Voters Deserve Answers: What We Would Have Asked

Tonight's scheduled mayoral candidate forum isn't happening — but the questions still matter. Here is what the Pat Brown Institute and the League of Women Voters planned to ask, and why.

Los Angeles voters lost a chance this week to get something they deserve — to hear candidates for mayor answer serious, substantive questions, live on broadcast television.

The Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs and the League of Women Voters of Greater Los Angeles organized a mayoral forum scheduled to air on Fox 11 on May 13. Of the five major candidates invited, one never agreed to participate and two withdrew, leading to the event’s cancellation. As a result, there will be no more televised debates before the June 2 primary election.

But the questions remain, and they need to be asked and answered. The questions we planned to pose are below:

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How these questions were built

There is a temptation to define candidate debates by how much heat they generate, but we were aiming to shed light instead. We felt voters wanted to hear where candidates stand and how they think. A few criteria we had in mind while developing our questions:

Every question had to be askable of all candidates — no questions designed to target or flatter any one of them. That’s standard practice for the League of Women Voters, which has been organizing candidate forums for decades.

No attack questions. Candidates may try to take shots at each other, but the questions shouldn’t. The point of the question should be to draw out each candidate’s vision, not to score points.

Avoid questions with obvious, pre-packaged answers. Candidates have talking points ready for the easy setups. We wanted questions designed to get past those talking points.

Each question should leave room for candidates to address the core issue in their own way — while still requiring a real, specific answer.

There were to be two rounds of questions. The first set would allow longer answers. A second lightning round segment would try to get short, definitive answers to a small number of questions.

Main questions

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Opening — quality of life

Question: According to the 11th annual UCLA Luskin Quality of Life Index released in April 2026, residents of Los Angeles County give quality of life in the city the lowest score ever recorded in the survey’s eleven-year history. How would you grade the quality of life in the City of Los Angeles, and which aspects do you think are best and worst?

Rationale: A grounding question that gives candidates room to be honest about what is broken, while also revealing whether any of them can play the role every mayor must: civic booster. Can they hold both truths at once?

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Homelessness — Housing First?

Question: California and Los Angeles have made “Housing First” — the policy of placing homeless people in housing without requiring sobriety or treatment as a precondition — the foundation of their homelessness strategy. Supporters say it’s the most humane and evidence-based approach. Critics say it has failed and that access to housing should require engagement with mental health or addiction treatment. Where do you stand?

Rationale: Every candidate will talk about homelessness. This question gets at a real fault line in the race — a genuine policy disagreement about strategy, not just a debate about resources. Where a candidate lands reveals their theory of what homelessness is and what it takes to end it.

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Renters and housing stability

Question: Nearly two-thirds of LA residents are renters. About one million households rent their homes in the city, but only 650,000 are covered by rent control — leaving roughly 350,000 rental households with far weaker protections against rent increases and evictions. Rent control currently applies only to buildings built before 1978. Tenant advocates want it extended to newer buildings. Others contend it would discourage housing production at a time when the city desperately needs more homes. Where do you stand?

Rationale: Earlier forums have asked questions that speak to the concerns of homeowners. But renters make up nearly two-thirds of the city, and half of them are paying more than they can afford. This question asks candidates to take a real position on one of the most contested tools in tenant protection — and to grapple honestly with the tradeoff.

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Housing

Question: Los Angeles needs hundreds of thousands of new homes. The city is required by state law to plan for more than 456,000 by 2029, and is badly off pace. But there are real debates about where that housing should be built. The city can direct growth to lower-income neighborhoods with cheaper land and less organized opposition — but risks accelerating gentrification and displacement. Or it can focus growth in high-opportunity, job-rich areas with good transit, where land is expensive and wealthy homeowners often fight new development. As mayor, where would you direct the bulk of new housing over the next decade?

Rationale: Everyone says they want more housing. This question gets to the real issues: where does the housing get built, and who has the power to say no? The answer tells you everything about a candidate’s theory of political power in Los Angeles.

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Public safety

Question: Crime rates and feelings of safety don’t always move together. Even as LAPD statistics show overall crime is down, many Angelenos still do not feel safe in their neighborhoods. As mayor, what is your core strategy for making people not just statistically safer, but feeling safer — and can you name one specific policing initiative and one non-policing initiative you would prioritize in your first year?

Rationale: Asking for one of each forces candidates to think beyond their comfort zone. Those who lead with enforcement have to name a non-policing answer. Those who lead with community investment have to name a policing answer. The pairing is revealing.

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Traffic violence

Question: For two consecutive years, more Angelenos have been killed by cars than by guns — yet traffic violence receives a fraction of the public attention and political urgency. The city’s own policy to reduce traffic deaths has been on the books since 2015 without coming close to its goals. Experts point to three levers: engineering safer streets, stricter enforcement, and public education. As mayor, which would you prioritize — and what does that look like in practice?

Rationale: Los Angeles has had a Vision Zero policy since 2015 and has not come close to its goals. The three-lever framing forces candidates past a general pledge and into a real resource allocation choice, since each lever carries different costs, tradeoffs, and political risks. Where a candidate lands, and whether they can describe what it looks like in practice, separates intention from implementation.

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Jobs and the economy

Question: Los Angeles is at risk of becoming “the Detroit of Entertainment” — keeping the headquarters while the actual production jobs flee to other states and countries. Beyond asking Sacramento for more state tax credits, would you support cutting or waiving city business taxes and fees for film and TV production to keep jobs in Los Angeles — even if it reduces city revenue — and where would you make up the difference?

Rationale: This question moves past the easy answer — “I’ll lobby Sacramento” — and asks what the city itself is willing to do. It also tests whether candidates see the entertainment industry as just studios and stars, or whether they understand the vast network of ancillary workers whose livelihoods depend on local production.

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Immigration

Question: Since federal immigration enforcement intensified in Los Angeles, residents in immigrant communities have reported that they are afraid to call 911, take their children to school, visit a doctor, or cooperate with local police as witnesses to crimes — because any interaction with government feels like a potential path to deportation. As mayor, beyond simply declaring Los Angeles a sanctuary city, what concrete and specific steps would you take to protect undocumented residents in their daily lives — and how will you respond if the federal government starts to pull funding from the LAPD or LAFD?

Rationale: The first part asks for specifics beyond a label. The second part is the real test: what happens when protecting immigrants has a direct cost to the city? That is the question candidates have largely avoided answering.

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Palisades Fire & Emergency preparedness

Question: During the Palisades fire, the city faced failures in water pressure and supply, evacuation routes, and emergency communications. Many concluded the city was unprepared for a foreseeable catastrophe. We live in a region prone to earthquakes, mudslides, and devastating wildfires. What emergencies or disasters do you think Los Angeles is most underprepared for today — and what will you do about it?

Rationale: Pacific Palisades is in the question, but it is not the entirety of the question. Los Angeles needs a mayor who can anticipate the next crisis, not just relitigate the last one. The most compelling answers will go beyond the fires — to earthquake readiness, cyber vulnerabilities, or infrastructure failure — while still acknowledging what went wrong.

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The 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games

Question: The Olympics are coming to Los Angeles — but for many of the city’s own residents, they may be watching on television. Tickets to marquee events are already priced well beyond what working families can afford, public transit to venues remains incomplete, outreach to lower-income communities has been limited, and the risk of federal immigration enforcement and increased surveillance is great. As mayor, what would you do to ensure that the 2028 Games feel like Los Angeles’s Olympics — and not just an event that happens in Los Angeles for the benefit of tourists and corporate sponsors?

Rationale: The political pressure to celebrate the Olympics is enormous. This question creates space for candidates to ask a harder question: who actually benefits? And it puts the “local” benefits in context — most of what is billed as a regional windfall is spread across five counties, not just the City of Los Angeles.

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LADWP and climate

Question: The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is the largest municipal utility in the United States, and the mayor appoints every member of its governing board. That makes LADWP the most powerful climate tool any Los Angeles mayor directly controls. Yet the utility has fallen short of the city’s most ambitious renewable energy targets, many contend its infrastructure visibly failed during the Palisades Fire, and residential rates have climbed so sharply that low-income ratepayers increasingly cannot afford their bills. As mayor, what specific and measurable demands would you make of LADWP leadership?

Rationale: Every candidate will talk about climate. This question tests whether they understand that the mayor’s most direct climate tool is not a speech or a lobbying effort but a utility they control entirely through board appointments. Asking for specific and measurable demands separates candidates who have thought about LADWP as a management challenge from those treating it as a backdrop.

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Basic city services

Question: Los Angeles is projected to spend $100 million next year on liability claims from broken sidewalks and streets — more than it costs to fix them. The street repair budget has been cut in half since 2020, and deferred maintenance is compounding into costs that dwarf what prevention would have required. As mayor, how do you break that cycle — and where does the money come from?

Rationale: Residents routinely express frustration with the quality and pace of city services. Many neighborhoods have suffered for decades from broken and buckled sidewalks, and when residents call and ask for help, they are told it might take more than a decade for the problem to be addressed. How a candidate answers this question shows whether they can identify a fix to a costly problem felt throughout the city.

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Lightning round

Fifteen- to twenty-second answers. Yes or no where indicated. These questions were designed to produce clear, unambiguous positions on questions facing Los Angeles in this moment.

Airbnb and housing: Mayor Bass’s budget proposes allowing second homes to be listed on Airbnb for the first time, framed as temporary through the 2028 Olympics. The city’s Planning Department initially warned it would pull housing off the market and raise rents. Airbnb has reportedly offered $50 million in prepaid taxes to make it happen. Do you support it?

Business taxes: Los Angeles levies its business tax on revenue, not profit — meaning a small business can operate at a loss and still owe taxes. Business leaders are now seeking a ballot measure to repeal the tax entirely. Do you support keeping it as is, repealing it, or changing it in some way?

Free transit: More than 70% of LA Metro riders are low-income, and approximately half live below the federal poverty level. The mayor sits on the Metro Board and makes four appointments to it. Do you support making public transit in Los Angeles free?

Wages: The city approved a $30-per-hour minimum wage for hotel and tourism workers by the time of the 2028 Olympics. Hotel and business groups are now seeking to repeal or delay it. Should the $30 wage law stay in place — yes or no?

Charter reform: The city charter reform commission recommends lowering the voting age for local elections to 16. Do you support that change?

Police chief: Jim McDonnell was sworn in as LAPD chief in November 2024. Some communities have praised his experience and professionalism; others have raised concerns about his record on accountability and discipline. Do you support Chief McDonnell continuing in his role — yes or no?

Right to counsel The city passed a right-to-counsel law guaranteeing free lawyers to low-income tenants facing eviction, but full implementation is years away and the program currently reaches only a fraction of those who need it. Supporters say it prevents homelessness. Critics say it helps tenants delay legitimate evictions at landlords’ expense. Would you fully fund and accelerate it, scale it back, or eliminate it?

CEO pay inequality There is a proposed November ballot measure that would impose higher taxes on companies with extreme gaps between CEO and worker pay. Do you support it — yes or no?

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There are more questions here than a 90-minute event would have allowed for. And the questions above are not exhaustive; they are merely a starting point. Many important issues did not make this list, not because they are unimportant but because no single forum can do everything.

That is precisely the point. The breadth of what Los Angeles faces — and the length of what remains unasked — demands more opportunities for candidates to face voters and answer hard questions. The League of Women Voters of Greater Los Angeles and the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs remain committed to creating those opportunities, and will continue to seek ways to bring candidates and voters together before Election Day.

Mike Bonin is executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State University Los Angeles. He can be reached at mbonin@calstatela.edu.