Some of the most destructive corporate and institutional forces in LA are spending heavily to keep Mayor Karen Bass in office. The coalition includes the LAPD officers’ union, Airbnb and Douglas Emmett, the corporate landlord behind one of the largest illegal mass eviction efforts in California history.
Money supporting Bass has outpaced money backing Councilmember Nithya Raman by approximately three to one, according to a new LAist analysis. The difference is even greater among independent expenditure committees, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts as long as they do not coordinate with candidates. Those committees have spent 36 times more supporting Bass or attacking her opponents than they have supporting Raman.
The largest spender in the mayoral race so far is the Los Angeles Police Protective League. The LAPD officers’ union has reported spending $1.2 million on advertisements against Raman and former mayoral candidate Rae Huang. The union spends heavily to defeat candidates who question police budgets or support stronger oversight of LAPD, including opposing Raman in both of her City Council campaigns.
Raman, however, changed her position on policing after entering the mayoral race. When she first ran for City Council in 2020, she called for a substantially smaller LAPD and supported defunding the department. Shortly after launching her mayoral campaign in February, she said the city needed to maintain its existing police force. By May, she was declaring that Los Angeles “cannot shrink” LAPD and answering “no” when asked whether she still supported defunding it.
The shift has not stopped the police union from depicting Raman as a threat to public safety or spending heavily to defeat her. It raises an obvious political question for candidates who retreat from their earlier positions under pressure. Why move toward the police union when it will continue portraying you as someone who wants to defund LAPD anyway?
Airbnb is the second-largest spender in the mayoral race, contributing $750,000 to a committee supporting Bass. The company’s spending follows Bass’s advancement of an Airbnb-backed proposal to relax the city’s short-term rental restrictions through 2028.
Los Angeles currently limits short-term rentals to a host’s primary residence. Airbnb has pushed the city to allow second homes and investment properties to operate as vacation rentals, packaging the proposal as a way to generate revenue for city services during the World Cup, Super Bowl and Olympics.
The proposal would benefit commercial operators and property investors while removing additional homes from the long-term rental market. A 2022 McGill University study estimated that commercial short-term rentals had already removed at least 2,500 homes from the Los Angeles housing market, increased average rents by $810 per year and contributed to more than 5,000 additional people experiencing homelessness each night. The effects have been particularly severe in Venice, where short-term rentals have consumed a disproportionate share of the housing supply.
Another $525,000 came from Douglas Emmett, the corporate landlord behind one of the largest mass evictions in Los Angeles history. The company gave the money to the police union’s principal political committee, which disclosed spending at least $225,000 against Raman.
Douglas Emmett served eviction notices on 577 occupied rent-controlled apartments at Barrington Plaza in Sawtelle in 2023. The company invoked the Ellis Act, which permits landlords to evict tenants when withdrawing a property from the rental market, even though it intended to renovate the complex and resume renting the apartments afterward.
A Superior Court judge found that Douglas Emmett’s actions failed to comply with both the Ellis Act and the Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance. The ruling stopped the remaining evictions, but nearly 500 households had already left. Douglas Emmett has a history of major spending in Westside elections. In 2022, the company contributed $566,000 to an independent expenditure committee supporting Traci Park’s City Council campaign, while company employees gave another $10,849 directly to Park. Barrington Plaza tenants later accused Park and the city of failing to intervene to protect their homes.
Other large contributions supporting Bass include $200,000 from Laborers Local 300, $180,000 from SEIU affiliates and $100,000 from the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California. Kaiser Permanente CEO Gregory Adams contributed $50,000, while a real estate company controlled by former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt gave $25,000. McCourt co-owns parking lots around Dodger Stadium and is seeking government approvals for the controversial gondola connecting the stadium to Union Station. Bass serves on the Metro board and is now its chair.
Raman has received some large contributions of her own, including $50,000 for a pro-Raman committee from Arts District developer Yuval Bar-Zemer. But the overall financial disparity is substantial. Bass also entered the year with $1.5 million already in her reelection account, while Raman did not begin fundraising for the mayoral race until February.
The new disclosures build on an alignment that became visible earlier this year, when six major business organizations announced plans to spend seven figures supporting Bass. Several of those groups backed billionaire developer Rick Caruso against Bass in 2022 but now describe her administration as a reliable partner.