Nithya Raman is seeking the Los Angeles mayor’s office. Yet she has declined to tell voters which elements of the Democratic Socialists of America’s platform she supports.
That silence is more than political evasion. Los Angeles voters deserve to know what a candidate asking to lead the city intends to do once in office.
The DSA, for its part, has made its expectations clear.
Raman is not simply a Democrat who accepted an endorsement from a group with which she has little connection. She belongs to DSA-LA, which helped elect her to the City Council in 2020, supported her reelection in 2024 and endorsed her mayoral campaign this month.
The organization’s endorsement comes with explicit conditions. Under its Democratic Socialist Program, candidates seeking DSA-LA backing must “commit to our Program” to win an endorsement and maintain the relationship afterward.
That is not a claim made by Raman’s political opponents. It is the DSA’s own description of its endorsement rules.
Nor is the endorsement merely symbolic. Before selecting a candidate in this year’s mayoral contest, DSA-LA said it would “throw the full weight of our power” behind its choice.
The group chose Nithya Raman.
What, then, does DSA-LA expect candidates it endorses to support? Its agenda begins with private property.
DSA-LA supports having the government “expropriate privately owned housing” and urges the “creative use of eminent domain” to shift housing from private ownership. Its platform also backs universal rent control, vacancy taxes, automatic rent freezes and eviction moratoriums during declared emergencies.
Public safety is another major part of the program. The DSA calls for reducing the number of sworn police officers and replacing them with civilian personnel for traffic enforcement and mental-health responses. It also supports redirecting police funding, decriminalizing drug use and financing safe-injection sites.
The organization further advocates city-owned businesses in sectors such as grocery stores, restaurants and internet service, fare-free public transit and expanded voting rights for noncitizens in local elections.
These are not hypothetical warnings about what socialists could eventually pursue. They are policies DSA-LA has formally put in writing.
That does not necessarily mean Raman endorses every provision.
That is precisely why the California Post asked her to explain her position.
The Post sent Raman’s campaign 16 direct questions based on the DSA platform. Does she support using eminent domain to transfer privately owned housing into public or community ownership? Would she reduce the number of sworn police officers? Does she favor decriminalizing drug use, allowing noncitizen voting or creating city-owned businesses?
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Sixteen questions were submitted. Raman’s campaign answered none.
Raman has shown that she is capable of breaking with the DSA when she chooses. Following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack, she criticized a DSA-LA statement, saying it “failed to reckon with the horrors committed by Hamas” and was “unacceptably devoid of empathy for communities in Israel.”
DSA-LA later censured Raman after she accepted an endorsement from Democrats for Israel-Los Angeles, although it continued to support her.
Raman, in other words, knows how to draw a boundary. Voters deserve to know where she draws it on the rest of the DSA agenda.
Raman herself acknowledged earlier this year that while she shares DSA’s emphasis on the working class, “I don’t always agree with my allies on how to accomplish our goals.”
Maybe so. Then tell voters where.
Instead, when DSA-LA endorsed her this month, Raman welcomed it. She said she was “proud that DSA-LA is joining our broad coalition.”
Nobody forced Raman to join the DSA. Nobody forced her to seek its endorsements. And nobody forced her to accept the volunteers and political muscle that come with them.
If Raman wants voters to separate her agenda from the DSA’s, the burden is on her to tell them where she parts company.
Los Angeles voters deserve to know what someone asking to be their next mayor intends to do with their city. The California Post gave Raman 16 chances to tell them.
She refused every one.
That isn’t just evasiveness. It’s contempt for the voters whose trust she is asking for.
Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com