Your guide to California’s Senate District 35 race: South L.A. County

State Senate District 35 candidates, clockwise from top left: Michelle Chambers, Jennifer Williams, Laura Richardson and Nilo Vega Michelin.

Eight candidates are competing in California’s March 2024 primary to represent Senate District 35, a diverse area in Los Angeles County that stretches from Inglewood down to the harbor.

With incumbent Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena) preparing to leave office in December due to term limits, seven Democrats and one Republican are vying to replace him in the state Legislature in Sacramento. The long slate of candidates includes a former member of Congress, a former mayor of Carson, a sitting Hawthorne City Council member and several others with experience in public office.

The top two finishers in March will face off in November. The winner of the general election will be sworn in on Dec. 2 as one of 120 legislators who make laws for the 39 million residents of California.

• Michelle Chambers, Democrat, community justice advocate.

Chambers was elected to the Compton City Council in 2019, and stepped down in 2022 before finishing her first term. She recently worked as an external affairs manager for the California Department of Justice and was a congressional aide to then-U.S. Reps. Janice Hahn (D-San Pedro) and Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles). Chambers is the sister of Michael K. Williams, who starred in the HBO series “The Wire” and acted until his death in 2021.

• LaMar Lyons, Democrat, financial consultant.

Lyons is vice president of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council. His list of accolades on his campaign website includes becoming the first Black chief of staff in the California Assembly, working for then-Assemblymember Elihu Harris (D-Oakland). Lyons is the founding partner and managing director of Burch Capital Partners, a venture capital firm.

• Nilo Vega Michelin, Democrat, El Camino Community College trustee.

Michelin describes himself as a teacher with deep roots in his community, having served as a deputy city attorney, school board member and City Council member in Hawthorne.

• Alex Monteiro, Democrat, Hawthorne councilmember and nonprofit director.

Monteiro has served on the Hawthorne City Council since 2018. He’s also president of Moneta Gardens Improvement, a nonprofit that supports low-income families in Hawthorne, and founded the South Bay Universal Child Development Center preschool, known as the Castle.

• Laura Richardson, Democrat, businesswoman and housing advocate.

Richardson is attempting to launch a comeback after her political career came to a controversial halt in 2013. She was elected to the Long Beach City Council in 2000, and won a California Assembly seat six years later. Richardson vacated her Assembly seat after winning a special election for Congress in 2007, and served two and a half terms in Washington. In 2012, the House Ethics Committee disciplined Richardson, alleging that she had improperly pressured her congressional staff to work on her campaign, used taxpayer-funded resources for personal and political activities, and obstructed the investigation into her activities. She agreed to a $10,000 fine, and three months later lost her reelection bid.

• Albert Robles, Democrat, attorney and businessman.

Robles served as mayor of Carson for six years after holding a Carson City Council seat from 2013 to 2015. He simultaneously sat on the board of directors for the Water Replenishment District of Southern California, which he joined in 1992. In 2018, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office won a civil lawsuit against Robles that said being a mayor and a water agency director at the same time was a conflict of interest and violated state law. Robles was removed from the water board and remained mayor through 2020.

• Jennifer Trichelle-Marie Williams, Democrat, accountant and small-businesss woman.

Williams serves on the Los Angeles County Citizens’ Economy and Efficiency Commission, to which she was appointed by county Supervisor Holly Mitchell.

• James Arlandus Spencer, Republican, environmental consultant.

Spencer is the only Republican in the race. He founded his own environmental consulting firm in 1990 and stepped down in 2015. He ran for the state Assembly in 2022 and lost in the primary.

South Los Angeles County, including all or portions of Carson, Compton, Inglewood, Hawthorne, Westmont, Long Beach and Gardena.

As California grapples with worsening homelessness, The Times asked candidates how they would respond to the crisis as a member of the state Legislature.

Williams said the issue is personal to her because she experienced homelessness as a child.

“Our district recently had the largest increase of homelessness in LA County, so we must invest in permanent housing with services, temporary housing to get people off the street, and increase affordable housing to prevent homelessness,” she said in response to a candidate survey conducted by The Times.

Spencer responded to the question with a pledge to appoint a state “homeless czar” to identify sustainable solutions to the crisis, echoing an unfulfilled campaign promise Gov. Gavin Newsom made in 2018.

Monteiro said he wants to support and enhance programs for the unhoused by “increasing funding for affordable housing and mental health services.”

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Lyons said he would adopt a multi-pronged approach that would include conducting a triage of the problem and purchasing homes for transitional housing that would lead to permanent housing.

Chambers said she would play the long game by prioritizing the construction of affordable housing, “collaborating with other governmental agencies addressing zoning, public land use and barriers hindering building affordable housing.”

Affordable housing would also be part of a comprehensive strategy that Richardson says she would employ.

“Drawing on my housing expertise, I’d push for increased investments in affordable housing initiatives, fostering partnerships to expand the availability of affordable housing units,” she said.

Robles said he would prioritize helping those who are housed but at risk of losing their homes due to changes in their financial circumstances, in order to prevent more Californians from experiencing homelessness.

Michelin said he supports job training for a “hand up, not a handout,” as well as creating a state affordable housing trust fund and increasing mental health funding and coordination on state, local and federal homelessness reduction efforts.

With California experiencing a historic deficit, we asked the candidates how the state should handle its budget. All eight candidates supported reducing spending on programs and services. Williams, Monteiro, Chambers and Richardson said they would also raise taxes.

To address the high cost of living in California, all of the candidates except Spencer and Robles said they would support a new tax on the ultra-rich. Williams, Monteiro, Chambers, Robles and Michelin backed expanding eligibility for help through the state’s social safety net.

Increasing the state minimum wage was supported by Williams, Monteiro, Lyons, Chambers and Michelin.

Spencer, Monteiro and Lyons would support pausing or repealing the gas tax, a move Democrats in Sacramento have rejected to date.

Bradford, who currently represents the district in the state Senate, is one of two lawmakers who have led the effort to deliver reparations to descendants of Black Americans who were enslaved in the United States. Both are terming out of office this year, leaving an opening for others to step in and lead on reparations at the state Capitol.

Robles said he does not support reparations, though he endorsed the idea of paying fair market value for jail and prison labor.

Michelin said he supports reparations and thinks the state should offer free tuition to state public colleges to descendants of those enslaved .

Williams, Spencer, Chambers and Richardson said they favor reparations more broadly, citing support for cash payments, free public college tuition and paying fair market value for jail and prison labor.

Lyons said that he supports free public college tuition and paying fair market value for jail and prison labor, but that he thinks both private interests and public entities should be responsible for the solution.

“I would propose legislation requiring California to issue [$2 billion in] taxable securities paid with investors from corporate America who benefited from wealth built on the backs of enslaved people,” he said.

Monteiro said he supports reparations, but did not endorse any specific remedies.