Karen Bass Faces Increased Pressure, Voter Doubt Week Before LA Mayoral Debate

Only a week before the first LA Mayoral Debate, Congresswoman and LA Mayoral Candidate Karen Bass is facing increased scrutiny following numerous scandals and issues that have popped up this month.

Between the close primary vote in June and late August, Bass’ popularity at the poll surged from being only a few points ahead of her opponent, the Developer Rick Caruso, to gaining a 14 point lead. While Caruso has many strong areas, such as with Latino voters and those in the San Fernando Valley, Bass has managed to win over more neighborhoods and demographics largely due to her more liberal stances on city issues. Certain scandals of Caruso’s, such as allegedly covering up sexual abuse at USC and his switching political parties have not helped his campaign in the last few months.

However, since early September, Bass has faced multiple issues that have slowly closed the gap. Last week, prosecutors in a USC bribery scandal alleged Bass willingly took a $95,000 Master’s Degree scholarship in 2011 in exchange for Bass helping pass legislation that would give more funds to private universities like USC for social work programs.

“We will offer a full scholarship between the two schools. I did the same for Karen Bass – full scholarship for our funds,” said an e-mail from the person at the center of the bribery allegations, former USC social work program dean Marilyn Flynn.

While Bass denied the allegations and the U.S. Attorney’s office has not yet announced an investigation, prosecutors hope that the evidence will eventually lead to the investigation going into Bass.

Caruso also commented on the incident, saying that “Bass’ scholarship amounts to corruption and dishonesty. We cannot afford for the next mayor to govern under a cloud of corruption.”

Bass faces major issues only a week before the debate

Only a few days later after the reports came out over the bribery allegations, another negative incident hit Bass. According to Bass and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the Congresswoman returned to her Baldwin Vista home late on September 9th to discover that it had been broken into and burglarized. The LAPD were quickly called to the scene, where it was found that the only things missing were two firearms that had been taken from inside a lockbox.

Questions over how only two firearms were stolen were quickly raised, with many raising safety, crime, and improper storage of firearms criticisms at her. While the case still remains unresolved as of Wednesday, the fact that she lost weapons and downplayed the crime angle of it also dented her support, specifically of those voters who want a reduction of crime in the city but still leaned toward voting for her.

With Bass now facing weaknesses  on issues such as crime, firearms, corruption, bribery allegations, and public safety all in only a few days time, next weeks’ debate will prove to be challenging, as it is widely seen as the next high point in her campaign.

“The sky is starting to fall on Bass right now, and its as if she and her campaign team don’t realize it,” said  Jan Ives, a Washington-based local election analyst, in a Globe interview. “Caruso’s team is probably putting together a lot of good jabs at her, and probably even worse, fact-based jabs at her. He has some real ammunition now, and supporters are likely submitting a lot of questions over these issues.”

“Bass will probably deflect to more her strong suits, but if Caruso can get out of the debate with Bass looking like a corrupt Congresswoman out of touch with public safety, which these two events can possibly do to her, then we have a close race again. Caruso needs to go for these new weaknesses while focusing on his strengths, like crime and public safety. Bass will need to pull focus away from these and get Caruso on his own problems right now. There is a world where Caruso mentions public tuition of colleges in the county, Bass defends her stance, then Caruso counters with something like “Well not everyone can get a scholarship like you did, at least according to the prosecutors” that will be run on news reports nationally. Bass will need to avoid something like that at all costs.”

The debate is to be held on September 21st at 7 P.M. following the Sheriff’s debate. Info on how to submit questions can be found here.