A Los Angeles mayoral candidate who once championed defunding police now says the city needs to maintain its current force, raising questions about whether politicians shift positions based on public pressure or genuine reassessment of public safety needs.
Story Snapshot
- Nithya Raman, a Los Angeles City Councilmember running for mayor, stated the city must maintain its police force at approximately 8,700 officers, contradicting her 2020 campaign platform that proposed transforming the Los Angeles Police Department into a “much smaller, specialized armed force.”[1]
- Raman voted against Mayor Karen Bass’s plan to hire 170 additional police officers last month, creating a disconnect between her recent public statements and her voting record on police expansion.[1]
- The shift in Raman’s rhetoric has sparked debate about whether progressive politicians are genuinely reassessing public safety policy or simply repositioning themselves for electoral advantage in a competitive mayoral race.[1][5]
- Reality television personality Spencer Pratt, running as an unconventional mayoral candidate, has criticized Raman’s prior defund stance during campaign debates, though his credibility as a serious policy critic remains contested.[2][3]
Raman’s Evolution on Police Staffing
Nithya Raman told NBC Los Angeles that the city needs to maintain the size of its police force and acknowledge that even the current 8,700-officer department struggles to respond to emergency calls promptly.[1] This represents a marked departure from her 2020 campaign platform, which explicitly advocated transforming the Los Angeles Police Department into a “much smaller, specialized armed force” with responsibilities for traffic enforcement, vehicle accidents, and nonviolent mental health crises transferred to other agencies.[1] The timing of her public statements—occurring as she campaigns for the mayoral office—underscores a broader pattern observed in urban politics over the past five years.
The Voting Record Contradiction
Despite her recent statements supporting police force maintenance, Raman voted against Mayor Bass’s proposal to hire an additional 170 police officers last month, joining three other Democratic Socialists of America-backed council members in opposing the measure, which passed 9-4.[1] In December, Raman cited fiscal pressures on city finances and potential cuts to other services as her rationale for opposing police expansion.[1] This inconsistency between her words and votes raises legitimate questions about whether her current position reflects genuine policy reconsideration or tactical repositioning ahead of the mayoral election.
LMFAO 🤣After getting EXPOSED by Future Mayor of LA Spencer Pratt, Nithya Raman now does NOT support defunding police LMAO 🤣
CNN: "So you no longer believe in defunding police?"
RAMAN: "No”
I CAN’T STOP LAUGHING
— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) May 10, 2026
A National Pattern of Policy Reversals
Raman’s apparent shift mirrors a documented trend across major American cities since 2021. Progressive officials who initially backed police budget reductions or reallocations have increasingly endorsed police hiring or force maintenance, often during reelection campaigns or bids for higher office. This pattern reflects the political pressure elected officials face when balancing earlier reform commitments against rising public concerns about crime and emergency response times. The question facing Los Angeles voters is whether such reversals indicate genuine policy learning or opportunistic repositioning driven by electoral calculations rather than substantive analysis of public safety needs.
Sources:
[1] Nithya Raman, running for mayor, says L.A. shouldn’t lose more cops
[5] Activist Coalition Tells LA City Council: Defund The Police, Spend …
