(The Center Square)–Wednesday’s debate among candidates for mayor of Los Angeles was canceled after frontrunners decided against speaking.
The announcement from the League of Women Voters, which was set to host the forum, came after news that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass opted out of the event.
Spencer Pratt, the race’s sole Republican, was already out because of a scheduling conflict. It’s unclear why Bass opted out.
Bass, a Democrat; the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and Pratt did not respond to The Center Square’s repeated requests for comment.
Last week, following a May 6 forum hosted by NBC Los Angeles, one poll found Pratt was the winner. Eighty-nine percent of voters picked Pratt in the NBC LA poll.
Meanwhile, Pratt has been making headlines and going viral for social media posts and interviews about Los Angeles. Some people have also posted and shared videos of Pratt as a Batman-like figure taking on villains, all of them Democrats. Bass is portrayed in the artificial intelligence-generated video as the Joker.
Roxanne Hoge, chair of the Los Angeles County Republican Party, said Pratt should not be taken lightly.
“Spencer Pratt is not only the only Republican in the race, but he’s also the only common-sense candidate in the race that has a team of people ready to go on day one,” Hoge told The Center Square. “He’s a rare candidate who not only diagnoses the problem properly, but he also has treatment for each of those problems.”
Pratt became a household name of sorts among young voters when he appeared from 2006 to 2010 on the MTV reality series “The Hills.” It was there that Pratt met his wife, Heidi Montag.
Pratt has since appeared on other reality shows, but Hoge said that is not all Pratt can claim.
“He also happened to be a political science major when he graduated from USC [University of Southern California], but more importantly, he is sort of what our founders intended,” said Hoge. “He’s a citizen who found something wrong, wants to contribute to the governance. He doesn’t want to be a career politician. He wants to build back his town and make the city of LA work again.”
Bass is also on record as saying she wants to change Los Angeles.
On her website, in a section called “Why I’m Running,” Bass points to fighting crime, tackling homelessness, addressing the housing shortage and fixing infrastructure in her first term as mayor.
“Crime has fallen, with homicide levels lower than they’ve been since the 1960s,” said Bass, a former U.S. congresswoman and state Assembly member who served as speaker during her final term. “Sidewalks, streets, and streetlights were neglected far too long.”
Still, Hoge said the LA-area wildfires were devastating, and the film industry skipped town.
Hoge called Hollywood a “signature business” and compared it to Detroit losing cars and music.
The League of Women Voters issued a press release saying it is disappointed that the forum is not taking place.
According to LWV, Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a Democrat running for mayor, withdrew from the forum because she agreed to participate in order to debate Bass. In April, a poll by the University of California, Los Angeles’ Luskin School of Public Affairs found Bass with 25% support, followed by Pratt at 11% and Raman at 9%.
“The League of Women Voters of Greater Los Angeles and the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs have a long track record of co-sponsoring candidate forums that are fair, nonpartisan, substantive, and focused on issues that matter most to voters,” said LWV in a press release Monday afternoon. “We remain committed to providing voters with meanintful opportunities to engage with those seeking public office.”
The nonpartisan primary for mayor of Los Angeles is scheduled for June 2.
