L.A. on the Record: A Pelosi-Bass love fest at Getty House

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Julia Wick.

Hours after speaking at Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s San Francisco funeral Thursday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi traded her dark suit for a sequin-emblazoned white shirt and joined another longtime friend on stage in a Los Angeles backyard.

The event at Getty House, Mayor Karen Bass’ official residence, was a long-planned celebration honoring Pelosi, whom Bass spent 12 years serving alongside in the House.

More than half of the city’s elected officials, a long list of department heads and various other commissioners, consultants and donor types crammed into an outdoor tent on the Getty House tennis court.

Singer-songwriter and unofficial house band for the Democratic party John Legend might have written his sultry love song “Wonder Woman” for his wife Chrissy Teigen, but on this night it was performed as “a tribute to Madam Speaker,” Legend said.

As Legend began crooning from a black piano, a denizen of the Windsor Square manse next door to the mayor’s house opened an upstairs window to better hear the backyard performance.

Seated in the front row next to Pelosi, Bass nodded her head along to the music.

Toward the back of the tent, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley was one of many attendees holding a cellphone aloft to film Legend’s two-song performance.

The fact that the party still went forward on such a somber day and during a week of unrivaled upheaval in California politics speaks to Pelosi’s deep relationship with Bass.

The Los Angeles mayor’s federal ties and relationships were a key selling point during her campaign and those same connections have helped her leverage wins for the city. (One recent example being a successful push to change a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requirement that stalled homeless housing in L.A.)

The bulk of the evening’s program consisted of a Bass-Pelosi mutual admiration society.

Invoking but not directly naming the recently deposed House speaker, Bass compared Pelosi’s leadership to that of Bakersfield Rep. Kevin McCarthy, another longtime political pal of the mayor’s.

“What we witnessed this week — the chaos, the disrespect of the leader, the disregard for the national and international impact of the internal warfare that was on display for the entire world to see — would never, ever happen under the leadership of Madam Speaker,” Bass said to hoots and applause. “Am I right?”

Bass also lauded Pelosi’s legislative achievements and said “she essentially had to act as the commander in chief while Trump sat in the White House cheering on the vicious attack of our democracy” on Jan. 6, 2021.

Pelosi lavished similar praise on Bass, commending the leadership skills she brought to D.C. after serving as the California Assembly Speaker and her committee work.

Her husband, Paul Pelosi, is “hardly ever” willing to join her at events but he was willing to come to this one because it was with Bass, Pelosi said.

State of play

— FEINSTEIN’S SUCCESSOR: After being appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, former labor leader Laphonza Butler was sworn in as California’s newest senator. The short-term replacement thrust two critical questions to the forefront of the state’s political scene: Will Butler run for a full term in the Senate in next year’s election? And if she does, how seriously will that shake up the race?

— OLD SCANDAL, NEW (POTENTIAL) CONSEQUENCES: The Los Angeles Ethics Commission accused Councilmember John Lee of an array of governmental ethics violations stemming from a Las Vegas trip he took with former Councilmember Mitchell Englander six years ago.

That same trip played a major role in the case against Englander, who served prison time for lying to federal investigators. Lee was never charged with wrongdoing by federal prosecutors.

The commission’s filing also publicly identified Lee as “City Staffer B” — an anonymous figure in the government’s indictment against Englander. (Lee has been widely believed to be Staffer B for years, but this was the first time it was publicly confirmed.)

— LONG SLOG TO CITY HALL REFORM: After months of meetings and deliberation, the City Council’s ad hoc government reform committee signed off on its first concrete proposal, which would establish an independent redistricting commission for the city.

— NEW HOMELESSNESS CZAR: Mayor Karen Bass’ homelessness chief, Mercedes Márquez, will leave her high-profile post next month, with state housing official Lourdes Castro Ramírez set to succeed her. Márquez was expected to step down before the end of the year, and the mayor’s office described Castro Ramírez’s appointment as “a planned transition due to federal retiree rules” in a news release Monday. Castro Ramírez starts Nov. 6.

— MEH DEAL? City Controller Kenneth Mejia is calling for an urgent reboot of the city’s “Green New Deal” over concerns that the 2019 climate plan has outlived its usefulness and lacks the transparency needed to accurately measure its outcomes.

— 41.18 ARRESTS: Another Mejia report released this week shows that arrests under the city’s controversial anti-camping law (often referred to as 41.18 in reference to the section of Municipal Code it replaced) continue to rise. The report found that the law is “unevenly enforced across council districts with little relation to the number of unhoused people per council district.”

— HOW TO NOT BREAK THE LAW: Councilmembers Katy Yaroslavsky and Nithya Raman introduced a motion this week to look into creating an Office of Compliance that would proactively assist council members with identifying potential conflicts of interest on upcoming City Council and committee agendas. (As you may recall, Councilmember Curren Price was criminally charged earlier this year for violating conflict of interest laws, among other things.)

—A VICTORY FOR MRT: Veteran Los Angeles politician Mark Ridley-Thomas — who had been slated to begin serving a 3½-year prison sentence next month — was granted his request to stay out of prison while he appeals his conviction.

—WHAT’S CARUSO UP TO? After a race in which his Democratic bona fides (or lack thereof) were a topic of major contention, former L.A. mayoral candidate Rick Caruso is putting in the money to target California Republicans and burnish his own party credentials.

Politico reports that Caruso has “pledged to throw himself into the five California congressional districts President Joe Biden won in 2020 that are now held by Republicans.” Whether such support is a precursor to Caruso making another bid for public office remains to be seen.

Quick hits

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s program to combat homelessness was in Councilmember John Lee’s district, with an operation this week near the intersection of Devonshire Street and Balboa Boulevard in Granada Hills.

• On the docket for next week: Monday is Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which is a city holiday.