Los Angeles – With just days to the L.A. mayor contest, the city attorney and controller elections are drawing their own sharp contrasts—over crime-focused leadership, City Hall oversight, and how aggressively public money is audited.
The Los Angeles mayoral battle may be the headline. but the fights over city power are happening elsewhere on the ballot. too—at the city attorney’s office and in the controller’s race. In these contests, voters aren’t just choosing names. They’re choosing how City Hall handles accountability, oversight and the public’s money.
The city attorney job carries real weight in daily government life. The city attorney prosecutes misdemeanors. signs off on legal matters in City Hall. drafts laws. and defends the city in court. In other words. it’s not only a legal role—it’s a gatekeeper role. shaping what City Hall can do and how it defends itself when things go wrong.
Incumbent Hydee Feldstein Soto is arguing she has taken a tough stand on crime and pushed for more accountability and oversight inside City Hall. Her opponents frame the argument differently. They say she has mismanaged the office, and they point to growing city legal payouts.
The other race—Los Angeles city controller—asks voters to look at budgets with a watchdog’s eye. The controller serves as L.A.’s chief auditor and public purse watchdog. scrutinizing how money is spent and whether City Hall is performing efficiently. For residents, that means questions about whether oversight is strong enough when public funds are on the line.
Incumbent Kenneth Mejia says his first term brought the accountability and scrutiny City Hall needed. His challenger, Zach Sokoloff, contends that City Hall’s controls still fall short. Sokoloff says he would provide more rigorous oversight over budgets and services.
Taken together. the two races mirror each other: both are about control—who holds it. who checks it. and what happens when oversight fails. In the city attorney’s contest. that debate plays out in competing claims about crime policy. management of the office. and whether legal costs are rising. In the controller race. it turns into a showdown over how far watchdog scrutiny should go when budgets and services are at stake.
For voters, the choices aren’t abstract. They are about who drafts and defends the city’s legal position, who audits the city’s spending, and who is trusted to impose accountability when the decisions get complicated.
Los Angeles city attorney city controller Hydee Feldstein Soto Kenneth Mejia Zach Sokoloff election guide City Hall oversight
So is this just about auditing money or are they actually doing anything about crime??
I swear every election in LA is “accountability, oversight” this and “crime” that. Meanwhile my street still feels like a crime show. Also legal payouts?? sounds like they’re paying people to lose in court.
Hydee Feldstein Soto is the controller in my head for some reason… so if she’s “tightening oversight” doesn’t that mean the controller race is basically pointless? I’m probably mixing them up but why do they all sound the same lol
The whole thing about legal payouts rising makes it sound like City Hall is just wasting money then shrugging. But the article says controller checks budgets—okay, so why does it even matter if the city attorney prosecutes misdemeanors? Like shouldn’t that fix crime automatically? I don’t know, elections are always promises and then nothing changes.