The Brief

In May, residents of 577 apartments in Barrington Plaza, an imposing complex of three towers near the UCLA campus, received eviction notices. It would be the largest eviction from rent-controlled housing in Los Angeles in at least four decades.

When the evictions were announced, Barrington Plaza’s owner, Douglas Emmett Inc., said in a news release that was part of a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that residents needed to move out in order for it to make fire safety upgrades required by the city of Los Angeles. There have been two fires at the complex, in 2013 and 2020. After the 2020 fire, the city declared eight of the floors of one of the towers unfit for occupancy.

The owner said the city made its approval of a permit to restore the fire-damaged floors contingent “upon the installation of sprinklers and other life safety equipment.” The safety improvements, including installing sprinklers, “cannot be accomplished without vacating all three towers,” the company news release said. The work “can take several years at a cost of over $300 million,” the news release added.

The company continued to cite the city requirements as the reason for the evictions to the City Council and its investors, and news stories reported it as a fact.

But a city spokesperson said there are no such requirements. When contacted by Capital & Main, the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety said it has not mandated the work the building owner said was required. “No enhancements were requested or required by LADBS,” Department of Building and Safety spokesperson Gail Gaddi said in an email response to questions.

The city requires the installation of fire sprinklers in residential towers built after 1974, but Barrington Plaza was completed in 1961, well before then. “The building’s age pre-dates required sprinkler installation,” Gaddi said.

If the fire safety renovations are not in fact required, the company has misinformed the public about the reason for the mass eviction. Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, an organization supporting the tenants in a lawsuit to block the evictions, said the revelation that the city disputes the company’s claims “will hopefully give more of our elected officials, city council and city attorney the courage to speak out and denounce Douglas Emmett for these clearly unjust evictions.”

The company maintains that its costly fire safety upgrades are required by the city. “We stand by all previous comments and all filings with the SEC,” spokesperson Eric Rose told Capital & Main in an email.

When asked directly about the city’s statement that no fire safety work is required because of the age of the building, Rose declined to provide evidence of those requirements, citing pending litigation.

Barrington Plaza’s owner filed a lawsuit against its insurers in early October in which it argued that the L.A. Department of Building and Safety issued “a directive that Barrington include a code-compliant sprinkler system in all three towers at Barrington Plaza.” The lawsuit also noted that the Los Angeles Fire Department “advised Barrington that it must install fire sprinklers at Barrington Plaza.” Fire department officials did not respond to requests for comment.

In the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Barrington Pacific LLC, the Douglas Emmett subsidiary that owns the complex, claimed that more than a dozen of its insurance companies pressured the city to drop safety requirements for the repair work in order to avoid a substantial payout. The suit claims the insurance companies contacted fire and building officials “on multiple occasions in recent months in an effort to convince them to retract or soften their directives relating to the installation of a sprinkler system at Barrington Plaza.”

Tenants and their advocates said the evictions are part of a strategy to pave the way for a high-end apartment complex that can command significantly higher rents.

“This is going to be premiere property on the Westside, three state of the art high-rises with all the amenities,” said Robert Lawrence, a Barrington Plaza tenant who faces a May 2024 move-out date. “They’re going to charge, you know, double or triple the rents.” Lawrence currently pays $2,400 per month for his one-bedroom apartment.

The planning department approved the exterior remodeling plans with little fanfare on May 11, a few days after the eviction notices were served to the tenants.

Those plans include new amenities such as balconies, lush landscaped gardens, glazed windows, a state-of-the-art gym, updated storefronts and a refurbished pool area complete with cabanas. The proposed new name, “Landmark Plaza,” aligns Barrington Plaza with its more luxurious neighbor, a Douglas Emmett tower called “The Landmark.” That 34-story apartment building leases 607-square-foot studio apartments for monthly rents ranging between $3,800 and $5,000.

More than 50 people protested outside the corporate office of their landlord, Douglas Emmett Inc., in Santa Monica on Thursday, Aug. 10.

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In May, Douglas Emmett invoked the Ellis Act, which allows landlords to evict rent-controlled tenants if their apartments will no longer be used as rental housing. Owners can in the future return those units to the rental market, under certain conditions and sometimes penalties.

The company said on its Ellis Act application that it is undecided as to the property’s future use. “At this time, the owners of Barrington Plaza are removing the units from the market and have options as to how those units will change, be rehabilitated through new life safety measures or become something different,” Rose said in an email. He would not say what those options were. Most tenants left in September, but 170 tenants who are at least 62 years old or have a disability have until May 8, 2024, to depart.

Tenants filed a lawsuit against Douglas Emmett in Los Angeles County Superior Court in May to block the initial evictions, which began in early September. The judge denied a request for a preliminary injunction as the lawsuit makes its way through the court. The dispute with tenants centers on conflicting interpretations of the Ellis Act. The tenants argue that the 1985 state law is designed for landlords who intend to permanently remove apartments from the rental market. Douglas Emmett, meanwhile, asserts that the Ellis Act does not address the landlord’s intentions, and that the years-long building renovation justifies its use. There has been little attention paid to Douglas Emmett’s widely publicized claim that city mandates prompted the landlord to invoke the law in the first place.

In fact, the insurance companies’ intervention in the Barrington Plaza’s permitting process is long-standing. Back in August 2020, an engineering firm acting on their behalf submitted a report to building officials arguing that the three towers should not fall under the city’s fire sprinkler law, according to a Capital & Main review of the Department of Building and Safety’s internal emails.

In June 2022, Joe Vo, a structural engineering assistant at the department, concurred with their conclusions, writing to an engineer at the firm, “under my permit review, I will not be asking for fire sprinklers” unless the building will be used as a gathering place for large numbers of people.

Fire safety experts supported installing fire sprinklers in the towers. In the 2020 fire, the second in seven years, 13 people were injured, and a college foreign exchange student died.

But some said that adding fire sprinklers to the buildings can be done at a lower cost and with less disruption than the approach planned for Barrington Plaza. “I’ve just never heard of such a thing that they have to evacuate all three buildings,” said Todd Golden, business manager for Sprinkler Fitters U.A. Local Union 709. “It’s not part of what we do,” he added. Even if the job is more disruptive, occupants can temporarily be housed in hotels or in a building’s empty apartments, said Golden, who is an experienced sprinkler installer and was invited by a tenant to tour the complex last summer.

Golden estimated the cost of installing fire sprinklers at $10 million for each tower, for a total of $30 million.

Golden’s cost estimate is in line with that of Adel Salah-Eddine, now assistant chief in the Building and Safety Department’s Permit and Engineering Bureau. Eddine sought an estimate from an engineering firm for adding sprinklers and other fire safety upgrades to one of the three towers in 2021. The cost ranged from $3.5 million to $7.5 million, according to an internal department email.

But Emmett spokesperson Rose stressed that the fire safety job the company is undertaking at Barrington Plaza goes well beyond the installation of fire sprinklers, which is what is required under the city ordinance for newer buildings. Ceilings and stairwells will be rebuilt, walls demolished and replaced and utilities will be upgraded, he said. Smoke barriers will be installed around elevators, and the company will replace windows with fire-rated glass, he added.

Randy Roxson, a lawyer who serves as a consultant to the Sprinkler Fitters U.A. Local Union 709, has been advocating for a city ordinance that would require all pre-1974 high-rise apartment buildings to install sprinklers, a campaign that gained steam after the second Barrington Plaza fire. A former firefighter, Roxson applauds Douglas Emmett for undertaking the fire safety project. But he fears the widely publicized price tag and the prospect of mass evictions during a housing crisis could make city leaders shy about requiring sprinkler retrofits in older high-rise housing, he said.

Damage from a fire at the Barrington Plaza apartments is seen on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2020. A fire broke out on the sixth floor, injuring 8 people.

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Fran Campbell, an attorney who represents the Barrington Plaza Tenants Association, said tenants should be protected from eviction regardless of the scope of the fire safety work. She said that tenants covered by rent control should be housed under what’s known as a “tenant habitability plan,” which provides them temporary relocation during a disruptive renovation. “They’ve got to move people out and move them back in,” she said.

Housing advocates, meanwhile, worry that hundreds more units could be lost if landlords use the Barrington Plaza mass eviction as a playbook for how to empty rent-stabilized high-rise buildings to bring in higher-paying tenants. There are “similarly situated rent-controlled buildings that could be affected as this tactic is allowed to persist,” said Marissa Roy, a civil rights attorney who has been consulting with tenant advocates. In 2021, there were 55 high-rise residential buildings built before 1974 that still lack sprinklers because the city does not mandate them, according to the 2021 city report.

Tenants said they would be glad to live in a safer building, but they are not convinced that they should have to lose their homes as a result. About a dozen gathered around the pool on a recent day in October for coffee and pastries. The sun was bright, but many of the deck chairs were empty. Avy Jozay, who rents a one bedroom apartment for $1,800, has not found anything on the Westside to match what he has at Barrington Plaza on the Westside, where the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $3,053, according to Apartments.com. A phone repair technician, he’s currently unemployed. “I’m scared. I’m nervous,” he said.

California is considering prohibiting the fabrication and installation of artificial-stone countertops — effectively banning the products — in response to an epidemic of the fatal lung disease silicosis among workers who cut, grind and polish countertop slabs before they are fitted into homes and businesses.

Silicosis is caused by the inhalation of pulverized silica, one of the most common minerals on earth. Public Health Watch, LAist and Univision were the first to disclose a silicosis cluster among Southern California countertop fabrication workers in December 2022. A year later, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board adopted an emergency temporary standard that required the employers of such workers — most of whom are young, immigrant men — to suppress toxic silica dust with water and take other protective measures. That standard became permanent in December 2024.

Five months after the initial stories were released by Public Health Watch and its media partners, the California Department of Public Health had confirmed 69 cases of silicosis statewide. As of April 8, that number had grown to 542, with 29 deaths. More than half of these cases — 279 — came from Los Angeles County.

What is silica?

The silica that threatens the fabricators’ lungs comes from quartz, which is crushed and mixed with resins and pigments to make artificial stone — also known as engineered stone — a cheaper, more versatile alternative to natural stone like granite or marble. The ingredients are poured into molds, a process that allows for mass production of countertop slabs.

When a slab is cut, ground or polished in preparation for installation, a pestilent powder is released into the air and drawn into workers’ lungs, where it collects and causes slow suffocation. There is no cure for silicosis; the only procedure that can buy some victims time is a double-lung transplant, which is expensive, cumbersome and rarely prolongs life beyond 10 years.

Why is California considering banning engineered stone?

The Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board is scheduled to take video testimony from fabrication workers suffering from silicosis at its meeting Thursday in Santa Rosa. It is not expected to vote on a ban, however, any sooner than its May 21 meeting in Los Angeles.

Should California choose to ban engineered stone, it would be the first state to do so. Australia banned the material in 2024 after experiencing a silicosis outbreak that claimed an estimated 1,000 victims.

The standards board is required to respond to a petition submitted in December by the Western Occupational and Environmental Medical Association, a nonprofit that represents more than 600 physicians and other health experts in seven states. In that petition, the association asked the board to “prohibit all fabrication and installation tasks ... on engineered stone that contains more than 1% crystalline silica. This action is necessary in light of the continuing epidemic of silicosis that is causing disease and death among California fabrication workers ...” Engineered-stone countertops typically contain more than 90% crystalline silica, the most common and dangerous form of the mineral; another form, amorphous silica, is not believed to pose serious health risks.

Lawyers representing hundreds of sick workers and their families in litigation against countertop manufacturers say engineered stone cannot be handled safely.

“Artificial stone is too toxic to be safely fabricated,” said Raphael Metzger, who practices in Long Beach and won a $52.4 million jury verdict — the nation’s first — against 34 manufacturers in August 2024. “Every week I meet with about a half-dozen fabricators, many of whom have silicosis.”

“The silicosis crisis is not a failure of rules — it’s a failure of a product,” said James Nevin, based in Novato, California. The medical association’s “proposed ban works because it removes that hazard at its source. Every jurisdiction that has reduced disease has done so by eliminating crystalline silica artificial stone itself — not by pretending it can be used safely.”

Countertop manufacturers are not standing by quietly. In a March 27 letter to the standards board, Cosentino North America, part of Spain’s Cosentino Group, said, “Effective [workplace safety] standards already exist, but there are non-compliant fabrication shop owners that do not implement them and put their workers at risk.” With “the correct controls in place,” the company said, “engineered stone can be fabricated safely.”

Cal/OSHA enforces silica rule

California’s silica rule is enforced by the state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA. In a statement to Public Health Watch, a Cal/OSHA spokesperson said the agency had opened more than 140 inspections of fabrication shops since the emergency temporary standard took effect in December 2023. Those inspections unearthed more than 580 violations, the spokesperson said.

In a presentation to the standards board at its March meeting, Eric Berg, Cal/OSHA’s deputy chief for health, research and standards, said the agency had assessed a total of $1.8 million in penalties against fabrication shop owners alleged to have violated the silica rule. Stop-work orders were issued to 26 shops where dry-cutting of artificial stone — a prohibited practice — or inadequate respiratory-protection measures were observed, Berg said.

Last year, Cal/OSHA estimated that the state had 920 fabrication shops, employing some 4,600 workers.

It's unclear which way the standards board will go when the proposed ban comes up for a vote. In a February 27 letter, Chairman Joseph M. Alioto Jr. urged district attorneys in the seven counties that account for nearly 95% of the silicosis cases in California to pursue criminal charges against violators.

“Please do not be misled by the misdemeanor classification of [silica violations],” Alioto wrote. “These are no ordinary misdemeanor cases, as the science bears out. Dry-cutting on its own will result in serious injury in a majority of cases. That means that every successful misdemeanor you prosecute will shutter a violating employer and save workers’ lives.”

The medical association on whose petition the board must rule, however, argued that “education and enforcement alone will not be sufficient to curtail the escalating occupational health emergency caused by” engineered stone.

After Australia banned the material, alternatives with the same “quality, look and feel” but free of crystalline silica took its place, the petition says. If the standards board follows Australia’s lead, “it is highly likely that these safer products will be made immediately available in the California market, without significant economic consequences for fabrication businesses and their workers.”

Jim Morris is executive director and editor-in-chief of Public Health Watch, a nonprofit investigative news organization.

There’s no shortage of great coffee shops in LA. It’s maybe something we’re especially known for — L.A., after all, is home to many a viral matcha moment and Instagrammable coffee shop interior. But the city also houses several unique cafés that make your coffee break feel a little more like a break from reality.

These five coffee shops may part from tradition, but they certainly don’t fall short on the cool factor, or on quality.

Aquarela (Downtown) 

Aquarela’s stunning marble lobby was completed in 1931.

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DTLA is home to many wonderful coffee shops, but none can rival the beauty and splendor of Aquarela, a café nestled inside the marble halls of the historic CalEdison building. Here, you’ll find rare Brazilian farm-direct coffees, plus tropical smoothies and small snacks like pão de queijo (cheesy, savory bread bites). Beyond the stunning Art Deco digs, the specialty drinks are the real draw here — the Batida, a nod to the popular Brazilian cocktail, blends iced coffee with coconut, banana and condensed milk to transport you directly to the beach in Rio.

Cafe on 27 (Topanga)

Toast and views from Cafe on 27

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There’s a certain je ne sais quoi to drinking coffee while forest bathing. Cafe on 27, a treehouse-style brunch spot in Topanga Canyon, delivers this experience wonderfully. The sprawling, tree-blanketed patio opens out directly into the canyon, where verdant hills are the only thing you’ll see for miles.

Like any good treehouse would, Cafe on 27 serves organic coffees that are roasted on-site. Matcha, hot tea and freshly-squeezed orange juice are also on offer, alongside brunch staples like avocado toast, crab cake benedicts, pancakes and Nutella waffles. Note: reservations are required on weekends and holidays, and highly recommended on weekdays, otherwise expect an hour-plus wait.

Casita Basqueria (Malibu)

If you haven’t yet been to Casita Basqueria, the rustic Malibu cottage serving coffee, Basque grocery staples and often sold-out sandwiches, a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway is in order. Tucked in Surf Canyon among a small commune of artisanal retailers and workshops, Casita Basqueria makes for a wonderful weekend stop for brunch and coffee. Get there right at 11 a.m., if you can; the bocadillo sandwiches, which are made in limited quantities on fresh pan de cristal, are known to vanish within 20 minutes of opening. Sandwich offerings rotate daily, but the espresso machine can always be counted on to whip up a good latte or cappuccino.

The best time to show up to Casita Basqueria is right at 11 a.m.

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Granada (Echo Park) 

Granada’s airy digs and delicious coffee catapulted it into instant stardom.

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You could easily walk by Granada, L.A.'s newest coffee scene darling, without realizing that there’s a buzzy cafe nestled amid the towering Victorians of residential Angeleno Heights. But here it is, up an unsuspecting driveway and into the first floor of owners’ Sydney Wayser and Isaac Watters’ home, a concept made possible by LA County’s Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation (MEHKO) program.

It’s easy to see why Granada so swiftly achieved the viral status it did. The light-filled living room and locally-crafted furniture beckon guests to sit and stay. The garden, lush with palms and a pomegranate tree, also provides ample seating. An iced latte with whole milk will set you back $7 — par for the course in L.A. — but soaking in the sunlight filtering through the window while snacking on a pastry by baker Sasha Piligian (of Canyon Coffee and Chamberlain Coffee) feels like a fair trade. Connecting to the wifi here proves a journey, but if you can hotspot it, this is a fantastic place to knock out a few hours of work.

Speedster Café (Carson) 

Coffee and racecars make for an excellent pairing.

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Fuel up on espresso as Porsche 911 GT3s fly by at Speedster Café. Situated at the edge of the racetrack at the Porsche Experience Center, Speedster offers a range of espresso drinks, plus breakfast sandwiches on brioche buns, matcha lattes and wines by the glass. Both indoor and outdoor seating are available, and if you need something a little more filling, you can always head upstairs to eat lunch at Porsche’s sit-down restaurant, 917.

Los Angeles Unified support staff reached a labor deal with the district early Tuesday morning, hours before a strike was set to begin — meaning schools will remain open for nearly 400,000 students.

"The tentative agreement makes strides in addressing key issues raised by school workers in negotiations," SEIU Local 99 said in a statement Tuesday morning.

The union said the new agreement raises members' wages 24% and will rescind the recent layoff notices for hundreds of information technology workers. LAUSD confirmed the details of deal are still being worked out.

The district had previously reached new deals with its teachers union and its principals union over the weekend.

”Our commitments reflect the dedication of our entire workforce. We are grateful for the collaboration that made this possible and hopeful that this marks a new chapter of partnership," Andrés Chait, the acting superintendent, said in a statement Tuesday morning. "At the same time, we are clear-eyed about the challenges ahead and know that meeting them will require continued trust, shared responsibility, and a united focus on what matters most — our students."

How the deal came together

The unions had given the district an April 14 deadline to reach a deal, or face a walkout. A strike by all three would have shut down district schools and disrupted the education of hundreds of thousands of students and the lives of families scrambling for child care.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass joined the negotiations with SEIU Local 99, which continued late Monday night. The deal was announced at 2 a.m. Tuesday.

The unions had been bargaining with the district over pay, benefits and additional support for students for more than a year. The members of each union voted overwhelmingly to give their leaders the power to call a strike after contract talks stalled.

The union’s members and the Los Angeles Unified school board must vote to approve the deal. The union said it would release more details of the deal at a news conference later Tuesday.

If voters were confused about who to support in California’s wide-open race for governor, Rep. Eric Swalwell’s exit amid allegations of sexual assault and misconduct may leave them as mystified as ever.

Swalwell suspended his campaign Sunday evening and resigned from Congress Monday afternoon — a swift fall from power for one of the state’s leading candidates for governor.

He said he would “fight the serious, false allegation made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make.”

In theory, one fewer Democratic candidate in the race should help liberal voters consolidate the field. But in a race that was already anyone’s to win, Swalwell’s exit has only “caused more confusion,” said political strategist Marva Diaz, who primarily works with Democrats but is not involved in any gubernatorial campaign.

“I’ve never seen something so in flux while ballots are about to drop,” she said.

Where things stand

Because Swalwell dropped out after a statutory deadline to formally withdraw from an election, his name will still appear on the June 2 primary election ballot. That makes it possible he’ll still get some votes, but his rivals are already seeking to scoop up as many of his supporters as possible.

Both billionaire climate advocate Tom Steyer and law professor and former Rep. Katie Porter circulated polls indicating they could both pick up a sizable portion of Swalwell’s potential voters. Pollsters with the Public Policy Institute of California and UC Berkeley both agreed Steyer and Porter were the most likely to benefit from prior Swalwell supporters.

But they may not be the only ones, and it’s not clear that either one of them will immediately surge into the lead. An independent campaign committee supporting San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan pulled in $12 million million in new and previously committed contributions from wealthy donors since Friday, committee spokesperson Matt Rodriguez said, indicating his backers see an opening.

They’re launching $4.5 million worth of TV and digital ads Tuesday. Mahan is one of the race’s lower-polling candidates, getting 3% of likely voters’ support in a poll commissioned last week by the state Democratic Party.

Until the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN last Friday published stories with explosive sexual misconduct allegations from four women, including a former staff member, Swalwell had consistently polled ahead of most other Democrats in the race for governor. He was often in a three-way tie for lead Democrat alongside Porter and Steyer, with each of them getting between 10% and 15% of voters polled, tied with or trailing the two leading Republicans, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco.

What happens to his endorsments?

And though Swalwell counted among his supporters a sizable share of the Democratic establishment — his colleagues in Congress, major labor unions and other Sacramento interest groups — it was by no means a consensus. Now, after those groups have scrambled through emergency weekend meetings to pull their endorsements, they’ll have to slog through their internal procedures if they want to back another candidate for governor.

That gives voters fewer pointers on which candidate to back, Diaz said. Some organizations, she added, may be hesitant to endorse another candidate out of concern they, too, could have damaging backgrounds.

“Most people look to labor for guidance, especially on the Democratic side,” Diaz said. “When labor organizations are not working in tandem, it causes a lot of confusion.”

Swalwell was one of four Democrats the California Labor Federation jointly endorsed for governor, along with Porter, Steyer and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The federation, which could not reach consensus on any individual candidate, likely won’t be revisiting its other endorsements with Swalwell gone, president Lorena Gonzalez said.

But the Service Employees International Union, California Teachers Association and other heavyweights in Democratic politics which had endorsed Swalwell and then withdrew their support may not have time to go back to the drawing board to pick a new candidate. The teachers’ union’s endorsement process, for example, required a vote among hundreds of members from across the state; the union’s next such meeting isn’t scheduled until after the June 2 primary.

Representatives of both unions said they did not have any campaign updates Monday. A spokesperson for the California Professional Firefighters, another major Swalwell supporter, did not respond to inquiries.

Where his backers may throw their support

The effects of Swalwell’s exit on public polling of the race may not be seen for weeks. Donors often look to such measures of a candidate’s performance to decide who to back.

In the last survey UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies conducted of the governor’s race, in March, Swalwell’s supporters leaned more liberal and progressive, said institute co-director Eric Schickler. Swalwell also did better than other candidates among older voters and white voters.

Those voters cut a similar profile to Porter’s supporters, Schickler said, lending credence to the idea that his supporters would start following her.

“On the other hand, Porter has had trouble, for a visible politician, has had trouble winning over a lot of Democratic establishment figures in her own right,” he said. “If you look at the support, it’s a little more similar, but not so striking to say these supporters automatically go there.”

What about Swalwell's seat in Congress?

As for Swalwell’s congressional seat, it’s not clear when he’s stepping down. But he said he would work with his congressional staff to ensure they are able to meet the needs of his San Francisco East Bay district, where he was first elected in 2013.

Swalwell’s resignation Monday leaves the call for a special election to finish his term entirely at Newsom’s discretion, since the candidate filing deadline for the June primary has passed, according to the state election code.

Newsom’s office would not say Monday whether the governor will do so.

But if he calls for the election, the earliest date it could be held would be in mid-August, since state law requires it to take place between 126 and 140 days after the proclamation. If Newsom declines to call a special election, Swalwell’s seat will remain vacant until mid-January 2027, dealing a blow to the U.S. House Democrats who are already outnumbered by the Republican majority.

Because Swalwell opted to run for governor instead of retaining his seat in Congress, there are already seven candidates in the running to replace Swalwell in the 14th Congressional District.

CalMatters’ Yue Stella Yu contributed to this story.