Meet our Candidates!
The Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA-LA) is proud to endorse six of our fellow members – a team of union leaders, renters, tenant organizers, parents, and activists – who are committed to working class values and ready to create real change in Los Angeles.
Eunisses Hernandez
for Los Angeles City Council, District 1
Eunisses Hernandez is a community organizer, lifelong Highland Park resident, daughter of Mexican immigrants, and Councilmember for Los Angeles’s District 1. She co-founded La Defensx, an organization dedicated to shifting Los Angeles County’s reliance on criminalization and incarceration towards systems of care, and her leadership was instrumental in policy victories like Measure J, which reallocates resources into community-based services and alternatives to incarceration.
As Councilmember, she has led efforts to pass the strongest tenant protections in 40 years, authored the Sanctuary City Ordinance, co-introduced a motion to implement Measure ULA, opened NortheastNew Beginnings, a first-of-its-kind interim housing model transitioning people into permanent housing, and successfully fought off harmful developments like the proposed trucking depot in Lincoln Heights.
Councilmember Hernandez recently earned a coveted spot on the LA City Budget & Finance Committee, helping to win a budget in better alignment with DSA-LA’s Democratic Socialist Platform, with expanded funding for alternatives to policing and alternative crisis response, and with significantly fewer City employee layoffs and cuts than originally anticipated. In her first year in office, she was the only Councilmember to vote no on the City's budget, citing concerns over inequitable resource allocation, inspiring others to follow the next year.
Estuardo Mazariegos
for Los Angeles City Council, District 9
Estuardo Mazariegos is a lifelong resident of South Los Angeles and democratic socialist running for City Council District 9. For nearly twenty years, Estuardo has been a tireless community organizer and currently serves as Co-Director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). His commitment to the working class is personal—he was raised by union healthcare workers, helped organize janitors with SEIU-USWW, and led campaigns to win the Fight for $15. Estuardo has been a DSA member for five years and has organized with the chapter to resist Amazon’s expansion and fight for the Power to the Tenants campaign.
Estuardo is running to represent District 9, the city’s lowest-income district, where residents have long faced disinvestment and exploitation. The stakes of this election are defined by his primary opponent, Jose Ugarte. As the long-time aide to the incumbent Councilmember, Curren Price, Ugarte was expected to have an easy path to victory. Ugarte is the prototypical representative of the "Status Quo Coalition" identified in our Democratic Socialist Program (DSP). This coalition might use progressive language and make discursive nods to liberatory notions, but they fundamentally maintain a system that prioritizes real estate developers over working families. Estuardo is running to break this status quo machine and redistribute wealth back to the people.
His platform translates democratic socialist values into immediate action:
• Decommodifying Housing: Estuardo supports the full implementation of Measure ULA to fund social housing. He is committed to transforming three city-owned vacant lots in his district into community-controlled, permanently affordable housing.
• A Green New Deal: Reflecting the DSP’s call to "end the extraction of fossil fuels," Estuardo is fighting to shut down gas-fired power plants and expand public transportation in a district suffering from severe pollution and traffic violence.
• Tenant Power: Estuardo is campaigning to cap rent increases, proactively enforce code violations against slumlords, and ensure legal representation for every tenant facing eviction.
Faizah Malik
for Los Angeles City Council, District 11
Faizah Malik is a mom and resident of Venice. She was born and raised in Southern California to South Asian Muslim immigrants and has spent her career as a community lawyer fighting to protect renters, build more housing, and improve the lives of working families. Her decades of experience as an advocate, public interest attorney, and government attorney have prepared her for the task of building the change we need to see citywide and on the Westside.
Malik has worked with many local tenant organizing groups and coalitions—including DSA-LA, LA Forward, and the Keep LA Housed (KLAH) Coalition—and has participated in campaigns to successfully strengthen tenant protections, build more affordable housing, and advance equitable land use policy. Malik has a strong history of crafting and advocating for specific legislative reforms and interventions, and importantly, is a Muslim woman who supports the human rights of Palestinians and a ceasefire resolution.
Hugo Soto-Martínez
for Los Angeles City Council, District 13
Hugo Soto-Martínez was born and raised in Los Angeles. His parents immigrated to the United States from Mexico and worked as street vendors to give Hugo and his five siblings more opportunities than they had.
Hugo has been an active member of DSA-LA since early 2019, including as an elected chapter leader, as a delegate to the 2021 National Convention, and in 2023 he became the first sitting Los Angeles City Councilmember to attend the DSA National Convention as a delegate.
For 16 years, Hugo organized with UNITE HERE! Local 11, fighting alongside mostly immigrant women in the hotel industry to win better wages, healthcare, and dignity on the job. Hugo has organized across the country on dozens of union and electoral campaigns.
As the representative of LA City Council District 13, the district with the highest density of dues paying DSA-LA members, Hugo has shepherded socialist policies through the gauntlet of City Hall. He authored Los Angeles’ Sanctuary City law, lowered rent hikes for rent-stabilized units for the first time in 40 years, and passed the strongest tenant protections in a generation — stopping no-fault evictions, limiting rent gouging, and strengthening anti-harassment laws. When federal immigration enforcement actions targeted our communities, Hugo worked with neighbors to build a Rapid Response Network that has grown to more than 300 members. He has also confronted LAPD directly to hold them accountable for their treatment of peaceful protestors, consistently pushing for transparency and civil rights.
Now, big business interests are pouring resources into multiple “law-and-order” candidates, hoping that a divided field will weaken the progressive movement and flip a seat that has delivered historic wins for renters, workers, and immigrant families. Winning this race means not just re-electing Hugo — it means beating back a coordinated push to shift Los Angeles to the right and strengthening the coalition fighting for a city that works for everyone.
Together, we can champion bold, community-driven policies that advance DSA-LA’s values, uplifting communities historically excluded from LA’s prosperity – building affordable housing, investing in our public transit and biking infrastructure, and opposing the Trump administration’s fascist regime.
Marissa Roy
for Los Angeles City Attorney
Marissa Roy is a lifelong Angeleno who has spent her career fighting for the people. From her start as a Deputy City Attorney to her current role as a Deputy Attorney General, Marissa has fought to protect working families, renters, immigrants, and all Californians.
Marissa has dedicated her entire career as an attorney bringing civil rights and consumer protection litigation on behalf of local and state government. She's helped build landmark lawsuits against companies that exploited workers, she's taken on Trump in court, and she's even sued tech giants like Meta. She's running to make sure that the powerful role of Los Angeles City Attorney is used to protect those who need it most.
Dr. Rocio Rivas
for Los Angeles Unified School Board, District 2
Dr. Rocío Rivas immigrated to the United States from Mexico at the age of two. She is a proud American citizen richly aware of her Mexican American cultural heritage. She was raised with strong working-class values that her parents exemplified throughout her life. She attended LAUSD schools, graduated from Reseda High School, and is the mother of a current LAUSD student.
Dr. Rivas was the first in her family to complete a college degree and continue to earn a doctorate in education. She earned a BA from the University of California, Berkeley in Political Science and Development Studies, with a minor in African-American Studies, in 1996. She went on to earn a PhD from Columbia University in 2008 in Comparative and International Education with an emphasis on Political Sociology and a geographical focus in the U.S. and Latin America.
In the 2022 election cycle, DSA-LA endorsed Rivas’s successful first campaign, ensuring an anti-privatization and pro-public education voice on the LAUSD school board. Rivas has been a local DSA member since 2020 and has actively engaged with the chapter’s Green New Deal for Public Schools campaign. LAUSD is the second largest school district in the country and is a crucial public service that must be defended. If Rivas is re-elected in 2026, DSA-LA looks forward to continued collaboration with LAUSD, particularly around housing and immigration issues.