Nithya Raman

City Council Member, Los Angeles

Raman, who represents a district stretching from Silver Lake to Reseda, is the pioneer of the left flank in the City Council, acting as point person for a gathering faction of Democratic Socialists of America. 

She became the first South Asian and first Asian American woman to serve on the Los Angeles City Council when she unseated incumbent Councilmember David Ryu in a closely contested race in 2020. After calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, she won the backing of liberal Zionist and pro-Israel group Democrats for Israel, which led to her censure on Feb. 3, 2024 by the Los Angeles chapter of the DSA. 

Raman’s time in office has been anything but quiet.

She was arrested in June 2023 during a protest organized by Unite Here Local 11, the union representing Southern California hospitality workers. Raman was referenced in a secretly recorded 2022 meeting in which council members Nury Martinez, Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León discussed redrawing political boundaries to benefit Latino representatives. In the recording, she was described as “not an ally” to them and after it surfaced, her district was reshaped in ways that weakened her reelection prospects. She was also hit with a recall notice in June 2021, just six months into her term, though it fizzled by September. 

Prior to entering politics, Raman founded and headed a homelessness nonprofit in L.A. and was the executive director of Time’s Up Entertainment, a defunct Hollywood #MeToo advocacy group. She also founded the research firm Transparent Chennai to improve sanitation in the city of Chennai, India.