The Los Angeles Police Protective League has released a 30-second television ad going after mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, accusing the City Council member of repeatedly voting against efforts to clear homeless encampments near schools. The ad is set to broadcast this weekend as Raman and incumbent Mayor Karen Bass head toward their November 3 runoff.
According to MyNewsLA.com, the union filmed the spot a few hundred feet from a public school and a private school, and it features a young girl saying children should not have to walk past dangerous encampments on their way to school. LAPPL president Ricky Mendoza leads the union, which was formed in 1923 and represents more than 8,900 sworn LAPD officers of lieutenant rank and below. The union has endorsed Bass for a second term, and MyNewsLA reports the LAPPL provided $620,000 to the effort, with the Los Angeles Professional Managers' Association contributing $100,000 and also endorsing the mayor.
The ad leans on a claim, attributed by MyNewsLA to a LAPPL statement, that Raman voted more than 75 times against banning homeless encampments at over 500 locations. That criticism centers on Raman's long-standing position on Municipal Code 41.18, Los Angeles' anti-camping law, which she has argued should not be expanded without matching investments in housing, shelter and outreach, according to MyNewsLA's separate report on a recent forum.
A Fight That Started at a January Debate
The clash traces back to a January debate against Bass hosted by the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association, where Raman said she did not think a child would be safer simply because a tent was 500 feet from a school, per the seed reporting. She has also said Los Angeles lacks the ability to enforce the anti-camping law effectively, and has indicated that if elected mayor she would not get in the way of council members who choose to use it in their own districts.
The Bass campaign has separately criticized Raman for voting against an anti-camping zone near the Lula Washington Dance Theatre in South Los Angeles. Bass campaign spokesperson Alex Stack said children should not have to dodge tents on their way to school or dance class, according to the same MyNewsLA account.
This is not the union's first foray into the mayor's race. The LAPPL reported spending about $100,000 on digital ads against mayoral candidate Rae Huang, according to the Los Angeles Times. Four years earlier, the union had endorsed Rick Caruso over Bass and spent more than $4 million on an ad attacking her, a spot Bass called pathetic at the time, per ABC7.
Raman's Own History With Police Funding
The union's animosity toward Raman predates this year's mayoral race. In 2023, she opposed the LAPD contract that raised pay and offered bonuses to keep officers from leaving, and in 2024 she voted against a city budget that included more than $100 million in additional police funding, according to the New York Post. In 2025, she supported cutting planned police hiring in half, from 480 officers to 240, the same report noted.
An independent committee funded by the LAPPL and real estate company Douglas Emmett Management has also opposed Raman directly in her council race, according to KTLA. Raman represents City Council District 4, which covers the Hollywood Hills, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Encino and Reseda.
Committee Shakeup Adds to Political Tension
The union ad lands weeks after Raman was removed as chair of the City Council's Housing and Homelessness Committee at the start of September, amid her mayoral campaign. Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson split the panel into two separate committees and named Raman a member of the new Homelessness and Health Committee rather than its chair, according to reporting from NBC Los Angeles.
Raman described her removal as politically motivated. Harris-Dawson pushed back hard, telling NBC Los Angeles that her insinuation she was being punished for running against Bass amounted to her reaching “the bottom of the barrel politically.”
Homelessness Numbers at the Center of the Race
Homelessness remains among the top issues for voters this cycle, and both candidates have pointed to competing statistics to make their case. Los Angeles had an estimated 45,000 unhoused people in the 2026 Greater L.A. Homeless Count, with the city's unhoused population rising 3.4% and the county's rising 1.2% in the most recent tally, per MyNewsLA's reporting on a recent forum between Raman and commentator Steve Hilton. The city's unsheltered population increased this year after two straight years of decreases, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Raman has said homelessness significantly decreased in her district since she took office, and the Times reported that the number of homeless people living on the street in her district dropped by 49%. Bass has said Inside Safe, her encampment resolution initiative that moves unhoused people into temporary housing and interim shelters, was largely responsible for that decline in Raman's district. Inside Safe has gotten thousands of people off Los Angeles streets and cleared more than 140 encampments since Bass took office in 2022, and the mayor has given herself a B+ on her efforts to address the humanitarian crisis.
Raman has criticized the Inside Safe program itself, pointing to a Los Angeles Times report cited in MyNewsLA's account that found 40% of Inside Safe participants returned to the streets. She has argued that long-term interventions cost a third of what Inside Safe interventions do, and has said she would instead rely on short-term rental vouchers or time-limited subsidies, which she says have a 75% effectiveness rate in moving people toward self-sufficiency or permanent housing.
Where the Race Stands Heading Into November
Bass and Raman took the top two spots in the June primary, with Bass finishing ahead at 34% of the vote to Raman's 29%, according to LAist. A UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs poll had earlier placed Raman third among leading candidates with 9% support, per Courthouse News. Raman announced her bid to challenge Bass in February.
Both candidates recently appeared at a two-day homelessness forum at Los Angeles' Original Pantry Cafe, hosted by Hope the Mission and KTLA5, where Bass said she would not be satisfied until no Angelenos were sleeping on the streets. With the union's new ad set to hit airwaves this weekend, homelessness policy and police funding look likely to remain flashpoints through the November 3 election.
