As her city goes up in flames, Bass's political future hangs in the balance

By the time Mayor Karen Bass stepped off the plane, apocalyptic fires had been raging across Los Angeles for more than 24 hours, her ordeal could become a hallmark of her mayoral career.

The mayor of the country's second-largest metropolis stood silent and seemingly paralyzed as an Irish journalist who happened to be on her flight asked her questions.

“Should you apologize to the citizens who were absent when their house was on fire?” There is no answer.

“Madam Mayor, do you regret the millions of dollars in cuts to the fire department budget?” There is no answer.

“Don't you have anything to say today? ”

Buzz stared ahead, then down at her feet, then walked along the catwalk toward her smoldering city.

On January 4, she left Los Angeles to attend the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama as the National Weather Service stepped up warnings of incoming storms. She was still out of the country when the Palisades Fire ignited and exploded, and other fires soon broke out in and around the city.

She returned Wednesday amid public outrage over her whereabouts and outrage over empty fire hydrants, empty reservoirs and what some said was an under-resourced fire department. Her handling of the issue in the coming days will only intensify some of the criticism.

Bath also fought Extraordinary divisions emerged within her own ranksLos Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley said in an interview Friday that the department was understaffed and underfunded and suggested Bass had let her down. That night, false rumors that Bass had fired Crowley added to the confusion and created a sense that Bass was not completely in control of the situation.

Now, while Bass is enduring a disaster that will redefine the city, her political future hangs in the balance.

Bass has certainly become a punching bag for parts of the city at a time when people are desperate for heroes and villains alike to understand their pain.

Her absence, combined with inconsistent early performance and an unprecedented attack by the fire chief, only exacerbated her vulnerability. On X, she has become a much-maligned conservative meme.

But only time will reveal the severity of the political fallout. There will be an investigation into whether fire and water officials failed in their duties and whether the council missed an opportunity to improve communities' fire resilience. The answers will take months or even years to figure out.

In California, a warlike land where humans can only be temporarily tamed, fire is inevitable. The seeds of much of the destruction were sown long before Bass took office — rising temperatures that left hillsides dry and at risk of blowing by strong winds, and planning decisions generations ago that placed homes in fragile, shrub-covered ravines.

Even before last week's unprecedented fire storms, climate change was reshaping California in horrific ways, with blazes leveling entire communities in places like Santa Rosa and Paradise.

And the hard work of rebuilding has just begun.

“For all Angelenos, we are hurting, grieving, still in shock and angry. I am too,” Bass said at a news conference Saturday morning. “The devastation our city faces. But despite the sadness, despite the anger, despite the shock, we must remain focused until this time passes and until the fires are extinguished.”

Bass, who declined to be interviewed, promised “a full picture of what worked and, specifically, what didn't work” once the flames subsided.

The first-term mayor, who will be elected in November 2022, has focused primarily on the city's large and complex homeless emergency in his first few years in office. She has made some incremental progress on homelessness but faced some external crisis until last week.

Before the fire, residents largely approved of her job performance, even as Angelenos expressed frustration with the direction the city was taking.

But that goodwill is disappearing.

Criticism has come from all directions in recent days, with her 2022 challenger, billionaire mall tycoon Rick Caruso, scathing in the media over Bass's absence and handling of the fire.

Caruso, whose Palisades mall was spared with the help of private firefighters, told The Times last week that Bass’s “terrible” leadership resulted in “billions of dollars in damage because she wasn’t here and Don’t know what you are” doing. ”

A Change.org petition calling for her resignation has received more than 120,000 signatures.

Bass, 71, has also come under fire from both the left and the right over cuts to fire service operations. City Manager Kenneth Mejia, a darling of progressives, has been particularly vocal in his criticism on social media.

Bass and the city's budget analysts pushed back against claims of budget cuts, noting that the department was expected to grow significantly this year — long before the fires broke out, thanks in large part to a package of raises for firefighters.

On Monday morning, Times boss Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong said in an interview with YouTube politics show “The Morning Meeting” that the paper would be “a mistake” in endorsing Bass in 2022. (Endorsements from The Times editorial board operate independently of the newsroom.)

Critics have also repeatedly criticized Bass's lack of visibility outside of official briefings, saying the former six-term congresswoman looks more like a legislator than a CEO at a time when residents are desperate for reassurance from their leaders.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, several members of the county Board of Supervisors and City Councilmember Traci Park, who represents Pacific Palisades, in affected communities and local news More visible than the mayor.

But the real test for the mayor has just begun, with her political future inextricably linked to an almost unfathomably tricky recovery ahead.

In a place with a long history of disasters, Bath faces a disaster that could pose a smaller financial and logistical burden than the combined impact of the 1994 Northridge earthquake and the 1992 civil unrest. She will also oversee a massive environmental cleanup and address the challenges of housing thousands of newly homeless Angelenos in an already overstretched housing market. All of this must happen as she prepares for the massive footprint and operational challenges of the upcoming 2028 Olympics.

Before swaths of the city were set on fire, the Democratic mayor was widely expected to sail into a second term without a serious opponent in the 2026 election.

Potential challengers may now “smell blood in the water,” as one local political consultant put it, and reassess the feasibility of running their own campaigns in a rapidly changing political landscape.

Representatives for Caruso, a Republican-turned-Democrat who has spent more than $100 million of his personal fortune on the 2022 campaign, did not respond when asked if he planned to run again. Mejia spokesperson Jane Nguyen said city leaders are “focused on their work right now” and have not made any decisions about future competitions.

“I don't think it's a good sign yet for her reelection chances,” said Angie-Marie Hancock, former chair of the political science and international relations department at the University of Southern California and now director of the Kirwan Institute for Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. Fatal situation.”

Hancock said there's still time for the former South Los Angeles community organizer to return to the brand of politics she's known for, which is “a deep concern for community.”

But it won't be easy.

Even some political allies have expressed doubts about the mayor's handling of the snowballing criticism last week, with some expressing doubts about the viral airport interview and the tone in which she answered follow-up questions in the coming days.

The mayor has long brushed off what she sees as politically motivated questions, appearing combative and defensive when asked about her travels at news conferences. It took her several days to publicly acknowledge the level of outrage over the city's response to the fires.

Only a portion of the fatal fires occurred within city limits, and while Bass was also blamed for the response to the Eaton fire, it was well beyond her purview.

Others denounce Bass’s critics as political vultures who are simply hurting the city at an already perilous moment.

“It’s unfounded,” Steve Soboroff, the former chairman of the Los Angeles Police Commission and a longtime supporter of the mayor, said of the criticism. “It's very convenient and easy for people who want to spend their time pointing fingers instead of expecting. This is God's will. This is force majeure. This is beyond anyone's control.”

Bass clearly had no control over the wind and could not see the future. Destruction of this magnitude requires a perfect storm of factors that few would have predicted days in advance.

Still, before Bass left town, regional branches of the National Weather Service predicted severe fire conditions, a language that shifted to “extreme fire weather conditions” on Jan. 5. By late last Monday morning, they had issued an emergency warning for the fire. The “life-threatening and destructive storm” raised nagging questions about the mayor's priorities and why she didn't leave Ghana sooner.

“I don’t understand how they didn’t cancel her trip,” said another senior staff member of a local elected official, explaining that their office began treating the coming wind event as a serious threat over the weekend. “This is political malpractice.”

The staffer, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said it is common practice for Los Angeles politicians to cancel or prepare to cancel scheduled events during severe weather.

Still, Bass is not the first California political leader to be absent from the leadership during a time of urgent crisis.

On September 11, 2001, former Mayor James Hahn traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby and was unable to return to the city for several days because air travel was suspended. When the Watts riots broke out in 1965, then-Gov. Pat Brown famously vacationed in Greece. His absence helped oust him from office the following year by challenger Ronald Reagan.

In the city of more than 4 million people, TMZ happened upon two famous Bass supporters — actors Kym Whitley and Yvette Nicole Brown — —Walk out of a grocery store in the San Fernando Valley on Saturday. They passionately defended Bass seemingly impromptu interview.

They suggested Bass was held to a higher standard as a black woman and unfairly blamed for a natural disaster.

“She was not the type of person to fly her flag when the politically motivated smear campaign started against her,” Brown said Sunday of the mayor who typically eschews overt political battles. “More importantly, now is not the time for anyone to try to position themselves for the next election.”

The mayor's quiet style and penchant for soft power, which some say is lacking in this devastating moment, could also be an asset in the months ahead.

Soboroff said Bass's flexibility as a coalition-builder and the deep federal ties she used as selling points during her campaign make her particularly well-positioned to successfully lead the city's recovery.

As other state and local leaders balked at President-elect Donald Trump, Bass publicly sought to defuse friction, saying she had been talking to representatives from the incoming administration and was not concerned about any alleged lack of communication.

“During a disaster, we look for those responsible. But our politics have also become polarized and nationalized, so that's used as an excuse to bash California for a variety of reasons,” said Mannu, director of the USC Equity Institute El Pastor (Manuel Pastor) said.

Pastor, who served on Bass's transition team, cited disinformation about X and an echo chamber in which right-wing politicians exploited the crisis for their own ends.

“She will be judged on how well she rebuilds, and she will be judged on whether the city is ready for the Olympics,” Pastor said.

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.