Dissembling in the Dark

Mike, Rachel, and Laura reveal the troubling story of the Neighbors First dark money network that’s mucking up LA City Council elections, including previously unreported details. Then: the latest in the ongoing Measure ULA saga, and a potential new progressive revenue stream for housing and basic services in the city of Long Beach Details about the dark money network in Los Angeles were first shared by Rob Quan , including images of the mailers and billboards Mike followed up and dives much deeper for a piece in Think Forward CalMatters wrote about the emergence of “Govern for California” as a political force back in 2022 Nielsen Werkasamer, the law firm at the hub of the dark money network, played a key role in ousting progressive officials in San Francisco like DA Chesa Boudin, and flipping control of SF City Hall The law firm also played a key role in passage and defense of Proposition 22 , the 2020 ballot measure that stripped workers rights for Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash drivers The local arms of the dark money network are Vibrant LA and Neighbors First , which have websites that tell you zilch about who they are In the 2024 Los Angeles elections, a local network called Thrive LA emerged to try to knock out progressive candidates. (They’re still around.) A piece in The Nation co-authored by Mike covered the story in depth LA’s Housing Department is proposing an allocation of $360 million in Measure ULA money to fund 80 projects, construction of 1,528 new units and repairs to more than 2,500 affordable units Anti-tax groups like the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and the California Business Roundtable submitted 1.3 million signatures for ballot measure that would require two-thirds vote for local special taxes, cap transfer taxes at 0.11%, and repeal all the transfer taxes that exceed that cap LA’s City Council formed a new Ad Hoc Committee to consider reforms to Measure ULA, and is studying potential impacts of changes. Critics of ULA say the potential changes do not go far enough In Long Beach, a coalition of renter advocates and firefighters are pushing a proposal to tax wealthy homeowners to pay for road repairs, new housing, and new fire stations. Advocates call it the ‘fair share’ tax proposal Listen to this week’s episodes of What’s Next, Los Angeles , featuring interviews with gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer, and Raymond Meza, chair of the LA City Charter Reform Commission. And don’t miss recent interviews with LA mayoral candidates Nithya Raman, Rae Huang, and Adam Miller ( Apple Podcasts , Spotify ) This week’s episode was produced by Sophie Bridges . The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward Mike Bonin is the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CalState LA, and can be found at @mikebonin on Instagram and @mikebonin.bsky.social on Bluesky Rachel Reyes is an LA native and community organizer. Follow her advocacy and antics at @rchrys on Instagram Laura Raymond works on housing campaigns and strategic initiatives in Los Angeles at ljraymondstrategies.com

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Dissembling in the Dark is an episode from LA Podcast by LA Podcast LLC.

This episode is 00:50:58 long.

This episode was published on Apr 13, 2026.

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