Karen Bass elected mayor, becoming first woman to lead L.A. city
This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.
Karen Bass elected mayor, becoming first woman to lead L.A. city
Karen Bass is the first woman to be elected mayor of Los Angeles, becoming the city’s first African-American mayor to take office.
Bass beat city council member Nick Melvoin in Monday’s runoff election and will be sworn in early next month. She will replace Eric Garcetti, the former council member who was elected Los Angeles mayor in 2012 by the City Council.
Garcetti, who is white, did not run for a fourth four-year term as mayor.
He had a tumultuous four years, leaving one city commissioner under investigation and another one out of the job under controversial circumstances. He also clashed with the police union and clashed with some of his allies in City Hall and with the California Public Employees Association.
Bass, who will replace Garcetti as the city’s mayor, becomes the first African-American woman to lead the city, and just the second female mayor in the city.
Bass addressed reporters Tuesday as she campaigned against the first woman and the first openly gay person to be elected mayor in L.A.
“This is the day I have been searching for for more than a year, and we are ready,” she said. “We’re ready for the next chapter.”
Bass spent her campaign, as well as a week and a half out of the office as Garcetti was hospitalized for his overdose, on the phone with Garcetti asking for his support.
She said the mayor was there for her “from the very start, from the last campaign, and when I had to make the decision to run.”
Bass said she had been in contact with Garcetti’s office for weeks about a possible runoff election.
“He was like a good, old friend, and I just asked him, ‘What do you see?”‘ she said.
