Pelosi-Bass Love Fest at Getty House

Good morning and welcome to LA on the Record, our City Hall newsletter. This is Julia Wick.

A few hours after the speech in the Senate. Diane FeinsteinFuneral in San Francisco on Thursday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi swapped her dark suit for a white sequined shirt and joined another longtime friend on stage in a Los Angeles backyard.

Event at the Getty House, Mayor Karen Bassofficial residence, was a long-planned celebration in honor of Pelosi, with whom Bass spent 12 years serving alongside her in the House of Representatives.

More than half the city’s elected officials, a long list of department heads and various other commissioners, consultants and donors gathered in an open tent on the Getty House tennis court.

Singer-songwriter and unofficial house band of the Democratic Party. John Legend could write his sultry love song “Wonder Woman” for his wife. Chrissy Teigen, but this evening it was performed as “a tribute to Madam Speaker,” Legend said.

As Legend began crooning on a black piano, a resident of the Windsor Square mansion next door to the mayor’s home opened an upstairs window to better hear the performance in the backyard.

Sitting in the front row next to Pelosi, Bass nodded to the music.

In the back of the tent is the Los Angeles Fire Chief. Christine Crowley was one of many attendees holding a cell phone to film Legend’s two-song performance.

That the party still succeeded on such a dark day and during a week of unprecedented upheaval in California politics speaks to Pelosi’s deep relationship with Bass.

The Los Angeles mayor’s connections and relationships with federal authorities were a key selling point during her campaign, and those same connections helped her succeed on behalf of the city. (One recent example be a successful pusher change the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s request that stopped housing for the homeless in Los Angeles)

Much of the evening’s program was the Bass-Pelosi mutual admiration society.

Referring to but not directly naming the recently ousted House speaker, Bass compared Pelosi’s leadership to that of Rep. Bakersfield. Kevin McCarthyanother longtime political buddy of the mayor.

“What we have witnessed this week – chaos, disrespect for leadership, disregard for the national and international consequences of an internal war that has been demonstrated to the whole world – will never, ever happen under the leadership of Madam Speaker. Bass said to boos and applause. “I’m right?”

Bass also praised Pelosi’s legislative accomplishments and said that “she essentially had to act as commander in chief while Trump sat in the White House and cheered the vicious attack on our democracy” on January 6, 2021.

Pelosi praised Bass, noting the leadership skills she brought to Washington after serving as speaker of the California Assembly and serving on committees.

Her husband, Paul Pelosi he “almost never” wants to join her at events, but he was willing to come to this one because it was with Bass, Pelosi said.

Game State

— FEINSTEIN’S SUCCESSOR: After being appointed governor. Gavin Newsomeformer trade union leader Lafonza Butler was sworn in as California’s new senator. The short-term replacement has brought two critical questions to the forefront of the state’s political scene: Will Butler run for a full Senate term in next year’s election? And if she does, how seriously will it affect the race?

— OLD SCANDAL, NEW (POSSIBLE) CONSEQUENCES: Los Angeles Ethics Commission charges council member John Lee about a series of government ethics violations related to a trip to Las Vegas he took with a former Council member Mitchell Englander six years ago.

The same trip played an important role in the case against Englander, who was serving a prison sentence for lying during a federal investigation. Federal prosecutors have never accused Lee of wrongdoing.

Commission documents also publicly refer to Lee as “City Employee B,” an anonymous figure in the government’s indictment against Englander. (Lee had been believed to be Employee B for many years, but this was the first time this had been publicly confirmed.)

— A LONG WAY TO CITY CITY REFORM: After months of meetings and discussions, the City Council’s Select Committee on Government Reform approved its first concrete proposal, which would create an independent commission to redistrict the city.

— THE NEW KING OF HOMELESSNESS: Mayoral Homelessness Services Director Karen Bass Mercedes Marquezwill leave his top post next month along with the public housing official. Lourdes Castro Ramirez intends to become her successor. Marquez was expected to retire before the end of the year, and in a news release Monday, the mayor’s office described Castro Ramirez’s appointment as a “planned transition due to federal regulations regarding retirees.” Castro Ramirez will begin work on November 6.

— YES, DEAL? City controller Kenneth Mejia is calling for an urgent reboot of the city’s Green New Deal over concerns that the 2019 climate plan has outlived its usefulness and lacks the transparency needed to accurately measure its results.

— 41.18 ARRESTS: Another Mejia report released this week shows that the number of arrests under the city’s controversial anti-camping law (often called 41.18 in reference to the section of the Municipal Code it replaced) continues to rise. The report said the law was “unevenly enforced across council districts and had little bearing on the number of homeless people in each council district.”

— HOW NOT TO BREAK THE LAW: Council members Katie Yaroslavskaya And Nitya Raman this week made a motion to consider creating an Office of Compliance that would actively assist council members in identifying potential conflicts of interest in upcoming City Council and committee agendas. (As you may recall, Council Member Current price earlier this year he was criminally charged for, among other things, violating conflict of interest laws.)

—VICTORY MRI: Veteran of Los Angeles politics Mark Ridley Thomas – who was due to begin serving a 3.5-year prison sentence next month – has been granted his request to remain in prison while he appeals his sentence.

— WHAT DOES CARUSO DO? After a race in which his Democratic bona fides (or lack thereof) became the subject of significant controversy, the former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso is investing money to target California Republicans and boost its party reputation.

Politico reports that Caruso “has vowed to rush into five California congressional districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020 and that are now held by Republicans.” Whether such support will be a precursor to Caruso applying for public office again remains to be seen.

Quick hits

• Where is the “Internal Safe” located? The mayor’s program to combat homelessness was in Councilman John Lee’s district, and was held this week near the intersection of Devonshire Street and Balboa Boulevard in Granada Hills.

• Plans for next week: Monday is Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a city holiday.