The Brief

A teachers union endorsement has been a powerful, but not invincible, force in Los Angeles school board elections.

An endorsement from United Teachers Los Angeles typically brings money and the people-power of 35,000 members. Since January, educators dressed in the union's signature red, armed with stacks of door-hangers, have canvassed the city, knocking on doors every weekend in competitive districts.

Echo Park elementary school educators Betsy Ures and Emily Ponce joined more than a hundred fellow members at the union’s headquarters near Koreatown last month to spread the word about the union-backed candidate in Board District 5, Karla Griego.

“I actually really enjoy knocking doors, talking to regular working people and hearing about their experiences with LAUSD,” Ures said.

Candidates endorsed by UTLA have a significant edge — since 2015, 63% have won their school board races.

And when an endorsed candidate missteps, it also draws scrutiny to the union. That was the case last week when UTLA’s choice for Board District 1, Kahllid Al-Alim, was revealed to have made antisemitic remarks online.

The power behind an endorsement

Ures and Ponce started teaching at the school around the same time, went on strike together in 2019, and navigated remote learning during the early years of the pandemic.

“I don't think people realize how much you know children are dealing with,” Ponce said.

For example, more Los Angeles families are being evicted than before the pandemic. A higher rate of students are reporting persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. An estimated 32,000 California youth experienced the death of a parent or caregiver from COVID-19.

Ures and Ponce’s pitch for Griego as the “teacher’s choice” included her almost 20 years as a special education teacher — she would be the first such educator on the board — and that she’s the parent of a teenage student.

“She's a really great advocate for teachers and for students,” Ponce said at one door.

This year, the union endorsed candidates in three of LAUSD’s four open races.

• In Board District 1: Community organizer and parent Kahllid Al-Alim. 
• In Board District 3: Incumbent former principal and teacher Scott Schmerelson. 
• In Board District 5: Special education teacher Karla Griego
• In Board District 7: No endorsement. Incumbent Tanya Ortiz Franklin is running against Long Beach educator Lydia Gutiérrez.

Griego is one of four candidates in District 5. The others are Bell mayor and school board staffer Fidencio Joel Gallardo, parent and retired teacher Victorio R. Gutierrez and educator and Huntington Park city councilmember Graciela Ortiz.

Ortiz has been removed from her LAUSD job pending the outcome of a confidential investigation related to a civil lawsuit.

Pamphlets of Karla Griego are left on residents' doors by UTLA members. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for Laist.

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West area board directors of UTLA, Marie Germaine and Stacy Yakimowich Chavez, go door to door in the West Adams Historic neighborhood canvassing for Karla Griego. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for Laist.

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UTLA’s endorsement process takes weeks, if not months to complete. In the fall, an expanded endorsement team of members reviewed research compiled by a political consultant, interviewed candidates and submitted its recommendations to the union’s political action council, board of directors, and house of representatives who all vote on the endorsements.

UTLA chose to endorse candidates that are closely aligned with its platform, which in recent years has included workforce issues like teacher salaries and class sizes, but also housing, adding more green space to campuses, defunding school police and creating restorative justice programs.

One of the school board’s primary responsibilities is to determine how to allocate an annual operating budget of $9 billion.

“The [district] budget reflects the values of our school district and the school board members determine that budget,” Ures said. “It's not just like we need someone on the board with our values in mind. It's also, we need someone on the board, who has a movement behind them, who can help inform the candidates once they become members.”

Teacher working conditions, student learning conditions

UTLA allies regained majority control of the LAUSD board in 2022 after charter advocates tipped the scales in favor of the independently run, publicly funded schools in 2017.

LAUSD elections broke spending records in 2017; the campaigns and outside fundraisers spent $17 million in support of — and opposition to— candidates for three board seats. Though overall spending dipped in 2022, LAUSD races continue to attract millions of dollars from outside funders, an anomaly in school political races.

“The thing about philanthropists and corporate interests is that the focus of what issues they get excited about changes from election to election,” said Michael Hartney, a political scientist and Hoover fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. “Teachers unions are perennially powerful because they are largely focused on the education issue.”

Hartney evaluated California, New York and Florida school board elections between 1995 and 2020 and found union-backed candidates won 7 out of 10 seats.

Educators make the case that better working conditions for teachers create better learning conditions for students. The message seems to work most of the time.

“Voters perceived that the union-backed candidate would do a better job than the non-union-backed candidate,” Hartney said of a study that asked people to evaluate a fictitious match up between two candidates, one with and one without teachers’ endorsement.

Whether electing educators themselves — or candidates who’ve won their endorsement — makes a difference on academic outcomes is harder to determine.

One study based in California found when an educator serves on the school board, teacher salaries rise and charter school enrollment declines. Average test scores and high school graduation rates do not change.

Universally, unions seek to improve the working conditions of its members.

“That may benefit students, but there are also instances we can point to where the union is, by necessity, going to have to fight for things that are good for school employees that may not be in the best interest of all students,” Hartney said.

Hartney pointed to the first years of the pandemic when teachers unions’, including UTLA, pushed back on plans to reopen schools to in-person learning. Student attendance, reading, and math test scores have yet to rebound, though some research shows states where schools reopened earlier didn’t have significantly higher academic outcomes.

Turning out parents

Primary elections typically have a lower turnout than the general election and as of Feb. 24, 7% of California voters had returned their ballots.

Hartney said when turnout is low, teachers, their families, and others in their network can sway the election outcome.

“Parents have an incentive to vote and participate in school board elections, but their interest really declines after their kids graduate from the local schools and move on,” Hartney said.

Many of the people teachers Ures and Ponce talked to in Koreatown readily admitted they had little awareness of the upcoming school board election, but there were exceptions.

“I actually moved here after my school years, but I'd like to at least stay up in the local,” said Jerin Haynes.

Haynes said he remembered getting lost in the shuffle of overcrowded classrooms growing up and wants to see Black and brown students have access to books that reflect their identities.

“Just because you don't have the kids in the room does not mean that that generation won't affect your vote, your welfare, their welfare, your kids welfare,” Haynes said. “It's all connected. It's all community. It's all network. So you have to literally try and it starts by one vote.”

Could the union lose Board District 1?

In mid-February, screenshots alleging Board District 1 Candidate Kahllid Al-Alim liked dozens of anti-semitic and sexually explicit posts from private, pre-campaign social media accounts began circulating online.

In the post that sparked the most backlash, Al-Alim wrote that an antisemitic and academically debunked book should be made “mandatory” reading for students in LAUSD schools serving high-need and Black students.

“What he is suggesting doesn't align with union values,” said Educators Caucus for Israel Chair Amy Leserman. “What he is suggesting does not align with district values and somebody who has these values should not be making decisions about students. Period.”

The caucus is made up of educators and advocates, and amplified screenshots of Al-Alim’s social media activity. Its members have called on Al-Alim to quit the race.

UTLA suspended its campaign for Al-Alim after that social media activity resurfaced last week. A final vote to rescind the union’s endorsement is scheduled for Monday, March 4, one day before the primary election. It’s unclear whether the controversy will doom Al-Alim’s campaign and overshadow the union’s other endorsements.

Al-Alim initially apologized in a brief three-paragraph statement on his campaign website Feb. 20 and expanded his response in a video published online Sunday.

“I am sorry for amplifying these dangerous ideas,” Al-Alim said. “I understand that doing so has harmed people and undermined the vital collective work we are doing to advance justice for all people, expand educational funding in LAUSD, and protect public schools.”

Al-Alim agreed to be available to talk with parents, educators, and community members, and to participate in training about countering antisemitism.

United Teachers Los Angeles decorate the walls with UTLA posteres. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for Laist.

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Assembly Democratic Caucus Chair Rick Chavez Zbur, LAUSD Board President Jackie Goldberg and Board Member Rocío Rivas are among those who have called for the longtime community organizer to withdraw from the race. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor announced on Feb. 23 that it would no longer campaign for Al-Alim and that its members will discuss whether to withdraw the endorsement completely.

“As a Jewish educator, I was really hurt to see some of the antisemitic content on his Twitter posts,” said Echo Park first grade teacher Hannah Day. “Antisemitism has no place in our movement for the schools that L.A. students deserve or any movement for social, racial, or economic justice. Nor does any other form of racism or discrimination.”

Day is a member of UTLA’s expanded endorsement team and said she supported suspending the campaign while union members decide how to move forward, but that she still supports Al-Alim’s candidacy.

“The only way we're ever going to fight off privatization, build the schools our students deserve, is if we…address these harmful ideologies within our movement and outside in the world, and work together in solidarity with one another,” Day said.

Before the news about the posts broke, teachers unions, including UTLA, had already spent $650,000 supporting Al-Alim’s candidacy.

Charter school advocates and other outside donors spent $377,000 to support Didi Watts, a longtime educator and chief of staff for current LAUSD Board Member Tanya Ortiz Franklin.

We won’t know definitively how the late development shaped last-minute fundraising or opposition ads until after the primary.

At least one candidate referenced the controversy in an emailed campaign update. “I stand against discrimination in any form that would deny any of our students access to a high quality education,” wrote Sherlett Hendy Newbill, who’s been endorsed by four sitting board members. “That's why we have to keep Kahllid Al-Alim off the school board and away from our children.”

One outstanding question is whether— or how— UTLA was unaware of Al-Alim’s social media activity.

Day said a review of the candidates’ social media was not included in the research provided to the union’s expanded endorsement team.

“I think this was an oversight and I think we're learning from this experience,” Day said.

Dan Shimell, an attorney and a new face in local politics, is Santa Ana’s next mayor after a shocking win against incumbent Valerie Amezcua. His win has become one of the most surprising upsets in Orange County’s general election and marks a shift for a city that previously elected its first Latina mayor.

Amezcua congratulated Shimell on social media late Monday night after the last round of election results nearly doubled Shimell’s lead. As of Tuesday night, Shimell held a 5-point lead over Amezcua. Amezcua did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment.

“It has been the honor of my life to serve the people of Santa Ana,” Amezcua said in a post. “Together, we have accomplished great things. We invested in our neighborhoods, expanded opportunity for families, and strengthened the services that make Santa Ana home. Our work was never about one person. It was about all of us moving this community forward.”

Aside from Shimell, progressives Sandra de Anda and Isuri S. Ramos are also projected to win City Council seats, deepening the Santa Ana City Council’s progressive bench.

A flashpoint in Amezcua’s re-election campaign was during the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that rattled much of Southern California, including Santa Ana, Orange County’s only sanctuary city. The raids sparked protests that drew a heavy law enforcement response from Santa Ana police, including rubber bullets and tear gas.

In Amezcua’s first public response, she accused protesters of inciting chaos and violence. She later walked back her comments in a city statement, saying most protesters were demonstrating peacefully and that she did not support the raids.

Shimell told LAist he thinks Santa Ana voters, especially young and first-time voters, went to the polls to vote for those who can't.

“Those who have been or might in the future be impacted by immigration policy and enforcement,” Shimell added. “Taking a bold stance on immigration and police accountability seemed to resonate with voters I spoke with, and stood in stark contrast to the [police]-backed candidates who remained largely silent on those issues.”

What does this say about Santa Ana politics? 

Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento served as mayor of the city from 2020 to 2022, and his current district includes Santa Ana. Sarmiento told LAist that the results were surprising but reflected the change voters want to see in their elected officials.

“I think the underlying message is that money and establishment conventional politics no longer is the formula to success in a campaign in the city,” Sarmiento said. “It's really the influence of people and voters over money. That's really the theme here.”

Santa Ana City Councilmember Thai Viet Phan told LAist that the race results were somewhat surprising — but spoke to a larger trend.

“[In] the election results throughout the country … you saw a very leftward shift, with not just candidates but also just how voters voted,” Phan said. “I think that was reflected here in Santa Ana on the council.”

Amezcua outspent Shimell — by a lot

Shimell raised about $28,500 in his campaign for mayor. Amezcua raised more than $75,000 and received more than $200,000 in outside support — more than half of that came from the Santa Ana Police Officers Association.

Mike Moodian, a public policy professor at Chapman University, told LAist that in many ways, the races capture the zeitgeist of Santa Ana.

“Here we saw that there was a police union-backed group, and there was a resistance to that,” Moodian said. “People might have seen the incumbent mayor as part of a police union-backed establishment."

He explained that voters may have looked at Shimell as a fresh face who can represent more people and that the city is experiencing a deeper progressive shift.

“I find the residents of Santa Ana tend to be much more involved and engaged in local politics than most other cities in Orange County. So you also have a well-informed, engaged citizenry that showed up, and the voices were heard in Santa Ana,” Moodian said.

Moodian said Amezcua may have lost support from some voters because they were unsatisfied with her response to immigration enforcement.

What’s next?

Ballots are still being counted. The OC Registrar of Voters posts updates every day, except Sundays, at 5 p.m. Election results will be certified by Dec. 3. You can find updates on key measures and other races here.

For seven years, Nazmul Chaudhry has been trying to get the city of Los Angeles to fix a broken sidewalk in front of his store.

Chaudhry owns Deshi Food, a restaurant and grocery store in Little Bangladesh. Before I could even begin our interview, he led me to the front of his store to show me the sidewalk that pedestrians sidestep and electric scooter riders slow down around.

He said he’s tried to get the attention of city officials, but nothing has been done.

The broken sidewalk in front of Nazmul Chaudhry's shop in Little Bangladesh.

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He’s hoping that will soon change. He said then-candidate Nithya Raman spent time in the historic enclave just north of Koreatown this fall, talking with community members about their problems. For the first time since he moved to the United States in 1989, Chaudhry is excited about a mayoral election.

“Everybody's happy because we've never seen anyone [come] like that directly to us,” Chaudhry said.

Mayor-elect Raman is of Indian descent and an immigrant. When she takes office, she will be the first South Asian mayor of Los Angeles. Chaudhry is proud of that distinction. But what means more to him is that Raman spent time walking the streets of Little Bangladesh, visiting businesses and speaking to community members about their concerns. Chaudhry said that, because of that, he asked all his customers and family members to vote for Raman. At dinner parties, Chaudhry said, Bengalis would share how they were excited to vote for Raman in this election.

Nazmul Chaudhry and one of his customers, Mohamed Hassen. They both voted for Nithya Raman for mayor.

In the Little Bangladesh area, vote returns to date show Raman with a 2-to-1 margin over Mayor Karen Bass.

 "Hopefully she's gonna take care of the city," Chaudhry said.

His business has been hit hard after federal immigration raids ramped up in Southern California. People are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being taken by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And for those who do come to his store, he said, they are met with increased prices because of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump's administration on imported goods.

Nazmul Chaudry offers a lunch buffet at his restaurant but he has seen a drop in foot traffic after ICE raids ramped up.

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"Everybody's suffering actually these days," Chaudhry said. “If you see, Nov. 3 is a huge change because people [are] fed up."

Chaudhry also said city services don’t do a good job keeping the streets clean. So he takes it upon himself to pick up trash in front of his shop.

A few weeks before Election Day, Raman posted a social media video from Little Bangladesh addressing the trash along the street.

His relatives in New York told Chaudhry that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, also of Indian descent, has “changed the whole city.” He’s hoping for some of that change in Los Angeles when Raman takes office in December.

Shift away from identity politics

While Raman’s Indian background was a feature of her campaign, it was “not the central thesis,” said Sara Sadhwani,  an associate professor of politics at Pomona College and a senior researcher with AAPI Data.

In 2020, when Kamala Harris, also of Indian descent, was running for vice president, Sadhwani said, she conducted research on Indian Americans who wanted to see more representation in politics. In 2024, some of them turned away from Harris.

“When the economy is bad, identity slips away as the top issue on someone's mind,” she said.

Identity politics, Sadhwani said, was important in 2008 when the nation elected the first Black president, Barack Obama.

Los Angeles mayor-elect Nithya Raman poses for a photograph with family members after casting her vote on Election Day during the midterm elections at the Silverlake Community Church.

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“ We're ushering in a new political generation of millennials and Gen Z; diversity is just expected at this point amongst a vast majority of Americans,” she said, highlighting how at the last census more people identified as multiracial.

Nationally too, Sadhwani said, thec ountry is seeing a shift. South Asians have gone from “model minority” to “governing minority.”

”The old script was that for Indian Americans, for South Asians, that being that quiet professional is what success meant,” she said. “When we look at Raman and also Mamdani, they're fighting for executive power in very visible, very messy city politics, and they won not by following the rules, but they won by challenging the status quo.”

South Asians as a political force

That idea resonates with Faizah Malik, managing attorney for housing justice at Public Counsel and a former L.A. City Council candidate.

“When we were growing up, our parents said, ‘Just keep your head down, go to school, get educated, make a nice life for your family, and that's it,’” she said. “Politics was not really part of the conversation, but I think what we're seeing is that we can run for office, we can win by being our full selves.”

This is an exciting time, she said, for “South Asian political empowerment,” with Raman set to join Mamdani in leading the country’s two largest cities.

Malik said that, as a housing advocate, she cares about Raman’s fight “to build more housing around the city that people can afford, her fight to keep renters in their homes, to prevent homelessness, her fight to try and really solve our homelessness crisis but also be efficient with our public dollars.”

Nikita Chaudhry, an actor and political organizer, wants to see Raman revitalize L.A.’s film industry, “to call the city the home of Hollywood again.”

“Having that kind of representation and knowing that it exists is really exciting because I think and hope it will activate South Asian Americans of all ages to get more involved in their communities,” Chaudhry said.

Raman's and Mamdani’s victories were years in the making, Chaudhry said: from organizing in their communities to holding other elected positions to engaging voters who are otherwise ignored by elected officials. And she hopes that it will inspire other South Asians to become more involved in their communities.

“If you're feeling activated, if you're feeling excited, that's great," she said. "Take that energy and the time and the skills and the specificity of what fires you up towards your local organization, towards your neighborhood, towards your community.”

As the race to represent L.A.’s Council District 9 remains too close to call, candidate Estuardo Mazariegos’ campaign has accused the campaign of Jose Ugarte, the front-runner, of potential ballot tampering.

The Mazariegos campaign made the accusations Monday, saying it had filed a complaint with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. In a press release, the campaign alleged that representatives for the Ugarte campaign had collected voters’ ballots to drop off without signing the appropriate line identifying the individual who returned the ballot.

In one case, Mazariegos’ team accused Ugarte campaigners of filling out a ballot on a voter’s behalf without her knowledge of who she was voting for.

“Taking people’s ballots, filling them out, and not following legal voter assistance guidelines in a district that has faced so much disenfranchisement is disgusting,” Mazariegos said in a statement.

Mike Sanchez, a spokesperson for the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, said his office had forwarded the news release to the district attorney for review. He also pointed to the California Elections Code, which says that a “ballot shall not be disqualified solely because the person authorized to return it did not provide on the identification envelope their name or signature.”

Under California law, a voter can authorize another person to return their mail-in ballot — an approach also called ballot harvesting.

Justin Levitt, a  professor of constitutional law at Loyola Marymount University, told AirTalk Tuesday that there is no legal limit on the number of ballots an individual can turn in on others’ behalf, so long as they aren’t being compensated per ballot returned.

“Even if there were some sort of administrative wrongdoing, as long as there's no indication of fraud with the ballot itself, those ballots will all be counted,” he said.

Levitt said, however, that signing a ballot and then handing it to someone else to fill out would be illegal.

“ To the extent that there are allegations now that the DA may investigate, I suspect that's what they'll be focusing on,” Levitt continued.

The Mazariegos campaign also sent a collection of photos to the press, including one of a campaigner, USC student Amir King, returning a stack of ballots at a ballot drop box.

The Mazariegos campaign alleged that representatives for the Ugarte campaign had collected voters’ ballots to drop off without signing the appropriate line identifying the individual who returned the ballot.

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Ugarte’s campaign responded to the accusations by pointing to a post by King on Instagram in which he accused the Mazariegos campaign of bullying him and making false claims about him.

“Why is he attacking me? For participating in our democracy, as is my right under California state law and for helping others participate in democracy, as is their right under California state law,” King said in the post.

As of Tuesday morning, just under 300 ballots separate Ugarte and Mazariegos, with 44,000 ballots left to count in L.A. County. It’s not clear how many ballots in Council District 9 are left to count.