It looks like Mayor Eric Garcetti has found out who will be challenging him when he runs for re-election in 2017. The LA Times reports that local education activist and charter school founder Steve Barr has announced he will be formally throwing his hat in the ring. Barr joins Mitchell Schwartz, a long-time Democratic political consultant, in running against the popular incumbent mayor. The election is still almost a year and a half away, but we expect you’ll start hearing these names more as the election gets closer, so here is what we know about each of them so far.
Steve Barr has never held political office and is campaigning from an ‘outsider’ angle. His big issue is education reform. The Silver Lake resident channeled his disappointment with LA public schools into founding Green Dot Charter, now a chain of 19 charter schools serving 11,000 students and his campaign suggests he will parlay that experience into changes city-wide, starting with proposals to cut administrative overhead and reassign resources to improve the worst LAUSD schools. Among the hurdles his campaign is likely to face is the fact that the mayor’s office in LA has no direct control over the school district, which might make implementing sweeping reforms difficult.
Earlier this year, Mitchell Schwartz also announced a campaign for City Hall. He is a professional political strategist who brings a résumé including serving as the California campaign director for Barack Obama in 2008 and as the State Department’s communications director. According to the LA Times, he is focusing his campaign on issues including recent rises in in violent crime and the rate of homelessness.
While it is still far out, local politics watchers say current conditions have them expecting Mayor Garcetti keeping his spot—unless he ends up moving to Washington to join a Clinton White House administration, in which case the mayor’s race could suddenly go up for grabs, though he recently shot those rumors down. But the real question here is, which of the nominees has the best Instagram account?