# Los Angeles City Attorney Compare records and positions simply between Marissa Roy or John McKinney for Los Angeles City Attorney at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person is the city's lawyer. They advise city government. They also prosecute misdemeanors. - Jurisdiction: City of Los Angeles - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/la-city-attorney - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: October 6, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 93 out of 100 (Very strong), across 7 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Marissa Roy** - **John McKinney** A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. In June's biggest upset, incumbent City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto finished third and is out of the race. The November 3 runoff pits Marissa Roy (43.1%), a progressive state consumer-protection lawyer, against John McKinney (28.6%), a 30-year county prosecutor — two very different ideas of the city's lawyer. The winner serves four years as the city's lawyer. The office defends every lawsuit against LA, signs off on City Hall's legal decisions, and decides how misdemeanors are prosecuted. Last fiscal year the city paid out $294 million in liability judgments. Roy leads with affirmative lawsuits for tenants and consumers; McKinney leads with 'compassionate accountability' on quality-of-life crime. Ask which half of the job — suing on your behalf, or prosecuting — you most want strengthened. ## Marissa Roy Deputy Attorney General in the state DOJ's consumer-protection section, with impact-litigation years before that. In their Vote411 questionnaire they describe starting their legal career at the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office, where they say they built wage-theft cases against port trucking companies and car washes, then serving as outside counsel for Los Angeles County in more than a dozen legal actions against the first Trump administration. They say their current work at the state DOJ includes consumer-protection cases against large technology companies and investigations of corporate landlords. They run on tenant protections and affirmative lawsuits, backed by Bernie Sanders and the AG. They have never run an office this size. Roy's three stated priorities are suing the Trump administration, including prosecuting ICE agents Roy calls rogue and suing companies Roy says profit from immigration enforcement; enforcing workers' rights against misclassification, harassment and wage theft, and withdrawing the current directive that discourages councilmember participation in strikes; and protecting renters through a housing justice team that enforces the Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance, which they say the current City Attorney has used against only one landlord. They say the office's power to sue businesses is "largely being unused," with under 5% of its lawyers on public-rights work. **Strengths:** An impact-litigation résumé aimed at the office's civil side, with, by their own account, wage-theft cases, work as outside counsel for the county and state consumer-protection and housing cases. **Trade-offs:** Misdemeanor prosecution, half the job, is outside their track record, and their plan centers on suing outward. **Keep in mind:** Their case rests on their own account of past cases. A Westside Current records review reported their campaign bio had described a 'deputy city attorney' role when city records showed an unpaid fellowship. Attributed reporting; judge its weight yourself. ## John McKinney Deputy District Attorney of about 30 years who led the Nipsey Hussle murder prosecution. He runs on 'compassionate accountability' — public safety plus fiscal restraint — backed by the DA and the police union. His career is the prosecuting half of the job. **Strengths:** As much courtroom experience as anyone in city politics and a clear public-safety mandate. **Trade-offs:** The office's biggest bleeding is civil (those liability payouts), which is not where his career has been. **Keep in mind:** He raised only ~$73K directly but benefited from ~$789K in independent expenditures, and critics argue police-union backing complicates an office that must sometimes sue or check the LAPD. ## Why the incumbent lost Feldstein Soto's third-place finish traces to a documented pile-up: $294M in liability payouts in one fiscal year, an LAPD data breach that cost her the police union's endorsement, and late-campaign controversies over outside counsel spending. A cautionary record, not a character verdict. ## Financial info - **Marissa Roy** - Primary: $1,379,953 raised (Small donors: $29,990; Individuals: $678,664; PACs & committees: $43,950; Party: $1,800; Businesses & other orgs: $22,749; Self-funding: $36,800; Public matching funds: $566,000) - November: $73,989 raised (Individuals: $73,989) - **John McKinney** - Primary: $174,610 raised (Small donors: $3,055; Individuals: $165,448; PACs & committees: $1,800; Businesses & other orgs: $4,307) - November: $8,307 raised (Individuals: $8,050; Businesses & other orgs: $257) Public matching funds are city money earned through small-donor support. Figures are CA Form 460 filings through June 30, 2026. Per Los Angeles City Ethics Commission campaign-finance data, retrieved 2026-09-21. Total is itemized contributions dated after the June 2, 2026 primary, through June 30, 2026, across each candidate's committees (primary and general, where filed separately). This dataset reflects periodic Form 460 statements, not the separate 24-hour large-contribution reports (Form 497) candidates file continuously — those can run well ahead of this total in the closing weeks before the election. Per Los Angeles City Ethics Commission campaign-finance data, retrieved 2026-08-30. ## Sources 1. [LA County RR/CC — Certified results, June 2, 2026 primary (certified 2026-06-26)](https://results.lavote.gov/text-results/4338) 2. [LA County RR/CC — Offices Scheduled for Election, November 3, 2026 (6/26/26)](https://content.lavote.gov/docs/rrcc/documents/offices-to-be-elected-gen-2026.pdf) 3. [LA Public Press — 2026 LA city election guides](https://lapublicpress.org) 4. [Westside Current — 2026 LA elections coverage](https://www.westsidecurrent.com/elections/) 5. [LAist — June 2026 primary voter guides](https://laist.com/news/politics/voter-guides) 6. [League of Women Voters -- Vote411 voter guide, 'Los Angeles City Attorney' race (statewide All Races list): each candidate's self-submitted ballot designation and campaign contacts, plus answers to the League's questions -- top three priorities; qualifying background, experience and education. Answers on file from Marissa Roy. Capture in data/nov-2026/sources/vote411/la-city-attorney.json.](https://www.vote411.org/plan-your-vote) 7. [LA City Ethics Commission — City campaign contributions (Form 460 filings)](https://data.lacity.org/resource/m6g2-gc6c) ## The rest of the ballot Los Angeles City Attorney is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "Los Angeles City Attorney — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/la-city-attorney (sources last retrieved October 6, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.