Former LA schools chief launches bid to unseat Karen Bass

Former Democratic Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent Austin Beutner announced Monday that he is running to replace against Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in 2026.

Beutner, a 65-year-old former investment banker, said in a video announcement posted to X that Los Angeles “is adrift.” He also claimed that “after seventeen years in public life,” he has learned how to “get things done.”

“It seems every day our city is becoming a more expensive, less safe and more difficult place to live,” Beutner said in the video. “The city has spent billions to solve problems that have just become bigger problems: homelessness, the cost of housing, the loss of jobs and opportunity.”

Beutner’s campaign and Bass’ office both did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Beutner served as LAUSD’s superintendent from May 2018 to June 30, 2021. He also previously served as the deputy mayor of Los Angeles from 2010 to 2013, CBS News reported.

Additionally, Beutner was named publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times in August 2014, but was abruptly firedfrom the role in September 2015. At age 29, Beutner became the youngest ever partner at investment firm Blackstone Group, and later worked for the U.S. State Department under former President Bill Clinton’s administration.

The former LAUSD superintendent claimed in June 2021 that Los Angeles schools are a “model for the nation,” the Los Angeles Times reported. In 2012, Beutner founded Vision to Learn, a nonprofit organization which provides “vision screenings, eye exams and glasses to children in low-income communities, at no cost to the children or their families,” according to the group’s website.

Beutner said he supported Bass in the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral race, The New York Times reported on Saturday. In the city’s 2022 mayoral election, Bass defeated Republican-turned-Democratic billionaire Rick Caruso, gaining 53% of the vote to Caruso’s 47%.

Caruso is “seriously” considering running for either California governor or Los Angeles mayor in 2026, Bloomberg reported on Sept. 3.

In February, Beutner filed a lawsuit against LAUSD, alleging that the district had misused millions in Proposition 28 funding meant to bolster arts and music education, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

Bass has notably faced massive criticism this year over her approach to handling the deadly Palisades fires, which ravaged the Los Angeles area in January and killed 12 people. Twenty-nine-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht was arrested Tuesday for allegedly starting what became the Palisades fires, according to authorities.

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