Mike Feuer

Michael Nelson Feuer (born May 14, 1958) is an American politician and lawyer who has been serving as Los Angeles City Attorney since July, 2013. A member of the Democratic party, Feuer previously served three terms in the California State Assembly, representing the 42nd Assembly District, and as a member of the Los Angeles City Council from 1995 to 2001, representing the 5th Council District. Prior to seeking office, Feuer served as executive director of Bet Tzedek Legal Services and was a lawyer in private practice.

Feuer is running for Mayor of Los Angeles in the 2022 election. Feuer's attacks on medical cannabis businesses, prosecution of Black Lives Matter activists, and allegations of corruption against him have made his tenure as City Attorney highly controversial.

Feuer was born and raised in a Jewish family in San Bernardino, California.He graduated in 1976 from San Bernardino High School. Feuer received both a bachelor's degree (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and a J.D. degree (cum laude) from Harvard University.He later served on the Harvard Law School Visiting Committee, which reports to the Harvard Board of Overseers.He practiced law at two of California's law firms and served as a judicial clerk to the California Supreme Court.

In his early career, Feuer served as executive director of Bet Tzedek Legal Services. He established programs to help Alzheimer's patients, victims of the Northridge earthquake and L.A. civil unrest, and Holocaust survivors striving to obtain restitution.

Feuer has been married to California Court of Appeal Justice Gail Ruderman Feuer for over 36 years. They have two children, Danielle and Aaron.

From 1995 to 2001, Feuer served as the 5th District member of the Los Angeles City Council. He was elected to fill a vacancy caused by the election of Councilmember Zev Yaroslavsky to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Feuer defeated Barbara Yaroslavsky, the outgoing councilmember's wife. Feuer reached the two-term limit for his city council seat in 2001, and unsuccessfully ran for city attorney.

After Feuer was the only council member to oppose a ballot measure to lift a $10,000 spending limit on "officeholder" funds, Council Member Nate Holden said: "I am sick and tired of the grandstanding." Mark Ridley-Thomas also criticized Feuer, saying "Mister Feuer seems to suggest that there is a higher ground that [he has] staked out that the balance of the council does not seem to appreciate." Some colleagues also blamed Feuer for the City Council's contentious relationship with Mayor Richard Riordan. Feurer defended himself saying he was trying to make good on campaign promises for government and ethics reforms.

In 2006, Feuer defeated West Hollywood Mayor Abbe Land and three others in the Democratic primary for the 42nd Assembly District seat. Feuer served as a member of the California State Assembly, 42nd District, from December 4, 2006 - November 30, 2012. He served as the Majority Policy Leader of the California Assembly and Chair of the Assembly's Judiciary Committee.

During his time with the state assembly, he sponsored numerous bills. He supported laws that protect insurers from denying coverage to children with pre-existing health conditions. He also supported a law that requires nursing homes to post the quality care rating that has been given to them by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.He supported funding the Long Term Care Ombudsman program which responds to reports of suspected abuse and neglect. He supported the Reverse Mortgage Elder Protection Act that mandates more information when considering reverse mortgages, including risks and alternatives to utilizing them.He supported a law that protects good samaritans from liability.In 2010, he supported a law that requires people convicted of DUI to install ignition interlock devices (IID’s) in their cars.He supported the Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act, a pilot program to assure equal justice by providing free legal representation to low-income Californians. It was signed into law as a permanent program in 2016.He supported equal treatment for same-sex couples. He supported a law that prohibits contracts of $1 million or more between the State of California (including cities and counties) and companies with significant business in Iran’s energy sector to ensure that tax dollars do not go to companies whose investments support Iran’s nuclear program.He supported a law in 2009 to conserve water usage.In 2009 he supported a law that facilitates domestic partners having the same rights with respect to survivorship benefits as spouses.

In 2001, Feuer ran for City Attorney.He placed first in the nonpartisan primary for the office, taking 39% to opponent Rocky Delgadillo's 38%, but was defeated in the runoff, with Delgadillo taking 52% to Feuer's 48%.Afterward, Feuer worked in private practice and taught at the UCLA School of Public Affairs.During this time, he provided commentary for newspapers and radios.

Feuer took office as the 8th Los Angeles City Attorney on July 1, 2013. He was re-elected in 2017 without opposition. Feuer expanded the Neighborhood Prosecutor Program.

Homelessness issues

Feuer’s office has reached $4 million in settlements with hospitals, nursing facilities and medical centers in eight cases of unlawfully discharging homeless patients.

In 2019, Feuer filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant review for Martin v. Boise, a case from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. The Martin decision held that the "enforcement of ordinances that prohibit sleeping or camping on public property against homeless individuals is unconstitutional when those individuals do not have a meaningful alternative, such as shelter space or a legal place to camp." Feuer wanted the Supreme Court to reconsider this ruling, but the Court denied the request for review.

Consumer issues

Feuer filed a wage theft suit in 2014. Feuer sued Wells Fargo for opening unauthorized accounts. He has also sued the Weather Channel App over data privacy concerns, vape companies alleging that they target children and H&R Block and Intuit, the makers of Turbo Tax, alleging the companies defrauded low-income taxpayers and charged them for a service that the companies are required by law to provide for free.

In 2014, Feuer charged two businesses for polluting as a part of an effort to clean up neighborhoods near schools. He also formed a strike force to combat illegal dumping, Feuer settled a dispute regarding the City of LA's responsibility for dust pollution in the Owens Valley.

Gun issues

To prevent gun violence, Feuer created the Gun Violence Prevention Unit in his office.Feuer has brought charges against parents who did not properly store firearms which later fell into the hands of their children.Working with the LAPD, he created protocols to assure domestic violence perpetrators do not have weapons. He has also advocated for the use of gun violence restraining orders, leading educational trainings after the law passed in California in 2016. Feuer joined with Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. to co-found and chair Prosecutors Against Gun Violence—an independent, non-partisan coalition devoted to prosecutorial and policy solutions to the public health and safety crisis of gun violence. After the Parkland shooting, he formed a Blue Ribbon Panel on School Safety to evaluate and recommend ways to enhance efforts by Los Angeles Unified School District to keep students safe from violence, particularly gun violence, both in schools and surrounding neighborhoods.

In 2019, a federal judge blocked the City of Los Angeles and Feuer from enforcing a law that would require contractors seeking to do business with the city to disclose their ties to the National Rifle Association. Feuer had vigorously defended the law.

Immigration issues

In April 2018, Feuer successfully petitioned for an injunction against the Federal Government enjoining the government from tying funding to immigration considerations. and a successful fight for transparency in how ratepayer dollars are spent by DWP trusts. In 2015, he instituted a program to protect immigrants from fraud.

Bribery allegations

Feuer was among many politicians in the City of Los Angeles who took money from campaign donor Justin Kim. When Kim plead guilty to bribing city councilmembers to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, Feuer was disclosed as a recipient of these donations. Feuer's campaign has said there was nothing suspicious in his conduct, and he has returned the more than $13,000 raised by Kim. Nonetheless, it has been stated that this citywide scandal could play a role in the 2022 election.

Cannabis dispensaries

In 2014, Feuer targeted medical marijuana dispensaries in the city of Los Angeles. He announced that he was targeting medical marijuana dispensaries and a medical marijuana home-delivery service Nestdrop run by smartphone app. Feuer believed there was a voter mandate from Proposition D, saying: “At the same time, they [voters] felt there were too many dispensaries — and there are too many, too close together and too close to sensitive sites like schools, playgrounds and child care centers." Feuer closed half of the City's marijuana dispensaries and filed a complaint against Nestdrop seeking to prevent them from providing home-delivery of medical marijuana.

Some, at the time, criticized Feuer for his actions. Kris Hermes, spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, said: “He [Feuer] should be figuring out ways to improve access instead of figuring out how to shut down dispensaries. Delivery services have developed because of local officials who are trying to shut down dispensaries. Also, delivery services are a way that people with mobility problems can get their medicine.”

FBI raid of City Attorney's Office

In July of 2019, FBI agents raided the offices of Mike Feuer and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The raid stemmed from the City Attorney’s handling of the DWP overbilling scandal that dates back to 2013. There were reports that Feuer’s own outside defense counsel recruited a plaintiff to sue the city over the DWP billing errors.

Links to Ed Buck

Ed Buck was a prominent LGBTQ advocate and wealthy political activist in California. In 2017, two African-American men were found dead of overdoses of methamphetamine at Buck's home. In 2019, Buck was finally arrested and charged in connection to the deaths, suspected to have had at least ten victims. Buck stands accused of drugging and assaulting unconscious gay men who struggled with drug addiction and homelessness.

Buck's large donations to prominent political figures, including Eric Garcetti and Jackie Lacey, has drawn controversy. According to the Los Angeles Times, Mike Feuer was the second largest recipient of donations from Buck.

Prosecution of Black activists

Feuer's office has filed charges against numerous prominent Black activists after their arrests during Los Angeles Police Commission meetings. These include Los Angeles' only homeless elected official "General" Jeff Page, Black Lives Matter Los Angeles co-founder and Cal State LA professor Melina Abdullah, and longtime civil and human rights activist and labor organizer Greg Akili. Akili, a member of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles’ Action Committee and a cofounder of the United Domestic Workers Union, filed a $4 million lawsuit in 2017 against the City of Los Angeles, the LAPD, and others regarding his arrest at a 2016 Commission meeting and subsequent prosecution. Akili called his trial, in which he was found guilty of resisting arrest but the misdemeanor battery charge against him was dismissed after a jury with no Black members deadlocked, "an effort to silence Black Lives Matter", and said Feuer could have avoided the "political trial" by dropping the charges against him. Akili's attorney, Dermot Givens, said the battery charge against Akili was dropped because Feuer "didn’t coordinate the lies good enough."

Renewed interest in this case came after widespread protests against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's death. Mike Feuer has received a considerable amount of donations from the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union of the Los Angeles Police Department. He has claimed this does not represent a conflict of interest. It is unclear how this might impact Feuer's mayoral candidacy.

The American Bar Association Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division awarded the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office with the Hodson Award (2017), which recognizes sustained outstanding performance or specific and extraordinary service by a government or public sector law office.