City Hall just dropped a half-cent fire tax, a Measure ULA rewrite, a state housing bond, and non-citizen voting onto the same November ballot as your mayor's race — no pressure. If you're just joining: Karen Bass and Nithya Raman are in the November runoff. Bass led the primary, and late-counted ballots pushed Raman past Spencer Pratt. Now we're past the vote math and into homelessness, housing, Bass's budget record, policing, and the progressive organizing that decides whether this stays incumbent-versus-left or turns into a full governing mandate. So this is the week the ballot gets mechanical: taxes, bonds, charter language, stuff the next mayor will actually have to govern through. Welcome to LA Mayor 2026 — Sarah, where do we start? We're staying on Bass-Raman runoff — follow the show and you won't miss what comes next. This one's from Century City News:
Voters will decide this November whether to raise the city’s sales tax to supply hundreds of millions of dollars in dedicated funding for the Los Angeles Fire Department, following a unanimous decision by the City Council on Tuesday. The 14-0 vote authorizes a half-cent sales tax increase to appear on the upcoming ballot.
Fourteen-nothing — no discussion, Traci Park absent — and suddenly there's $345 million a year for LAFD on the November ballot. The union dropped 225,000 signatures, so the council was basically rubber-stamping something that already qualified. Right, a 14-0 vote with zero floor debate reads like nobody wanted to stand between a firefighters' union and a ballot line five months after the January fires. And here's what nobody's pressing: this is a dedicated stream. That $345 million sits in its own pot, outside the normal budget fight. So what's the mayor's actual leverage over LAFD operations once the money's walled off? That's the question for me too. Half a cent buys what, exactly? Coates says it reverses decades of underinvestment — okay, show me the staffing ratios and response times per dollar. Hundreds of millions a year should come with a number I can check. Going from 9.75 to 10.25 percent, still under Culver City and Santa Monica — that's the easy sell. Sales tax is regressive, though. The mayor who inherits this is locked into a revenue tool they didn't design and can't redirect. This one's from KDH News:
Democratic socialists are looking to extend their power in Los Angeles City Hall this fall with their biggest prizes yet: mayor and city attorney. Mayoral candidate Nithya Raman and city attorney hopeful Marissa Roy, both members of the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, are heading into the Nov. 3 general election with strong showings in the June 2 primary as tailwinds.
Here's the coalition piece in the Bass-Raman runoff: Raman and the city attorney candidate Marissa Roy are both LA-DSA members, and they came out of June 2 with momentum. Loyola Marymount's Fernando Guerra makes the sharp point — if both offices go DSA, the city attorney stops being a check on the mayor's policy moves. You'd have two offices moving in ideological lockstep. And that reframes what a Raman mayoralty could actually move. You can see the bench forming nationally — Mamdani in New York, Wilson in Seattle, now Janeese Lewis George locking up D.C. LA's the biggest prize on the board. Right, but a mayor still has to move the council. If democratic socialists genuinely add seats this fall, that's a tailwind for Raman and a pressure campaign aimed at Bass. Which is why the ULA amendment vote we'll get into later matters so much — a friendlier council only helps if these candidates have actually said where they stand on the funding stream. Right now neither has. Exactly. A DSA majority could be Raman's leverage or Bass's headache, and nobody's made either candidate say how they'd govern with it. CALO News, with Adam Solorzano:
The Los Angeles City Council voted 9-5 on a motion to direct the City Attorney to draft ballot language to amend Measure United to House Los Angeles (ULA), also known as the “mansion tax,” in November’s election. Multi-family and mixed-residential building projects in Los Angeles might become exempt from the so-called “mansion tax” come November’s election if approved by voters, as the Los Angeles City Council voted recently to draft ballot language to alter Measure ULA, including expanding funding to support interim housing sites and outreach services.
Nine-five. That's the number I want listeners holding onto. The Council voted to send a ULA amendment to November, and the five no votes are the story: Hernandez, Jurado, Padilla, Rodriguez, Soto-Martinez. And Jurado runs the ULA ad-hoc committee. She's the one saying the mansion tax has only existed since 2023 — too early to read the data. That's a floor speech that's now on the record while Bass and Raman say nothing. And look at what the amendment actually does — exempts newly built multifamily and mixed-use for ten years. So you're carving the deed-restriction funding stream right where the new units come online. That's a real fight about how ULA's money gets raised, and neither candidate has a position on it. Raman's endorsers — Streets For All, YIMBY LA — they want supply. Does an exemption that spurs construction square with the affordability money ULA was built to generate? She owes an answer, and her coalition might not agree on it. That's the tension on one ballot. Jurado's no vote comes from the DSA lane — the same lane Raman's standing in. If that bloc grows on the Council this fall, this exemption fight is a preview of the coalition any mayor has to move. From KTLA:
California leaders announced Monday that they have reached a three‑party agreement on a proposed affordable housing and homeownership bond that could be placed on the November ballot. Known as the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026, the measure would authorize $11.25 billion in borrowing to fund affordable housing construction, preserve affordable housing, and expand homeownership opportunities.
Eleven and a quarter billion — the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026, three-party deal, headed to Newsom's desk this week. And the number to keep in your head: the governor's own office says only 17% of California households can afford a median single-family home. And it lands on the same November ballot as the Bass-Raman runoff. So a voter walks in and makes a state borrowing decision, a fire tax decision, and picks a mayor — all in the same breath. Right, and this one's the structural piece. Whoever wins in November is going to be in office when that money starts flowing — but LA still has to compete for it. San Diego, San Jose, and every other jurisdiction will be going after those dollars too. Neither of them has answered the obvious follow-up. Does Raman have a theory for how LA captures its share? Does Bass? Forty thousand homeowners statewide is a press release. The mayor's job is making sure a chunk of that lands here. And it sharpens the jurisdiction problem — a mayor doesn't control this. They're negotiating with Sacramento over it. Pair this with the ULA amendment we just talked through and you've got two live funding streams and zero candidate positions. Here's Edwin Folven at Beverly Press:
A Los Angeles City Council majority on June 17 supported a motion that would place a measure on the November ballot asking voters to decide whether non-citizens can vote in L.A. municipal elections. The council voted 10-5 to ask the city attorney to draft language for the ballot initiative, which would seek an amendment to the city charter.
Another November ballot item, another council vote to read closely. Ten-five on June 17 to have the city attorney draft language for a charter amendment on non-citizen voting in municipal elections. And here's the wrinkle that ties it back to the mayor's race — this one needs Karen Bass's sign-off before it goes on the ballot. So the sitting mayor, who's also the candidate, has a literal gate on whether voters ever see it. Soto-Martínez authored it — he's in that same progressive council lane that's been growing. So watch the fives today: five no votes here, five no votes on the ULA changes. If it's the same five, that tells you a lot about the coalition the next mayor inherits. And they still haven't defined what 'non-citizen' even means. The charter amendment goes back to council for final language — and that definition is the policy. And Bass still hasn't been pinned down on whether she'd sign it. She controls the gate and she's a candidate — and Raman can't dodge the question either, given which lane she comes out of. If you’re following LA Mayor 2026, you might also like Midterms 2026 Daily: Senate, House, and governors’ race coverage every weekday, with polling moves, ad spend, and the one chart that mattered today. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
Next up, the LAFD half-cent sales-tax measure is on the November ballot. The Measure ULA amendment still needs ballot language before voters decide on proposed changes. And the non-citizen voting proposal returns to the City Council for a final ballot-language vote, with Mayor Karen Bass’s approval still needed.
You’ll find links to every story we mentioned in the show notes, if you want to dig in further. That’s LA Mayor 2026 for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.