The Los Angeles mayor’s race is not the only Nov. 3 contest where Eastsiders will choose between an incumbent with a lengthy record in elected office and a challenger backed by the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. That dynamic is also playing out in the race for California’s 34th Congressional District, which covers most of the Eastside.
How we got here
Jimmy Gomez, who in 2017 won the seat formerly held by Xavier Becerra, faced five challengers in the June primary. He soared to a first-place finish, besting DSA-backed Angela Gonzales-Torres. Republican Calvin Lee was third in the deep-blue district.
Candidate breakdown
Gomez is an Eagle Rock resident who worked as a labor organizer before winning a state Assembly seat in 2012. Five years later, when Becerra became attorney general, Gomez beat out 22 people for the Congressional post. Long positioned as a progressive Democrat, Gomez has been outspoken against Trump administration immigration enforcement tactics. Gomez has regularly cruised to re-election, including twice defeating now-City Controller Kenneth Mejia.
Gomez currently is under intense scrutiny, with the House of Representatives’ Ethics Committee investigating him on allegations related to “inappropriate sexual contact” with a House staffer. Gomez has admitted to “personal mistakes” outside his marriage, but has maintained that any relationship was consensual.
Gonzales-Torres is a Highland Park native and resident, and a self-described “daughter of a deportee raised by a single mother.” The first-time candidate has been a member of Metro’s Public Safety Advisory Committee, and served as president of her neighborhood council. According to her campaign website, she currently works “in supporting people transitioning from prison into universities.” Prominent left-leaning group Justice Democrats is supporting her.
Jimmy Gomez did not respond to our request for comments.
About the district
CA-34 counts 755,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and covers Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles, Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Glassell Park and other communities. Approximately 65% of area residents are Latino.
The household median income of about $64,000 trails the $100,000 statewide figure. An estimated 12.4% of residents lack healthcare coverage; the rate is 5.9% across California.
Cash count
Through the most recent reporting date of June 30, Gomez had raised $1.175 million and had $782,000 in cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Gonzales-Torres had pulled in $229,000, with $44,000 to spend.
Angela Gonzales-Torres
What is one specific action you would take in Congress to improve the lives of people in Boyle Heights and East LA?
I would immediately fight to finish the federal cleanup of the lead Exide left in our soil. More than a decade after that plant closed, this is still the largest contamination cleanup of its kind in California history, and it is nowhere near done. The state has remediated portions but
thousands of families are still waiting for answers. As we know, children in Boyle Heights and East LA have also been growing up on dirt their parents were told was safe and lead has been found in their teeth. In Lincoln Heights, we heard the same story of generational environmental racism and successfully stopped a warehouse from being built directly across the street from an Elementary school. I have seen what is possible when we invest in our communities with care.
In Congress, I would press EPA to secure appropriations to remediate every remaining parcel
and retest every property already cleaned. The Lineage Logistics fire in June proved the same
point from the other direction. Boyle Heights not only endured an unforgivable stench for weeks
but residents were exposed to possible toxic smoke and ammonia. This district has absorbed
the cost of other people’s profit for too long. I am the only person in the CA-34 race that has called for the closure of that warehouse and I recognize that is the bare minimum. We must see
this through and make sure people get the healthcare and justice they deserve.
Many families in our community include immigrants and mixed-status households. What specific policies will you support to protect immigrant residents?
I appreciate the question as I grew up in a mixed-status family and living through my own
father’s deportation really shaped the work I have done since: supporting free immigration legal
services to students, staff, and faculty on college campuses, and standing with undocumented
students in the Opportunity for All campaign for equal access to campus jobs.
In Congress I will keep my pledge to refuse campaign contributions from companies that build
and operate private prisons and ICE detention centers. I will vote against every appropriation
that expands detention capacity and move to end family detention permanently. I will fund
universal legal representation in immigration court and I will build a bloc to write sensitive-
location protections into statute, because schools, hospitals, clinics, churches, and courthouses
should be off limits by law, not by policy any administration can revoke.
Lastly, I will immediately push for a genuine pathway to citizenship covering DACA and TPS
holders and long-settled workers. Los Angeles already has the organizers and students doing this work. My job is to carry what they have built into Congress; we deserve a federal representative that will actually work with us not against us.
Your opponent is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee following allegations of sexual misconduct. What standards of ethics and accountability should voters expect from their representatives and what would you do to uphold those standards if elected?
In April, Representative Gomez quit as chair of Eric Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign, saying
Swalwell should leave the race “so there can be full accountability.” That was the right standard
but Gomez has failed to take his own advice.
In August, the Ethics Committee opened an investigation into allegations that Gomez engaged
in inappropriate sexual contact with a staffer. He admitted to personal mistakes outside his
marriage but lawyers for the staffer say his actions were not consensual. I would uphold the standards of ethics and accountability voters expect from their duly elected representative. A member’s office is a public workplace. Staffers help carry meaningful policies forward and should feel safe doing so. Complaints should be investigated promptly, resolved transparently, and never buried. Our campaign stands with the person who came forward, and with the survivors who have felt safe sharing their stories with us, as we take a public stance against a culture in Congress in which men appear to abuse positions of power and appear to abuse women. If elected, I will require the Ethics Committee to disclose investigations and their status on a fixed timeline, with no election-year blackout; close the 2018 Congressional Accountability Act gaps, so no claim against a member is settled with public money; give the Office of Congressional Conduct subpoena power and protected funding; and ban congressional stock trading. There is no room for this behavior in our politics, in our Congress, or in our Democratic Party, and I intend to make that clear.
What else will you promise to people in the community?
I promise an office in East LA, the district’s only unincorporated community, where federal
representation is often the only representation we get. I promise frequent, open town halls
across CA-34, with interpretation and no screened questions. I will publish my schedule and
campaign contributions. I take no corporate or super PAC money, and never will.
In-district, we’re focused on: affordable housing, safe, fully-funded schools, and job
opportunities. Nationally, we are actively organizing around fighting for universal healthcare, to
Block the Bombs, and secure a $25 minimum wage. Los Angeles powers the world’s fourth
largest economy in a donor state. It is time that investment came home. I will put our district
first, not donors.
