Los Angeles, California: Marissa Roy Holds Two to One Lead in City Attorney Race

LOS ANGELES (Orbit Post) Marissa Roy held a two to one lead over John McKinney in the race for Los Angeles city attorney in early returns on Tuesday night, putting her on track to become the second woman to hold the citywide office.

Early figures released by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk showed Roy with 355,866 votes, or 66.16 percent, while McKinney had 182,055 votes, or 33.84 percent, MyNewsLA reported. A later live tally published by The Basin at 2:05 a.m. on Nov. 4 showed Roy at 433,532 votes, or 66.1 percent, to 222,477 votes, or 33.9 percent, for McKinney, with an estimated 59 percent of the vote counted. Ballot counting will continue through the night, the week and the coming weeks, and the winner could remain unknown well into November in closer city races.

The office and the candidates

Roy, a California deputy attorney general, is poised to succeed City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto, who was elected in November 2022. Feldstein-Soto was the first Latina elected to a citywide office in Los Angeles and the first woman to serve as city attorney. She ran for a second term but was knocked out in the June election by Roy and McKinney, the top two finishers.

McKinney is a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney. A poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times and released in the final week of October, had Roy ahead of McKinney by 17 points.

The two differed in how they would use the office. McKinney said he would prosecute chronically homeless individuals to place them in treatment. Roy said she would go after companies and individuals violating wage laws, as well as landlords who harass renters.

The city attorney serves as legal adviser to the mayor, the City Council, city departments, city boards and city workers. The office oversees contracts, defends the city in civil lawsuits and prosecutes misdemeanor cases. The winner will oversee a staff of more than 1,000 attorneys and administrative employees and a budget of about 200 million dollars.

The council races on the same ballot

Los Angeles voters in the Third and Ninth Council Districts were also choosing new representatives to replace longtime members Bob Blumenfield and Curren Price, who are termed out. In the Third District, businessman Tim Gaspar held a slight lead with 19,664 votes, or 50.16 percent, over Barri Worth Girvan, who had 19,542 votes, or 49.84 percent.

In South Los Angeles, Jose Ugarte, a former deputy chief of staff to Price, held a 2,455-vote lead in the Ninth District over Estuardo Mazariegos, co-director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. Ugarte had 9,400 votes, or 57.51 percent, to 6,945 votes, or 42.49 percent, for Mazariegos. The Ninth District is poised to elect a Latino council member for the first time since 1962, when Edward Roybal led the district.