Karen Bass threw her weight behind unlimited state tax incentives for film and TV production, joining her mayoral rival Nithya Raman in backing the proposal. Bass faces a bruising reelection battle on June 2, and production job losses have become a central campaign issue in Los Angeles.
The mayor's endorsement follows Raman's similar stance last week. Both politicians recognize what voters care about. The entertainment industry has hemorrhaged jobs in recent years as productions shifted to other states and countries offering more aggressive tax breaks. California's film industry, once unshakeable, now competes against Georgia, New Mexico, and Canada for productions that once automatically filmed in L.A.
Unlimited tax incentives represent an aggressive play to reverse that trend. The approach differs from California's current capped incentive program, which restricts how much the state will subsidize productions. Removing those caps signals L.A. leadership wants to spend whatever it takes to lure blockbuster films and prestige television back home.
The fact that political rivals agree on this issue underscores how urgent the problem feels locally. Entertainment jobs matter to the region's economy and identity. Bass betting her reelection partly on solving production decline shows how seriously the industry crisis registers with voters who depend on those paychecks.