Organizer and Immigration Attorney David Kim Might Oust a Corporate-Backed LA Congressman
Interview by Joaquin Romero
We spoke with David Kim, a congressional candidate in California’s 34th district. Kim is an Immigration Attorney, neighborhood council board member, and organizer, and faces Democratic incumbent Jimmy Gomez in the November election. Gomez has held the seat since 2017, after winning a special election following the departure of Xavier Bercerra, California’s current Attorney General .
In the March primary, Kim earned 21.1% of the vote, garnering more than 22,000 votes to Gomez’s 56,000. Since then, he has earned the endorsements of several community groups, including Our Revolution Los Angeles, Sunrise Movement Los Angeles, and the campaign of former primary opponent Frances Yasmeen Motiwalla. Kim has also gained the prominent endorsements of former presidential candidates Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang, with the latter saying Kim would be a “transformative figure” in Congress.
Kim is running primarily on a number of mainstay progressive policies, including Medicare for All, universal basic income, a Green New Deal, and a homes guarantee. Here, we speak to the candidate about some of these policies, his feelings about his opponent, and his outlook as the November election approaches.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
RIFT: Tell me about your background and why you decided to run for Congress.
David Kim: My name is David Kim. I currently work as an immigration attorney defending respondents in immigration court when they receive a notice to appear or when they need help with requesting asylum or permanent residency.
I’m running for office right now because the times are urgent. We have masses of people, pre-Covid, working two to three jobs to make ends meet, at least 70% living paycheck to paycheck, and now with Covid we have millions more that have lost health insurance, millions more that don’t know how to pay rent or put food on the table.
I’m running because our elected officials do the bare minimum, like the incumbent in my district who doesn’t really lead on any issues, who doesn’t author or draft his own legislation, and merely signs as a co-sponsor when the majority of the house Democrats finally sign on. That’s the type of follower politician he is.
About 40,000 brothers and sisters are experiencing homelessness in our district. There’s a lack of affordable housing. We have per capita incomes that are less than the average rent for a one bedroom apartment. To say the least, our people need help. And we can’t waste another two years reelecting Gomez and expecting different results. That’s why I’m running, because we can’t waste time.
RIFT: You’re running a grassroots campaign, and it’s a competitive race. In the primary you got 21% to the incumbent’s 52%, and that was a split primary so the progressive vote was split three or four ways. Recently your campaign released polling showing you ahead of Gomez by 8 points, which is pretty remarkable for a race like this. Can you say more about your perspective on Gomez’s leadership, and the momentum of your campaign?
DK: We’re very excited that the momentum has been picking up. Like you said there’s a poll that has us in the lead. In a way, yes, this is huge for a grassroots campaign. But then in a way it is also reflective of the times that we’re in, in terms of people being fed up, with voting, being engaged, but not seeing anything changed. I think that’s just reflective of the political climate, where incumbents need to be careful about how they legislate and how they lead, because otherwise their seats are at stake.
And so for our incumbent, Jimmy has been in public office for almost a decade, yet during the decade he’s been in office, what fundamental changes have there been to our district? How has the level of life improved for anybody? And it’s understandable, because he’s a corporate-funded politician. His donors — like pharmaceutical companies and healthcare companies — their best interest is not ensuring that a single payer national health care system is in place. But when you have politicians like Jimmy saying, despite his donors not wanting it, saying, “Hey, I’m gonna give you Medicare for All”, of course people are going to become jaded and indifferent, because you’re saying one thing but you’re never able to deliver it. I think our people are now smarter. They know that actions speak louder than words. You can’t just give us platitudes right now.
Why didn’t he, from the beginning of the pandemic, if the people are suffering and not able to put food on the table and pay for rent, support a recurring monthly cash relief. He didn’t sign on to cosponsor one until four months later, because we and our constituents kept on pushing him.
Jimmy’s the type of guy, again, who does the bare minimum. He finally signs on to bills when they’re popular with the House Democrats. Even just with this campaign season, he wasn’t for decriminalizing or legalizing cannabis. It wasn’t until we called him out on social media about not cosponsoring the MORE act, which would decriminalize and legalize marijuana, not sponsoring the STATES act, which would allow cannabis businesses to write off their ordinary tax expenses.
There’s other areas, I mean I could go ahead and list more bills...HR 152, the bill to end the Korean war. We have the largest Korean population in the US here in Los Angeles. The constituents have asked him to cosponsor it. He hasn’t. So what are you doing saying that you’re for the communities in our district, when the moment you set foot into office you stopped all of your town halls with the different communities in our district? Xavier Bercerra, the congressman before him, had town halls with every community in our district. With Jimmy, as soon as he got into office, that all stopped.
RIFT: It seems your most likely path to victory is to bring all of the progressive enclaves throughout the 34th district together under the umbrella of your campaign. How have you been trying to accomplish this over the past few months and how has it been going?
DK: Yeah. I think the key thing to any elected office or position is always co-governing with the people, always being plugged into the community, knowing what’s happening. And that’s what we’ve been doing ever since the pandemic started. We’ve been at every single protest. I’ve been to Mayor Garcetti’s house probably over fifty times protesting, whether it be for no rent, no vacancies, no evictions, whether it be for defunding the police, whether it be with Black Lives Matter. These are the issues that are important to the people. Who better to talk with about what issues to really be forward on and to congregate and have discussions around, than the people themselves? And so with that being said, we are super grateful that we’ve actually earned the support, recommendation or endorsement of every progressive LA voter guide that’s actually weighed in on our race.
Also, we recently launched a basic income program for 25 families in our district. They are receiving $840 a month for the next three months. And so I think that’s really given hope to a lot of our constituents, realizing “Oh, David’s already doing the work, and he’s already doing the work even though he hasn’t been elected.” And so it’s really about planting the seeds of hope and showing that actions speak louder than words.
RIFT: I want to ask you about policy. You have a really progressive slate of positions — Medicare for All, universal basic income, a Green New Deal, housing for all. Can you pick out a few of those flagship policies and explain your support for them?
DK: We have a platform called ‘A Floor to Stand On’, giving every American a floor to stand on. It’s not just about saying, ‘Hey, we’re gonna fight for you’. What does that mean during a time where we’ve had 40 years of wage stagnation and an ever increasing wealth gap? What does that mean with this income disparity?
Universal basic income is something that is definitely needed right now, especially given the pandemic where people don't have jobs to put food on the table or pay for rent. It’s providing every American basic income right now to go ahead and pay for the basic expenses that they have. That’s something that would be life changing for so many people.
It’s also a homes guarantee, which is already a bill in Congress that members of Congress just need to support — Rep. Ilhan Omar’s bill. Building out 12 million social housing housing units with 5% designated as permanent supportive housing units with wraparound services, with a percentage of those coming to Los Angeles.
So many people don’t have healthcare right now, and providing Medicare for All would give them the means to be able to get the care that they need and not worry about whether or not they’re going to spend money. One of the biggest and most important things that we haven’t really talked about collectively as a country is mental health. Mental health is equally as important as physical health, so we should be making sure that every family has access to therapists, that every school has nurses and therapists instead of police first. Because the reality is that the majority of our schools pour in millions towards police presence but then there’s no funding for mental health counselors and nurses. Why is that? You’ll expect to see me leading on a lot of different mental health issues when I get into Congress.
And a responsive representative bill. In the first 100 days that I’m in office I hope to draft this bill, which will require mandatory town halls for elected officials before they legislate on issues in DC. Because that’s what co-governing is, it isn’t talking to your constituents and relaying to them what you voted on and just answering questions and then that’s the extent of their involvement.
There’s an immigration reform bill that we want to also work on, creating a track to citizenship program, codifying certain relief measures for DACA recipients, for undocumented workers.
RIFT: We’re in the middle of a pandemic and many people are dealing with a lot of instability. How do you, if elected as a member of Congress, address that? What are you going to be advocating for for the people in your district?
DK: The first and foremost thing that we need to do is cash relief, cash relief, cash relief, cash relief, cash relief. The second thing that really needs to be done is ensuring that our unhoused communities also have the means and abilities to live. And so whenever there is disbursement of federal funds, our federal and local officials need to work together and identify what the needs are.
Another thing is directing our communities on where to get small business relief. There’s so many different charity and relief efforts that are happening right now, and it all needs to be congregated into one place, in terms of better visibility or oversight. I think the federal elected official is best suited to do that because their district is all encompassing.
So again, the first thing is cash relief, cash relief, cash relief. The second is making sure that the resources are being communicated and that our small businesses are being supported. And then ensuring that our unhoused communities are also being properly taken care of, because we don’t want the pandemic affecting them disproportionately than it does with other communities. In addition, ensuring that we continue to provide PPE. And, I don’t know how much would be done with partisan politics, but ensuring that everyone has healthcare.
RIFT: Your district includes downtown Los Angeles, Chinatown, Koreatown, and East Los Angeles. It’s a very diverse district. When you’re talking about these big, transformative policies like Medicare for All or universal basic income, how do you get people in the district, who come from these different backgrounds, to take a leap of faith and vote for your campaign?
DK: Well, it really comes down to, again, we’re very familiar with all the local grassroots organizations. They know me personally. They’ve never met, or talked to, or seen Jimmy, who claims that he’s our representative. And not just the grassroots organizations, a lot of the neighborhood councils too. Here we have a very complex, spread out neighborhood council system where it’s easily accessible to go to. He’s never been to any of them.
But in regards to getting people to vote, it’s looking at our track record, looking at what we’re fighting for. Go see what my past history and track record has been as an immigration attorney, as a fighter for social justice. That’s what I’ve done all my life, helping people who couldn’t speak English. From a small age, 8 years old, as a pastor’s kid, I helped out church members with negotiating their phone bills, going to parent teacher conferences, doing everything they couldn’t do because they couldn’t speak English. Helping communities find resources is an elected official’s duty and what their job is supposed to be.
So I think it’s just a matter of communicating, storytelling, connecting with each other — that is what’s really bridging the gap between us and our opponent. Because as far as all of the communities that we’ve talked to are concerned, they have no idea who Jimmy is. They’ve never met him and all they’ve seen are mailers and texts. That’s how we win. Because the people actually know me, they know I’m a real-life person standing on the streets, waving at them, asking them what their needs are.
