Election in Los Angeles’ 14th District heats Up as Santiago challenges de León after racist recording scandal
Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, a Democrat from Los Angeles, announced on Friday that he will challenge LA City Councilman Kevin de León in next year’s election. This comes after de León’s participation in a leaked audio recording that contained racist comments.
In a statement, Santiago referred to the decision to run against his longtime ally and friend as “difficult,” but emphasized that Los Angeles needs healing and effective representation in its neighborhoods. “The time for change in Los Angeles’ 14th District is now,” Santiago stated. “The current councilmember’s refusal to respect the overwhelming calls to step down, from the people he is supposed to serve all the way to the president of the United States, is holding back the progress we need on homelessness, housing, and the economic recovery we need in our neighborhoods.”
Santiago, who was elected to the Assembly in 2014 after previously serving on the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees, has positioned himself as a candidate for change and progress in the 14th District.
De León, along with then-Council President Nury Martinez, then-Councilman Gil Cedillo, and Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, were caught in a leaked audio recording participating in a backroom conversation that discussed ways to disenfranchise Black voters through a redistricting process and made racist comments.
The recording surfaced on October 11 and prompted President Joe Biden’s White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, to state in a briefing that President Biden was “glad to see one of the participants in that conversation has resigned, but they all should.”
As the upcoming election approaches, all eyes will be on the race between Santiago and de León, with many residents of Los Angeles’ 14th District eager to see how the candidates address the issues of racism, representation, and progress in their communities.
