The 2022 midterms brought many things, including a new mayor for Los Angeles. Karen Bass was elected to be the 43rd mayor in a close race between herself and Rick Caruso. Bass is the first woman and second black mayor of Los Angeles. She was sworn in by Vice President, Kamala Harris, on December 11, 2022 and began her term on December 12.
Karen Bass was born in 1953 in Los Angeles. She attended college at California State University, Dominguez Hills and USC. Throughout her career she was a physician’s assistant and community activist. She was elected to serve as the 67th Speaker of the California State Assembly, the first black woman in U.S. history to be a speaker of a state legislative body. In 2010, she won the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for her leadership in the Great Recession.
Karen Bass was also elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in 2010. She originally represented California’s 33rd congressional district, then moved to the 37th district in 2012 through redistricting. For 6 years, Bass represented the 47th district in the California State Assembly. During the 116th Congress, Bass chaired the Congressional Black Caucus. In 2014, 2016, and 2018 she was re-elected to the House of Representatives for a 3rd, 4th, and 5th term.
In 2022 she ran for mayor, her main competitor was Rick Caruso, a businessman. While it was a close race, Bass still won with 54.8% of the votes. A large focus of Karen Bass’ campaign was focusing on and solving the homelessness crisis in L.A. This is a major job for anyone to take on, Los Angeles has more homeless people than any other city in the nation. Making good on her promise to start to fix the crisis, her first act as mayor was declaring a state of emergency for the homelessness crisis. Bass intends to get over 17,000 homeless people into housing in her first year, through a mix of interim and permanent facilities. This is nearly half the homeless population in L.A., as there is estimated to be 40,000 homeless people currently living in the city. Her goal is to largely expand on the amount of permanent supportive housing and temporary-shelter sites. Hopefully, she continues to make good on this promise, and does more good for solving the crisis, the following months/years will tell.
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