fire was reported, it was estimated at only 10 acres by CalFire. (The CalFire link that reports the size of the fire at that time is no longer publicly accessible at the time of this writing.)
It seemed clear at the time of the election that Caruso’s management, leadership, and organizational experience made him more qualified to be LA mayor than Bass. California is now paying the price for choosing the less-qualified Democrat candidate, one who received unprecedented national political support that may have been critical to the election’s outcome.
It is striking that Governor Newsom, who knows both Bass and Caruso well, chose not to endorse either candidate. Reading between the lines, this suggests Newsom preferred Caruso over Bass. If this were the case, it is unfortunate that he either didn’t communicate his informed opinion to the party’s national leaders who endorsed Bass, or if he did, that they didn’t listen. This leaves me wondering just how Obama, Clinton, Biden, Sanders, and Warren feel about their choice now, following such a horrific tragedy. And if Newsom regrets not endorsing Caruso.
Nicole Avant, a Democrat Angeleno who served as ambassador to the Bahamas under Obama, and who is married to Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, remarked before the LA mayoral election: “Who is in charge here? How is this happening? It’s the drug addicts in front of people’s houses, it’s people naked in the street—there’s so much chaos, and Rick is the opposite of that, and we just need to reel things in and do things in a different way.”
Caruso is indeed the opposite of the failed status quo. The city may be remarkably different today if he had been elected.
