California Congressional District 30 voter guide: Alex Balekian vs. Laura Friedman

The primary election in California’s deep-blue 30th Congressional District was a crowded and costly affair, with 15 candidates vying to replace longtime Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank).

Democratic Assemblymember Laura Friedman will face Republican physician Alex Balekian, who beat out several high-profile, better-funded Democrats, including state Sen. Anthony Portantino and former Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer.

Who are the candidates?

Friedman (D-Glendale) worked as a film and television executive before she entered politics in her 40s. She spent seven years on the Glendale City Council before winning a state Assembly seat in 2016.

In Sacramento, she built a reputation as a progressive leader on transportation, housing and environmental issues. She has successfully passed bills to legalize anti-speeding traffic cameras, ban so-called “forever chemicals” such as PFAS in baby products and cosmetics, and eliminate parking requirements in new housing developments near transit.

Friedman has been endorsed by the California Democratic Party, more than two dozen labor unions and a host of Democratic leaders, including Schiff.

Friedman, 58, is married to a landscape architect, has a daughter and lives in Glendale.

Balekian, who has never held elected office, initially entered the primary as a no-party-preference candidate, but switched his registration to the Republican Party, saying he realized candidates without a party would receive no institutional support.

Balekian describes himself as a “Deukmejian Republican,” a reference to former California Gov. George Deukmejian, which he said includes the values of “public safety, stay out of my bank account, stay out of my personal life.”

He has been endorsed by the California and Los Angeles County Republican parties, L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger and former county Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

Balekian, 45, is gay and married to a music label marketing director. He lives in Glendale.

Where is the district?

California’s 30th District covers a large swath of central Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Its boundaries stretch from Beverly Grove and West Hollywood to Pasadena, into the Angeles National Forest in the north and to Echo Park and Elysian Park in the south.

The district includes some of West Hollywood, Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena, as well as the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Carthay, Mid-Wilshire, Park La Brea, Hancock Park, Windsor Square, Hollywood, East Hollywood, Hollywood Hills, Little Armenia, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Atwater Village, Sunland-Tujunga and Universal City.

The district is home to several major Hollywood studios, as well as some of the county’s best-known landmarks, including the Rose Bowl, the Griffith Observatory and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Abortion

Friedman said that in light of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision that overturned Roe vs. Wade, she would like to see Congress push to codify abortion rights in the Constitution.

Short of that, she said, Congress must “make sure that we protect as much access as we can.”

She said she would support bills to affirm that women can receive abortions when they face life-threatening pregnancy complications, that abortion pills can be sent by mail, and that doctors who cross state lines to provide abortions and patients who cross state lines to seek them will not be prosecuted.

“Public opinion is on the side of reproductive rights,” Friedman said.

Balekian said that Congress banning legal access to abortion, as most House Republicans have pushed to do, is “not the government’s role,” and that he would vote against such bills. He said he would prefer to see the government focus on family planning, sex education and policies that make it easier for women to raise children, including more affordable child care.

Rather than the government regulating abortion, Balekian suggested that state medical associations craft abortion laws and “police ourselves.”

“I would prefer that there are fewer laws on the federal level and the state level restricting this,” the physician said. “It’s better for mom and baby and doctor if you keep this within the doctor-patient relationship.”

Israel, Ukraine and foreign affairs

Friedman said she would vote to send additional military aid to Ukraine. She would also vote yes on more military funding for Israel, saying she supports the country’s right to defend itself, but that “we all want to see this bloody war end.”

The U.S. must work toward a two-state solution, Friedman said, including a more stable government in the Gaza Strip “that acknowledges its neighbor’s right to exist, which is not something that Hamas is willing to do at this point.”

“You’re never going to have peace if you have a government that is bent on the destruction of its neighbor,” she said.

Balekian said he would vote against any military aid bill — including for Ukraine or Israel — that would increase the national debt. He said the U.S. needs to “think differently” on foreign policy issues, and realize that “throwing more money at the problem is not the answer.”

For example, he said, the U.S. could push to cut military funding to Egypt to bring the country to the bargaining table in an effort to help end the war in Gaza, its immediate neighbor. He said the U.S. should focus on freeing the hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Balekian said he would also push to amend the NATO charter to create a mechanism to remove member countries, with the goal of expelling Turkey.

Housing and homelessness

Balekian said he would push to improve treatment of drug addiction and mental illness, including reopening federal mental institutions for Americans with illnesses such as schizophrenia. He said he would also push for government subsidies to boost employment in jobs that address the crisis, including addiction counselors.

He said he would support allocating federal funding to help people who moved to Los Angeles and wound up living in tent encampments attend rehab programs in their home states. He said he would not push to expand funding to address homelessness overall, adding: “The problems are plenty fixable with the money we already have.”

Friedman said she would focus on addressing the housing shortage that contributes to people falling into homelessness.

She said she would push for better laws to protect renters and would look at ways the federal government could invest and intervene to lower costs that are generally passed along to developers of new housing projects. That would include updates to electrical and water systems in urban cores, she said, and investments in mass transit.

Immigration and border security

Friedman said she would have supported a bipartisan $118-billion border and foreign aid bill in Congress that President Biden supported and that House Republicans killed at the urging of former President Trump.

Friedman said she supports a path to citizenship for some immigrants living and working in the U.S. without documentation, akin to the amnesty that President Reagan signed into law in 1986.

Balekian said he supports a total overhaul of the American immigration system to prioritize young, skilled workers who speak English, which could also include a pathway to citizenship for some immigrants who lack documentation.