From left: CRISP Director Charles Lewis, Jr.; former Congressman Ed Towns; Mayor Karen Bass; National Catholic School of Social Service Dean Jo Ann Regan; and former NASW CEO Angelo McClain at the 2018 CRISP Awards ceremony.
Karen Bass was elected to Congress in 2010, the year I went on the Hill to work for Congressman Edolphus “Ed” Towns. One of the first things I did was spearhead the creation of the Congressional Social Work Caucus with the support of Betsy Clark, the executive director of the National Association of Social Workers. Ms. Bass was sworn into the U. S. House of Representatives on January 5, 2011, representing California’s 33rd congressional district (which later became the 37th district). One of the first things she did was create the bipartisan Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth with Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Tom Marino.
I did not pay much attention to Rep. Bass at that time because she was not a social worker. She officially became a social worker in 2015 when she received her MSW from the University of Southern California School of Social Work. I thought that was pretty cool. She valued the MSW degree so much that she pursued it after being elected to Congress. Prior to receiving her MSW, she had trained and worked as a physician assistant. She spent most of her time in community organizing in her native South Los Angeles, where she concentrated on alleviating the effects of poverty, addiction, violence, under-resourced schools, and family instability.
This experience exposed her to families in crises and helped shape her focus on foster care, which she saw not simply as an issue of legal placement but as a failure of public systems. She believed the government should assume some responsibility for the fortunes of these young people, rather than passively manage them. So naturally, she took these issues with her to Sacramento as a California legislator and then to Congress, where she built a solid platform to address foster care issues.
I was drawn into her circle through my association with Dr. Angelique Day, who had lived for years in foster care and was working closely on foster care legislation with Rep. Bass and the Foster Care Caucus. As CRISP’s legislative director, she involved us in numerous meetings and briefings on legislation introduced by Rep. Bass, including the 21st Century Children and Families Act, which the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) described as a bill that addressed permanency, kinship care, equity, and the needs of LGBTQ+ and other marginalized youth.
During her second year in Congress, Karen Bass founded the National Foster Youth Institute (NFYI) to ensure current and former foster youth had a seat at the policymaking table, not just as symbolic witnesses, but as advocates whose lived experience could help shape federal child welfare policy. NFYI complements the mission of the Foster Youth Caucus by organizing young people nationally, training them, and bringing them to Washington, DC. One example is the Congressional Leadership Academy and Shadow Day, which starts today. Scores of foster youth will gather in the nation’s capital to shadow members of Congress and share their lived experience with members and staff.
Ms. Bass has moved on to the challenging and often unforgiving job as mayor of Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest city. She is embroiled in a tough re-election campaign with City Councilmember Nithya Raman and reality TV personality Spencer Pratt. Bass has a credible lead with 34.7 percent of the vote, as her two contenders battle it out to be the one who faces her on Election Day. About 20 percent of the votes remain to be counted.
Karen Bass has faced an uphill battle to regain public support since she was noticeably absent during wildfires that devastated the Pacific Palisades in early January, 2025, during which 12 people died and more than 6,800 structures were destroyed, including the homes of Spencer Pratt and his mother. Mayor Bass was in Ghana at the onset as part of a U.S. Presidential Delegation attending the inauguration of Ghana’s new president. It was natural that she would attend, given her previous role as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and chair of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.
She was officially representing President Biden, who was unable to attend. She said the White House asked her to represent the president, which was not unusual since she was on Biden’s short list for vice president. She said she had not been informed of the dire warnings that preceded the fires and apologized for her absence. Nevertheless, the opposition did not hesitate to seize the opportunity to castigate her.
Prediction markets give Karen Bass a 58 percent chance of being reelected, versus 40 percent for Raman, and one percent for Pratt. Of course, betting shops are unreliable. Los Angeles is solidly Democratic, with 51 percent of voters identifying as Democrats, 23 percent as independents, and 18 percent as Republicans. Another 8 percent identify with minor parties (Green, Libertarian, Peace & Freedom).
I have had the good fortune of meeting Karen Bass on several occasions. I love her style. She’s a tough cookie. She cares about her work and the people she seeks to help. Bottom line, she gets things done. I told her that she would be one of the most consequential social workers of my lifetime. I’m a believer.