Marissa Roy, an assistant attorney general, and John McKinney, an assistant district attorney for Los Angeles County are running in the race to succeed Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, who came in third in the June 2 primary.
The city attorney serves as the general counsel for elected city leaders, departments, boards and commissions. The office also prosecutes misdemeanor crimes and represents L.A. in civil litigation.
A poll released Oct. 28 by the UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies and the L.A. Times showed Roy leading by 17%.
McKinney told Annenberg Media Wednesday that he wished the poll showed him up by 17%.
“A poll is a snapshot in time,” McKinney said. “I do think we have some challenges ahead of us as a campaign to overcome what the numbers in that poll show.”
Roy said if elected she will be proactive in filing lawsuits, and said she will ensure the investigation into the Lineage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights is more aggressive and builds toward legal action.
“It has been devastating to watch some of the inaction from the current city attorney’s office when this office can do so much more to be the people’s attorney,” Roy said.
She also said she would be “actively participating and leading the litigation” against the Trump administration.
“As city attorney, I’ll make sure we’re leading the fight against the Trump administration, suing the Trump administration, prosecuting rogue ICE agents, suing the companies that are enabling ICE,” Roy said.
Roy’s website says “most misdemeanor offenses are non-violent and stem from poverty, mental health, or substance addiction.” When asked if there were any misdemeanors she would not prosecute, she said her office would take an individualized approach.
“A lot of what we’ve been doing throughout the campaign is building out a lot more of the options so that prosecutors have a lot of different tools in their toolbox and can use their discretion to tailor the approach to the case,” Roy said.
McKinney, who is backed by L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, said that the No. 1 priority for local government is protecting the community from misdemeanor and felony crime.
He said the city has done a good job bringing down the violent crime rate. Homicides have dropped by 47% and victims shot by 50% since Mayor Karen Bass took office in 2022.
“We still have an out of control misdemeanor crime problem in this city, whether it be vandalism, street takeovers, prostitution, repeat retail theft, it’s just the Wild West out here now because nobody is consistently enforcing the law,” McKinney said.
Roy is backed by Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla and also has the endorsement of the L.A. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
McKinney called the DSA platform misguided and said that people who are successful should not be made “the enemy of society.”
“They talk about defunding the police at a time when we actually need a lot more police,” McKinney said. “They talk about abolishing jails without any plan for what you do with dangerous people who should be sequestered away from innocent people.”
Roy said that what brought DSA-LA into her campaign was a focus on worker’s rights, tenants rights, holding corporations accountable and reducing police liability.
McKinney cited his experience and said the city attorney position is not one to learn how to manage on the job.
“I’ve been an attorney for almost 30 years,” McKinney said. “My opponent hasn’t been an attorney very long. I have real management experience. I oversee the work of over 300 lawyers, staff everyday.”
Roy graduated from Yale Law School in 2017 and attended USC where she earned a B.A. in Philosophy Politics and Law and a Masters in Public Diplomacy from USC Annenberg.