Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt is attempting to win in a liberal city run by a Democratic Party establishment. The town last elected a GOP candidate to its top job nearly three decades ago.
For this reason, Pratt, a registered Republican, has sought to cast himself as a nonpartisan figure. “All my supporters in Los Angeles are Democrats,” he told CBS. Everyone I know, my family, are all Democrats.” To NBC he explained, “When you vote for Spencer Pratt on your ballot today or tonight, it’ll say Spencer Pratt, community advocate because that’s how I identify.” He added, “I do not represent a party. I don’t have a campaign manager. I don’t have campaign consultants. There’s no political party backing me.”
Still, behind the scenes, Republicans are steering his campaign. Its headquarters, according to city disclosure filings, is a boutique tax service agency run by the wife of former GOP congressman Brian Bilbray in Imperial Beach, a small town in San Diego County just north of the U.S. border. Their daughter, a former Republican Party delegate, is Pratt’s treasurer, with a listed email identifying an entity called “BB Campaigns” which has no discernible public footprint.
Since leaving office in 2001, Bilbray has been paid millions of dollars over the years by Los Angeles County to lobby the federal government, per OpenSecrets. It’s common for a large Democratic government entity to work with former elected Republicans to leverage their relationships with party members — especially committee chairs, money appropriators and agency officials — to advocate for everything from infrastructure funding and transportation grants to disaster relief and regulatory carve-outs.
