Marissa Roy
Candidate for City Attorney, Los Angeles · Deputy Attorney General
Marissa Roy is a graduate of Yale Law School. She began her legal career at the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office from 2017 to 2018, where she built wage-theft cases against companies including the trucking company California Cartage and car wash employers, work that led to settlements returning money to workers, including undocumented car wash workers who had been paid as little as $4.50 an hour. She later worked at the law firm O'Melveny & Myers, where she served as outside counsel for Los Angeles County in more than a dozen legal actions challenging the first Trump administration, including cases involving DACA, temporary protected status, and the use of public funds by undocumented immigrants. She has served on the boards of the ACLU of Southern California and LA Forward, worked with the Public Rights Project advising local governments on constitutional issues, and served as political director for Ysabel Jurado's Los Angeles City Council campaign. She currently works as a consumer-protection attorney in California Attorney General Rob Bonta's Department of Justice, where she has litigated cases against large technology companies and says she recently won a judgment of about half a million dollars protecting tenants from an abusive landlord.
Positions in brief
Roy's platform centers on suing employers over wage theft and landlords over tenant harassment, defending Los Angeles against federal immigration enforcement, reducing spending on outside law firms, and shifting public-safety strategy away from criminalization.
Roy says the City Attorney has state-law power to sue businesses that break the law or harm residents, and would use that power to take employers to court over unpaid wages and overtime, and to sue landlords who harass tenants or refuse repairs. She says she would put the office's litigation power to work defending immigrants, pledging to fight in court against the Trump administration, ICE, and companies she says enable federal immigration enforcement. On public safety, she says she wants to use every available tool to prevent harm and break cycles of criminalization rather than rely mainly on prosecution, and to invest in approaches with a track record of working. On the office's finances, she says she would rebuild in-house legal staff and reduce the office's reliance on costly outside law firms, arguing that better management would keep resources from being pulled away from core city services. She has also said the office should use its power to hold landlords accountable for illegal evictions as a way to help prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.
On the issues
- Economy & Jobs
Supports using the City Attorney's power to sue employers over wage theft and unpaid overtime.
“when workers aren't paid at least minimum wage or work unpaid overtime, we take the corporate bosses to court for wage theft”
Source → - Housing & Homelessness
Supports suing landlords who harass tenants or refuse to make repairs.
“When renters in L.A. are harassed and refused repairs, we sue the slumlords.”
Source → - Immigration & Border
Supports using the City Attorney's Office to challenge federal immigration enforcement and defend immigrant residents in court.
“we take the fight directly to Trump, ICE, and the corporations enabling them”
Source → - Public Safety & Policing
Wants to address public safety through prevention and break cycles of criminalization rather than relying mainly on prosecution.
“I will get serious about safety, using every tool in our toolbox to address and prevent harm, break cycles of criminalization”
Source → - Taxes & Cost of Living
Wants to reduce the office's reliance on costly outside law firms and rebuild its in-house legal staff.
“I will invest in our city workforce and manage taxpayer dollars effectively so that resources aren't being pulled from vital city services”
Source →
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