Los Angeles city attorney goes after competitors early; the existing city manager is in charge

Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto trailed her two funded opponents in early Tuesday night returns, but her incumbent, City Comptroller Kenneth Mejia, appears to be doing better in her bid to stay in office, holding a double-digit lead over Chief Financial Officer Zach Sokoloff.

Progressive Marissa Roy led the field seeking to become Los Angeles’ top attorney when the first round of returns came in around 8:20 p.m.

LA County District Deputy. He said. John McKinney finished second, and Feldstein Soto finished third. The top two in this race will advance to the national election in November.

With only two candidates running, the governor’s race will be decided this month and will not go to a runner in November. But the votes will continue to be counted for days.

The race for city attorney took a sudden turn this spring after the largest Los Angeles Police Department union broke with Feldstein Soto and endorsed McKinney. Private equity has thrown $3 million behind McKinney in recent weeks, with most of that money coming from a political action committee controlled by Airbnb.

Feldstein Soto sued the giant for violating price gouging laws after the Palisades fire last year, and he has openly questioned whether McKinney would avoid suing Airbnb if elected.

“Special interests have gotten really used to special treatment at City Hall. They get special treatment all the time,” Feldstein Soto said in a recent interview, suggesting that both McKinney and Roy were in trouble for spending outside the race. Private expenses supporting Roy also received about $725,000.

McKinney told The Times that he would “definitely arrest Airbnb” if necessary in office.

The front three often sounded like they were campaigning for different jobs.

Roy said he will run the city attorney’s office as a “major public relations law firm,” focusing on employers’ rights, wage theft and other issues affecting working-class Angelenos. A deputy attorney general at the California Department of Justice, he also vowed to sue the Trump administration, linking arms with the attorney general’s office and other city attorneys in aggressive lawsuits to curb what many Californians see as a targeted abuse of power.

McKinney spoke as if he were running for city prosecutor, leaning heavily on his experience winning high-profile criminal cases in city court. He said he will improve the way the city attorney prosecutes gun and animal abuse cases. Although he has no experience in civil litigation, McKinney also said he could lower the city’s litigation costs, which have exploded under Feldstein Soto.

“Although all the votes have not been fully counted, we feel confident that we can enter the national election in November. People want political courage. They want leadership,” McKinney said in a statement Tuesday night. “What is clear is that this election was shaped by the pressing and undeniable concerns of the people of Los Angeles.”

McKinney previously ran for LA County district attorney in 2024 but faded from the crowded field.

Although his tenure has been marked by financial problems, allegations of misconduct and mismanagement of staff and recent questions about his handling of a data breach that led to the release of LAPD records, Feldstein Soto has insisted that his opponents are too knowledgeable to serve as the city’s top attorney.

He said he improved public safety in the city by improving his office’s relationship with the LAPD and made more mistakes than his predecessor. Although legal costs are mounting, Feldstein Soto said he is doing his best to limit the damage from the few hard cases he won when he took office in 2022. The rise in so-called “nuclear decisions” in civil lawsuits reflects a nationwide trend rather than a fault of his leadership, he said.

Feldstein Soto was endorsed by Mayor Karen Bass and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). Roy received the support of the LA County Democratic Party, the city’s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and US Senator Bernie Sanders (Vt.). In addition to the police union, McKinney had the support of his boss, LA County Dist. He said. Nathan Hochman.

The city controller’s race, often a sleeper, has become the city’s second-highest spending race.

Mejia, 35, who is known for his two corgis that he regularly posts on billboards across Los Angeles, wanted to keep his seat as city accountant and auditor.

His only challenger was Sokoloff, senior vice president of asset management at Hackman Capital Partners. Sokoloff, 37, alleges that Mejia misused the manager’s office to audit city departments and failed to follow up on his predecessor’s audits.

Sokoloff’s mother, Sheryl, spent $7.5 million in private spending on the race, mostly on attack ads and mailers against Mejia. Generally, the ads point to allegations that Mejia in 2023 fostered a toxic workplace and made inappropriate sexual comments toward female subordinates.

A woman who identified herself as Sheryl Sokoloff hung up on a reporter from The Times last week when asked about the money spent on the race.

Mejia said Sokoloff’s mother – who is married to Jonathan Sokoloff, an executive at the private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners – was trying to get her son a seat.

Mejia has long worked on the accountability and transparency of the city’s budget and has made public-facing information on all topics on the controller’s website during his first term.

A licensed chartered accountant, Mejia is a member of the Green Party and does not accept endorsements from political parties or politicians. He has been endorsed by the Los Angeles Daily News and several labor unions, including the United Teachers of Los Angeles and the United Auto Workers.

Sokoloff, a Democrat, has been endorsed by many former governors, prominent Democrats – including Schiff – and the LA County Democratic Party, as well as other business groups.