Tenants rights attorney Ysabel Jurado is a relative political unknown. Even her opponent in the Los Angeles City Council race, the scandal-plagued Kevin de León, claimed to have “never heard of her in my entire life.”
“We ran this campaign as an insurgent campaign and I thought, I wasn't focused on winning,” Jurado told KNX News’ daily political show Countdown 2024. “I was just like, okay, we're going to do the work. We're gonna run this insurgent campaign, run it by our values, and if it works, that's great.”
Listen to the full episode here:
It certainly worked in the primary: the political newcomer upset a field of established politicians to come in first place. She’s now facing off against the incumbent de León in November.
Jurado, who describes herself as a progressive, said the leaked tapes of de León and his then-colleagues making racist jokes while trying to rig the redistricting process in her favor was the “last straw” that convinced her to run for office.
“Having these people that claim to be progressive champions yet behind closed doors are really betraying our values in a very clear way to serve their personal self interest, that really ticked me off,” she said.
Jurado said Council District 14 has a “history of leadership that has failed us,” pointing out that the district’s previous councilmember, José Huizar, is now in prison for corruption and bribery.
“The status quo, the things that we know, politics as we know it, is not working for working-class people, and I'm tired of chipping away at change when we really want to make these bigger leaps,” she said. “And we can't do that unless we have like-minded progressives on City Council to move it along.”
Jurado cited homelessness and housing affordability as major issues she would approach differently if elected.
“As an eviction defense attorney, I watch so many people fall into homelessness,” she said. “And a lot of it was chronic homelessness or seniors because the rent is going up and yet the Social Security doesn't go up by four to six percent every year.”
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Listen to the full episode above to hear more of Jurado’s thoughts about her opponent, and catch new episodes of Countdown 2024 live at 2:30 p.m. every weekday through Election Day.
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