Los-Angeles Mayoral Primary Election — Candidate Comparison
This page presents a side-by-side comparison of candidate priorities and promises in the Los-Angeles mayoral primary election.
Candidates:
- Austin Beutner (Democratic) — Candidate in the California mayoral primary election
- Karen Bass (Democratic) — Candidate in the California mayoral primary election
Candidate Priorities and Promises in the Primary Election
The table below compares the publicly stated priorities and promises of candidates competing in the primary election. Information is compiled from official campaign websites, public statements, and other verifiable sources to help voters understand where candidates stand on key issues.
Achievements
Score: / 22 Austin Beutner:
Austin Beutner is a problem solver who’s spent the past 17 years helping to make life better for people across Los Angeles. He authored the Proposition 28 arts education ballot measure, founded the nonprofit Vision to Learn, served as Superintendent of the LA Unified School District, was Publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union Tribune, served as First Deputy Mayor and was CEO of Evercore, a publicly-traded company that he founded. After sustaining serious injuries in a mountain biking accident, he stepped away from business and has devoted the past 17 years to public service and social entrepreneurship in Los Angeles. Austin recently authored and led a coalition to pass a statewide initiative, Proposition 28, which creates funding to hire additional arts...
Score: / 22 Karen Bass:
Mayor Karen Bass is getting it done for Los Angeles. Street homelessness is down nearly 20% since Mayor Bass took office Homicides are on track to be the lowest on record since 1968 LA’s fire cleanup was the fastest cleanup in U.S. history according to disaster experts Accelerating the building of more than 30,000 units of affordable housing Continuing the City’s environmental leadership on the world stage and hit the 100,000 new green jobs goal a year ahead of schedule Businesses secured $18 million in funding assistance over the last two years Helped advocate for the revitalization of the California Film and TV Tax Credit to support our legacy industry
Priority 1
Score: / 22 Austin Beutner:
Making LA More Affordable: Rents and housing costs are too high. Good-paying jobs are hard to find. And the cost of everyday expenses keeps going up, from daycare, to parking, to food. It’s hard to survive in LA on a... Housing Costs: Housing costs are the largest expense for almost every family in Los Angeles. 59% of renter households in ... Utilities and City Fees: City government plays a role in many living expenses, including utilities and services that it provides directly.
Score: / 22 Karen Bass:
Mayor Bass is standing up for all Angelenos in the face of the Trump administration’s cruel ICE raids and militarized actions that have no purpose other than to create fear, damage our economy and tear families apart.
Priority 2
Score: / 22 Austin Beutner:
Making our Communities Safer: As Mayor, my top priority will always be the health and safety of LA residents, as it was when I led LA’s Schools during the pandemic and protected hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, staff, and their families. Unfortunately, LA has become less safe under Mayor Bass... Community Safety & Policing: Under Mayor Bass, the police department solves barely 1 in 3 violent crimes and 1 in... Emergency Response: LA’s ambulance response times have become ...
Score: / 22 Karen Bass:
Priority 3
Score: / 22 Austin Beutner:
Improving City Services and Infrastructure: LA is filled with more broken streets, sidewalks and streetlights. It’s not just a nuisance; it's unsafe. The City is paying millions to settle claims from people who get hurt, but not enough to fix the problem. It currently takes ten years to repair a sidewalk. Under Mayor Bass, LA stopped repaving streets 6 months ago, and has filled 7,000 fewer potholes compared to last year. Crosswalks have gotten so bad that residents are starting to...
Score: / 22 Karen Bass:
Priority 4
Score: / 22 Austin Beutner:
Solving homelessness: More than 40,000 people in the City of Los Angeles are homeless, and 7 homeless people die every day in LA County. This is a humanitarian crisis caused by the failures of every level of government. The city is spending billions on homelessness, yet a recent RAND study suggests no progress is being made and that the city has undercounted the number of homeless by as much as 32%. A federal judge called the city’s homelessness spending a “train wreck.” The Los Angeles Home...
Score: / 22 Karen Bass:
Priority 5
Score: / 22 Austin Beutner:
Connecting Schools and City Hall to Better Serve the Community: As Mayor, I’ll connect LA schools with City Hall to provide more affordable housing, park space for kids, and help low-income families. My experience as LAUSD Superintendent will help make this possible. During the pandemic, we transformed schools into community hubs to provide more than 140 million meals to children and their families, the largest food relief effort in the nation. We also ensured that 500,000 students ...
Score: / 22 Karen Bass:
Priority 6
Score: / 22 Austin Beutner:
Increasing Access to Park Space: LA has some of the worst park access of any big city in the country, ranking 90th out of the 100 largest cities, according to The Trust for Public Lands’ Parkscore. Only 62% of LA residents live within walking distance of a park, compared with 99% in New York and 100% in San Francisco. Meanwhile, the City of LA is currently sitting on more than $100 million in unspent Quimby funds, paid by developers, to acquire more park space. These funds often go unused ...
Score: / 22 Karen Bass:
Priority 7
Score: / 22 Austin Beutner:
Building Affordable Housing: LA Schools are the largest landowner in the City. As Mayor, I will work with LAUSD to use some of this land to create apartments for school staff and the community. There are more than 50 public school campuses that have more than 20 acres of land. A small apartment building can fit on less than a quarter acre, using less than 2% of the land on these campuses. On schools across the city, we’ll be able to create 2,000 - 4,000 new units of affordable housing
Score: / 22 Karen Bass:
Priority 8
Score: / 22 Austin Beutner:
Services to Save Money for Low-Income Families: Many families that are eligible for government assistance programs and utility discounts aren’t signed up because they aren’t aware of these programs. As Mayor, once we know that a family is struggling to get by, we’ll help them in every way that we can. When families are enrolling their kids at school, we’ll work with LAUSD to automatically sign them up for low income discounts for essential services, such as DWP’s EZ-Save and Metro’s LIFE ...
Score: / 22 Karen Bass:
Promise 1
Score: / 22 Austin Beutner:
Score: / 22 Karen Bass:
My promise to every family in the Palisades is simple: we will not stop until everyone who wants to return is back home. @MayorOfLA Wed, 22 Oct 2025
Promise 2
Score: / 22 Austin Beutner:
Score: / 22 Karen Bass:
To Ms. Jewel Thais-Williams: We thank you. We honor you. And we promise to carry your legacy forward. @MayorOfLA Tue, 29 Jul 2025
Promise 3
Score: / 22 Austin Beutner:
Score: / 22 Karen Bass:
My Day One promise to Angelenos was to protect every resident. [...] We will continue doing everything possible to protect every Angeleno. @MayorOfLA Mon, 21 Apr 2025
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