Hi there. Thanks for your patience as we regroup and retool to build a stronger podcast for you in this election year and beyond. We need a little time to catch our breath. It’s hard work putting together a show and newsletter every week, and we’re proud of our streak of more than 200 consecutive weekly shows without ever missing even a single week.
We’re not logging offline altogether. There’s an election on, and those multi-page ballots that showed up in our mailboxes a couple weeks ago are pretty dense. They’re due back on June 7.
In the past we have put together our own LA Podcast voter guide. But going forward, we’re steering away from any specific endorsements.
So today, we’ve put together a single list of some of the ballot guides other people have made. We’ll be using these to make our own voting decisions.
We broke it up into three sections. The first is for endorsement guides put together by several local organizations. The second is for guides that hinge around a specific issue like the climate or transportation. The third section has links to a handful of candidate forums and individual interviews, so you can see for yourself how the candidates behave in the hot seat.
Endorsement Voter Guides
DSA-LA’s voter guide has detailed recommendations for every race on your ballot.
Knock LA’s voter guide also has detailed recommendations, and includes a nuanced discussion of how to address the vote for LA County sheriff. Knock also put together a Q&A for how to return your ballot, or vote in person if you need alternate accommodations.
LA Forward’s voter guide covers most local races and recommends the California Working Families Party voter guide for state races.
Kris Rehl, a Street Watch member, also has a progressive voter guide with in-depth explanations for each office.
Tracy Rosenthal, a co-founder of the LA Tenants Union, has a progressive voter guide (which she’s been putting out for 10 years!).
The League of Women Voters has a voter guide including survey questions answered by candidates, but does not endorse candidates.
The LA County Bar Association’s Judicial Elections Evaluation Committee report gives each candidate for judge a qualified/not qualified rating. (Although take these ratings with a grain of salt as they tend to favor white and male judges.)
Los Angeles Times endorsements include many progressive picks this year. If all their endorsements win, L.A. would have its first majority-women council ever.
More institutional endorsements from the LA Democratic Party, LA County Federation of Labor, Stonewall Democratic Club, SEIU 721, LA Defensa, and Ground Game.
Scott put together a helpful spreadsheet tracking the endorsements across some of the guides.
Issue-Based Voter Guides
Streetsblog LA’s Joe Linton and Sahra Sulaiman look at the transportation platforms of mayoral candidates, including surveys from eight candidates (two of which have since dropped out).
L.A. TACO has the mayoral transportation surveys translated into English, Spanish, Chinese, and Korean.
Sammy Roth gathered the climate plans from mayoral candidates at the Los Angeles Times. Some of their platforms are thin or nonexistent, some did not participate, and some have since dropped out.
When it comes to powerful superior court judges, Knock LA has a story about a progressive judicial coalition.
Adam Conover wrote about how Rick Caruso could win the mayoral election in June. Remember this quirk about how LA’s elections work. These are non-partisan races, and the June election is technically not a partisan primary; it’s a qualifying election. This means that the top two vote-getters will face off in November’s election, but anyone who gets 50%+ one vote in June will win automatically.
Documentary filmmaker Nick Andert also put together an informative video on Caruso’s attempt to buy the election, and explains a little more about how LA’s elections work.
Sunrise Movement on why you should vote even when it feels like nothing matters.
Candidates On The Record
The most comprehensive single source of debates and forums among candidates running for office in LA City and County is a spreadsheet maintained by Unrig LA. It is a nearly complete list of all debates and forums that have happened to date
If you want to see some one-on-one interviews with candidates running for Mayor of LA City, you can head over to LAist and see sit-down interviews hosted by Austin Cross with Karen Bass, Gina Viola, and Kevin de León.
KCRW hosted individual interviews with candidates campaigning to represent LA County’s 3rd Supervisorial District, Lindsey Horvath, Bob Hertzberg, and Henry Stern.
On May 20, Anna Scott of KCRW and Gustavo Arellano of the LA Times will host a mayoral debate on homelessness.
In the race for Los Angeles County Sheriff, Knock LA and Cerise Castle have hosted a pair of candidate forums (Number 1, Number 2). There is one more, on May 23. RSVP here.
We’ve still got election content we’re prepping for you and some other announcements coming, so stay tuned and we’ll be back in your earbuds soon.
