By Stephen Witt
When it comes to LA County politics and governance, it’s Lindsey Horvath’s world, and we’re just living in it.
That thought came to me during my LACP Interview this week with Ruben Gonzalez, the new president of the Valley Industry & Commerce Association (VICA), the San Fernando Valley’s leading business group.
I asked Gonzalez about Horvath and Measure G, the 2024 ballot measure that creates an elected County Executive, with the primary in March 2028, and expands the Board of Supervisors from five members to nine. Horvath was a driving force behind the measure, and last week she announced she is running to become the first County Executive.
“She wasn’t on the ballot on Tuesday, but she’s probably the most influential elected official right now in the LA region. She made the right picks,” Gonzalez said, referring to her backing of Mayor-elect Nithya Raman and City Councilmember-elect Barri Worth Girvan, her former district director. Horvath was the only supervisor to endorse Raman.
Horvath, 44, a former West Hollywood mayor, is part of a generational change sweeping American politics, as millennials replace baby boomers in elected office. Much of that energy in LA runs through the well-organized Democratic Socialists of America, whose membership nationally skews white, young and college-educated, according to the group’s own member survey. But Horvath, a Notre Dame graduate, strikes me as more of a pragmatic moderate.
I agree that county government should be strengthened in a sprawling county of 88 cities and dozens of unincorporated communities. And while the county expands its board, the Los Angeles City Council, the highest-paid in the country, chose to keep its 15 seats.
Gonzalez called the first County Executive election “a George Washington moment.”
“When you’re the first to sit in an executive role, so much of it is created by custom and tradition rather than black-and-white rules,” he said. “Whoever takes this job is going to have to create that culture, and literally write the role on the fly.”
He’s right. Washington set norms of restraint that held the presidency together for more than two centuries. Whoever becomes the county’s first elected executive won’t just run the county. They’ll define the job.
But while Horvath is the first to throw her hat in the ring, I hope her early start doesn’t make this a done deal. Her base is the Westside and the cities closely tied to Los Angeles. Like the 13 colonies, each with its own character and interests, LA County’s regions, from Long Beach and the South Bay to the San Gabriel Valley, Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley, deserve a real voice in this race. I hope strong candidates from those parts of the county step up, so the first County Executive is chosen in a true contest of ideas.
That’s the real test of a generation’s leadership: not just winning power, but showing how it should be used.
