One-on-one with LA City Attorney candidate John McKinney

Well, the midterm elections are less than two weeks away, and as part of our coverage, we'll be airing interviews with some of the candidates. So today we're talking about the race for Los Angeles City Attorney. Glenn Walker sat down with candidate John McKinney. Fox Local is covering the race as you decide as we close in on November 3rd in the election. One of the more interesting races here in L.A. is the contest for City Attorney. The incumbent is out, and now challengers John McKinney and Marissa Roy are vying for the office, and we're going one-on-one with both the candidates. And right now, John McKinney is joining us here in the studio to tell us how he plans to tackle some of the city's biggest challenges if he's elected. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me, Glenn. All right, so you're coming from the L.A. County District Attorney's Office. You've spent nearly three decades as a prosecutor handling some of L.A.'s most high-profile criminal cases. Why now do you want to be the city attorney, and what would you do differently from what we've seen? Yeah, it's time for the city to have a real fighter at City Hall, fighting for the city and fighting for taxpayers. As you mentioned, I've been a deputy district attorney for nearly 30 years. I've handled thousands of cases in court. I've taken 100 cases to trial, and I was successful 97% of the time. You've made public safety the centerpiece of your campaign. What would actually change on the streets of Los Angeles if you're elected? Because usually it's the district attorney's office that handles this kind of thing. Right. What will actually change in the city of Los Angeles is people will see the law being enforced fairly and consistently. The district attorney doesn't have jurisdiction over misdemeanor crimes in the city of L.A. So while Glendale is seeing better days, Burbank, Torrance, Pasadena, the city of L.A. isn't seeing that same recovery after the years of George Gascon because the D.A. can't prosecute those quality of life crimes that are so important in the city of Los Angeles. You've called for compassion and accountability when it comes to the homelessness problem how do you balance the rights of the unhoused residents and concerns of businesses and neighborhoods who have complained a lot and those complaints are pretty legitimate it's a difficult problem but the solution isn't very difficult at all, I've called it compassionate accountability, we will extend a gentle hand, a warm touch to people who find themselves living on the streets, whether that be because of drug addiction mental illness or some other affliction, we want to help them and we're going to use the law as leverage to get them into the treatment that they need. Okay, you've pledged to defend immigrant communities against uh federal enforcement if it's unconstitutional, what actions could you actually take against the feds if you know something goes awry, the power of the law if there's federal overreach or even state overreach and there is some state overreach in Los Angeles right now, they're trying to tell us what to build and where to build it. I will go to court and use the power of injunctions to stop that activity, whether it's ICE agents running around the streets of Los Angeles, terrorizing people, harassing people, or whether it's Sacramento telling developers that they can build multifamily units in single-family neighborhoods. I will use the power of the law to defend this city. Okay, your opponent is Marissa Roy. She wants to expand the office's public interest litigation that involves cases with workers, tenants, and the federal government. Where does your vision differ from hers? Very different. Very different. The city of Los Angeles is a municipal corporation, and the city attorney is, in a sense, a municipal corporate lawyer My opponent said that she wants to turn the city attorney's office into a public interest law firm. For people who don't know what that means it means she wants to align the city with the people who normally sue the city which will create all kinds of conflicts of interest and be a greater detriment to taxpayers in this city, I will defend this city, I I will be the lawyer for this city and if the city engages in conduct that harms people, we'll do right by those people, we will make them whole but we are not going to align themselves with sometimes disproportionate lawsuits that hurt taxpayers yeah you just answered my next question we have seen though some eye-popping settlements of taxpayer dollars going to victims or alleged victims. The city just not fighting hard enough back? They're not fighting hard enough back. And I'll tell you, the plaintiff's bar, the so-called billboard lawyers who bring most of these lawsuits against the city, are collectively supporting my opponent in this race. They've given tens of thousands of dollars to try to get her elected for a couple of reasons. One, she's never tried a case in her entire career. I've got law clerks at the DA's office with more trial experience than my opponent. So they would rather have her than somebody who's tried over 100 cases and won 97% of the time. But also they know that her heart is aligned with them. Her sympathy is with them. It's like George Gascon became the district attorney, but he felt more like a public defender. It felt like he cared about criminals more than victims. Marissa Roy would be the same way. She cares about the people who sue the city more than she does about taxpayers. All right, final question. What is the biggest change you're going to make? immediately if you're elected? Immediate changes, I'm going to bring back the old neighborhood prosecutor program. This was a program that existed before the current city attorney. It put a deputy city attorney in every neighborhood to be a liaison between those homeowner associations, those neighborhood councils, the police, and the city attorney's office. That is a hundred-day promise to start to bring that program back. All right, John McKinney, thank you for joining us today. Thank you, Glenn. All right, we're going to hear from his opponent, Marissa Roy, in the LA City Attorneys Race on Fox Local. And again, best of luck to you on November 3rd. All right. Thank you. Thanks for coming in.