Karen Ruth Bass

Candidate for Mayor, Los Angeles · Mayor, City of Los Angeles

Karen Bass earned a Bachelor of Science in health sciences from California State University, Dominguez Hills, completed a physician assistant program at the USC Keck School of Medicine, and later earned a Master of Social Work from USC. In the 1980s she worked as an emergency medicine physician assistant and clinical instructor, and in the late 1980s she co-founded Community Coalition, a South Los Angeles grassroots organization, serving as a community organizer before running for office. She represented the 47th district in the California State Assembly from 2004 to 2010, serving as Majority Whip, Majority Floor Leader, and, starting in 2008, as the 67th Speaker of the Assembly, becoming the first African-American woman in U.S. history to lead a state legislative body. She represented California in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2022, chairing the Congressional Black Caucus from 2019 to 2021 and co-authoring the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. She became the first woman to serve as mayor of Los Angeles when she took office in December 2022.

Bass points to her Inside Safe program, which she says has moved thousands of people off the streets and cut street homelessness by roughly 18 percent, and says she would keep expanding it along with interim housing and street-level services. She says nearly 40,000 housing units are moving forward under new policies she put in place after decades of under-building, and she signed what her campaign calls the first major update to the city's rent stabilization rules in 40 years. On public safety, she has increased police hiring toward a long-term goal of 9,500 officers, created the city's first Office of Community Safety to expand civilian crisis response, and says homicide has fallen to its lowest level since the 1960s. Her city budget increases funding for policing, homelessness programs, and basic services like street and sidewalk repair while relying on higher projected tax revenue rather than the layoffs of prior years. On the entertainment industry, she has pushed for a bigger, uncapped state film and TV tax credit and a federal incentive to bring production jobs back to Los Angeles. After the Palisades fire, she issued emergency orders and rolled out pre-approved rebuilding plans meant to cut red tape and speed up reconstruction. She has also directed city departments to limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and expand support for immigrant communities amid stepped-up ICE activity.

Profiles are compiled from the candidate’s own statements and public records. We never tell you how to vote.