John Erickson currently serves as on the West Hollywood City Council. (photo courtesy of John Erickson)

West Hollywood Councilman John Erickson was first elected to his current position in 2020, ultimately serving his first rotation as mayor in 2024, the same year he was reelected to council. With State Sen. Ben Allen (D-Los Angeles) termed out of his position in the 24th District, Erickson has joined the field of candidates seeking to join the California legislature. Erickson said he believes his time governing within the district makes him uniquely qualified, adding that the current moment – for him – “is deeply personal.”

“I look at my friends with kids, my friends who are older adults, my constituents, people in the entertainment industry who once had steady work, and even in my own [nonprofit] industry who once had steady work, and just about everyone is struggling to pay their bills each month,” Erickson said. “It’s clear that just about everyone is struggling in more than one way or another. And I asked myself, ‘How could our state let them down?’ And then I asked myself, ‘How can we fix it?’ We need courageous, proven leaders. And I believe the answer is simple. These courageous proven leaders are people with vision and experience to create real change. And I’m running to be that leader because I have that direct experience.”

In addition to his work in West Hollywood, Erickson also spent six years in public affairs for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles and has been the chief of staff for the Alliance for a Better Community since 2024. He holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in applied women’s studies and philosophy, respectively from Claremont Graduate University, and he also worked as a staff member for the city of West Hollywood for several years prior to joining the council. He was an intern for Mayor John Heilman and a deputy for former Councilwoman Abbe Land. In all of his previous work, Erickson sees a connectivity to his senate candidacy.

“[I work] in the nonprofit sector, and we’re seeing how the cuts from the federal government … have caused philanthropic dollars to dry up, and many other things to essentially force funders and other people to cut back staff so that way they’re essentially nonexistent. That’s the same thing that the state has been doing by trying to push blood from a stone these days to get it, and that is where the wealthy top 1% need to actually start paying their fair share of taxes to reinvest back into those systems. You don’t need new taxes in this country if you actually have a collection on the taxes and the laws that are actually in the books currently. That’s how you solve poverty in America, and frankly, that’s how you solve a lot of issues in America,” Erickson said.

For the councilman, housing – as well as housing’s connection the homelessness crisis – are top issues.

“We need to make it easier to build housing and affordable housing. Case in point, people are not investing in California because it’s too expensive to build, and the situations and the rules and the regulations keep changing or making it essentially impossible to build. That has to stop. That’s why a lot of aggressive housing legislation has come out of Sacramento to essentially make zone compliant projects – whether that’s affordable housing, mixed use housing, housing along mass transit – to give it more assurances. Because if we don’t build housing, we’re never going to get ourselves out of this. I’m the only candidate in this race with direct experience on building housing and approving housing but specifically being on record on a number of robust housing legislation packages. I see their actual impacts to addressing the crisis, because it is completely linked to homelessness and specifically around homelessness. I also am the only one that has used statewide and federal funds to build a coalition to not only build the WeHo Cares program, West Hollywood’s 24/7 behavioral and mental health crisis response unit, but also expand our services in light of [federal budget] cuts and everything else coming from the county and the state,” Erickson said.

He said that he believes that, because of the state’s current policies and the lack of taxes coming from the top 1%, California is “balancing its budget on the backs of the people we are trying to help.”

“We’re not investing in the critical care components that directly tie to stopping public health crises, or crises like homelessness and housing from continuing to be further exacerbated. And when it comes down to homelessness, this is not just about sweeping people away. This is about providing scientific fact, proven care-first approaches that actually bring people into the system that we have neglected for far too long. [This] is the reason why 80,000 estimated people are sleeping on our streets and L.A. County alone every night. We cannot be the richest nation in the world and not have the tools to fix it, and we are not going to fix it by doing the same old, same old, as many of my opponents are trying to purport,” he said.

Erickson has racked up some high-profile endorsements, including local unions, Streets For All, the Miracle Mile Democratic Club, as well as four of the five Los Angeles County Supervisors (and former Supervisor Sheila Kuehl) and local leaders such as Beverly Hills Councilman Lester Friedman and Los Angeles Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez, 13th District.

“I have a proven track record of being a regional leader, as well as being someone who has built a coalition of people on progressive and practical policies that have been seen at the county, the local and the statewide level,” he said.

Erickson pointed to legislation he put forth to allow seniors and disabled people to move from a second to first floor apartment unit while maintaining their rent control, as well as West Hollywood’s participation in bringing the Metro K Line Northern Extension to the area.

“My support from all these people is because I’m a proven leader,” he said.

As for the district’s star industry, film and television production, Erickson said that the fix has to go beyond expanding tax credits.

“If you look at tax credits in other states, they’re even starting to fail. This is about actual investment in the areas that bring about actors and good jobs here. Number one, we have to stop these disastrous mergers from occurring. We need to continue to use litigation to do so. Ultimately, these mergers were only further harm the way in which we do our studios here in Los Angeles. I mean, frankly, the ball has been rolling down the hill so long without anyone paying attention that we really are chasing after it, and that’s a big problem. Secondarily, we no longer have a structured system where anyone that wants to be an actor is coming to Los Angeles – sleeping on someone’s couch, working an hourly wage job, and then going to into studios to film. Anyone from anywhere can be an actor by filming and sending in a tape these days. And the problem is that we no longer have a culture of production in here, where actors themselves find it feasible for them to be able to actually come to L.A,” Erickson said.

Pointing to a breadth of regulatory hurdles that have made it more difficult for studios to operate, as well as a lack of investment in arts programs across the state, Erickson said there has to be reinvestment in an “environment where we treasure and talk about the arts in a way that leads to people wanting to become actors or directors or producers.”

Erickson said that his platform ultimately ties back to the same interconnected issue of affordability.

“California can no longer sit there and say that we’re the fourth largest economy in the world if we don’t start acting like it. The power of our purse is quite high. And last time I checked, every gubernatorial candidate is talking about affordability, including the Republicans. And affordability can be a very broad conversation, but let’s be real. If people cannot feed or house themselves or pay for basic necessities, we’re going to have a much larger problem on our hands than individuals wanting to become actors or the movie industry. We need to get back to basics and understand that the work that we need to accomplish in Sacramento has to be done through a coalition of people that want to get serious about building housing … I’m not running for this office because I’m bored or because I want to just be an elected official. There are serious issues before our state, and the work that we have to do requires a practical, proven policy maker that has the skills and experience and expertise to do so,” he said.

Pointing again to his experience in West Hollywood, Erickson explained his base of qualifications.

“As a council member and former mayor, I created successful housing and homelessness programs, raised the minimum wage and generated a $31 million budget surplus that was reinvested into our community,” he said. “And throughout all of that, I protected the rights of women, renters and the LGBTQ community. And so we can turn California around by aggressively addressing age-old problems and putting our communities first despite all the angst we are living with today, I’m hopeful about California’s future, and I’m ready to bring the new kind of leadership that we need to create that future.”