Meet Brian Goldsmith – Top Fundraiser and Challenger for District 24 California State Senate

Meet Brian Goldsmith. The freshman candidate from neighboring Beverly Hills who is running for the open seat currently held by State Senator Ben Allen. So far, he is the number one fundraiser out of fourteen other candidates with broad-based support in his first run for political office.

California’s District 24 includes West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Malibu, and communities along the Santa Monica Mountains, and South Bay, including the Pacific Palisades, and Torrance. I sat down with Brian and his assistant Kayla, who is a West Hollywood resident herself, at Bravo Toast on Doheny for the following interview.

Larry: Let’s get right into it. Why are you running for the California State Senate?

Brian: Well, I wasn’t going to run for office. I’ve always cared about politics, policy, public service and I worked on those things in two ways. One was as a journalist for a number of years, and the other was advising candidates and causes I believed in. A couple of things changed my mind. One was in the 2024 election California becoming exhibit A. Good intentions, a lot of money spent, but not as much focus on outcomes and results and that being used against a California candidate for President of the United States. And the second was the fires. In this district, Palisades and Malibu, we now know they were totally preventable, we now know they were mismanaged before, during, and after, – and the costs and consequences for dozens of people I know, thousands of people in the district are profound. This is personal to me as somebody who grew up in West LA. – in the mean streets of Brentwood.

Larry: Let’s get to know you, – Questions no one knows about you. Are you the oldest or the youngest?

Brian: I’m the oldest, I have two younger sisters, one sister who is 3 years younger and one sister who is 15 years younger.

Larry: Aah, so you’re the protective one. What did your dad do for a living?

Brian: My dad was in the entertainment business. He ran a small movie and TV company, and then he became a banker when I was a teenager.

Larry: And this is your first run for any public office?

Brian: This is my first run with my name on the ballot. I’ve been involved in a lot of campaigns—

Larry: I noticed that you are the top fundraiser? How did that happen so quick?

Brian: It’s interesting. I’m lucky in that I have a lot of great relationships with people that were never transactional. I’ve never asked my friends and acquaintances to give me money. So, when the time came and I had to go to my network and say can you please step up, not just for me, but for this district, for the state, people were willing to do so and I’m very honored.

Larry: I noticed Adam Schiff and Rick Caruso stepped up. Who else, interesting people, that are not beholden to unions, or business?

Brian: What I’ve tried to do is to show and not just tell that I can build a broad coalition in this campaign. And so, I have Rick Caruso supporting me, I also have Speaker Pelosi supporting me. I have Senator Boxer and Antonio Villaraigosa, I have a lot of entertainment leaders and real estate leaders, entrepreneurs, students and activists. And I’m not telling different things to different audiences.  I’m focusing on big themes that unite a broad range of people across the district.

Larry: What does West Hollywood mean to you?

Brian: West Hollywood! First of all, I live right at the edge of West Hollywood. One of my earliest civic experiences as a resident was trying to get a crosswalk constructed on Doheny Drive between West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. More broadly, West Hollywood is arguably the capital of LGBTQ America, and I take that very seriously. I worked on the Presidential campaign with the first major LGBTQ candidate, I think gay rights are under assault by the Trump administration, and I take very personally the responsibility to be an ally to this community in the state legislature.

And I know you want me to be short, — but I’m just gonna add in one thing. After October 7th, we saw that surge of anti-semitism in the United States. It was wonderful when Jewish people spoke up for our community but it was even more impactful when allies from other communities spoke up and that helped to inspire me to do the same for the Latino communities that are dealing with the ICE raids, for the AAPI community as they dealt with Asian hate, for the LGBTQ community as they have to deal with this upsurge and this backlash. So, West Hollywood is really a kind of jewel of the district and I take the responsibility of representing that area very personally and seriously.

Larry: Are you gay?

Brian: No, I’m not gay. I’m straight.  I have kids, who are 9 and 6, older daughter, younger son, and very happily live in this part of the world and walk into West Hollywood all the time.

Larry: So you go to Bristol Farms?

Brian: We go to Bristol Farms for many groceries, and we go to Costco.

Larry: What can a State Senator do to make a difference in this district when it comes to affordability?

Brian: I think that is a critical question. A state legislator, Senator, or Assembly member can do a lot. You have to be smart and strategic. You have to be a good coalition builder. I’ll give you two examples of how legislators can make a difference, and speak specifically to affordability. Just in the last year the legislators have led the process to get two really big things done that people said were impossible; one was expanding the film and TV tax credit to help save our entertainment industry and the other passing a landmark bill called AB715 to fight anti-semitism that could be a national model. The conventional wisdom in both those cases was that this was impossible and it couldn’t get done. And state legislators who were motivated and driven and thoughtful about it were able to build coalitions to get those things done. What do we have to do in California on affordability? We have to deal with the cost of housing, that is the number one driver of unaffordability.—

Larry: But rents are down—

Brian: Rents are down a little bit, but it is too hard and takes too long and takes too much money to build anything in California. There’s no reason that it should cost 2½ times per unit to build things in California than in Texas.

Larry: But isn’t the minimum wage 2½ times higher in California?

Brian: I don’t think that is the big driver. I think the big driver is our permitting, our regulatory system, the amount of hoops we force people to jump through. The many layers—

Larry: Do you support the Builder’s Remedy?

Brian: I support the concept of the Builder’s Remedy. I think it ought to be refined as we go forward. What I’ve said on housing is, – I’ve supported the vast majority of the pro-housing bills but judge each one on a case-by-case basis. I opposed SB79 because I thought that was a wrong solution to the right problem. But, I think it’s overly broad; I think it’s too costly for a lot of local communities. The big problems we face are unfunded mandates from the state which are supposed to be illegal, unconstitutional, and yet Sacramento does this to small and big cities all the time. And I think SB79, one of many problems, is that it contains inherently a huge unfunded mandate to put in a lot more infrastructure that we can’t afford.

Larry: Where do you stand on Public Safety, funding the sheriff, de-funding the sheriff?

Brian: I think this is a critical issue. I was at the Sawtelle Neighborhood Council last night and the officer in charge of that region in LA City was reading the statistics, 2025 versus 2024. And despite the citywide progress, in pockets of our district crime is up, not down. And he was literally reading, more rapes, more robberies, more assaults. And it’s no wonder that a lot of communities feel less safe. I was never for de-funding the police; I felt that was always the wrong policy. If you believe in community-based, more progressive policing, we want more funding for the police to help finance those efforts, not less. We have underinvested in public safety for two generations in southern California; we’re paying the price. So I broke with many in my party to support Nathan Hochman for LA County DA in 2024. I made ads for Prop 36 because I thought it was the right solution. And I thought both Hochman and 36 were solutions in the middle, in the mainstream. I’m not a far left or a far right guy. I’m a mainstream Democrat who believes in practical solutions that actually drive positive outcomes and results; and I thought that on Public Safety—that is the first responsibility of government is to keep people safe. I thought we were really heading in the wrong direction before the 2024 election.

Kayla: And I’ll just jump in too, to say I think that is why Brian is supported by so many public safety unions around California; he has California Highway Patrol, LA PPL, LA School Police, the list goes on..

Larry: Are they listed on the website?

Brian: Yes.

Larry: What about the dominance of UNITE HERE throughout the region in dictating policy, at least in West Hollywood. Is that a thing? Is that an opposing thing to you? They are going to be opposing you, I would bet, very strongly.

Brian: They have already endorsed my opponent.

Larry: Which one?

Brian: John Erickson.

Larry: Ok. They already endorsed him?

Brian: They already endorsed him—as far as I know. That’s the information I have.

Larry: Who is their second endorsement?

Brian: Oh I don’t know. He turns to Kayla.. Do you know if they endorsed somebody else? — My view with respect to all of these groups is we are going to have differences of opinion; I’m going to be very transparent about where I stand. And, if we disagree on A, or B, I’m still going to try to find a way to work with them on C, and D and E, because if you say, is a group a good thing or a bad thing, well they’re a fact of life. And I think anybody who is a policy maker is going to have to deal with these groups. I consider myself both pro-labor, and pro-business; I don’t think that is a contradictory statement. So, I’m trying to build this broad coalition, but when one particular union has a policy that I think is wrong, like the wealth tax, I’ve been very clear about my opposition.

Larry: And, so, how’s it feel to be new on the campaign trail for the first time, learning as you go,.. you’re used to guiding other people and telling them what to do and now you have to listen?

Brian: Now I have a lot more sympathy for the candidate. That’s a funny question. It’s different, obviously, when your name is on the ballot, when the questions are about you. I’ve applied a lot of lessons that I learned from advising other people. The one thing that’s challenging is asking friends and family for money—which I’ve never done before. One politician just said, ‘Everyone is in on the joke,’ it is ok. But the part I like most is getting to learn more about California—like the Las Virgens Water District. Have you ever been?

Larry: No, I haven’t; we are in the West Hills Municipal Water District here with Scott Houston. Scott’s pretty local, I’d say.

Brian: Except if you’re in the Calabasas, Agoura, West LA, Hidden Hills community. You get your water 100% from the state water project, 100% through Las Virgenes, and they are actually doing some really smart innovative stuff around desal, around waste water management, and if you’re running for anything in California you have to understand water policy. So that was a treat for me to spend two hours learning about how this water district manages, what they think are the challenges and opportunities. They are working with a start-up that thinks it has a fundamentally new way of doing desal that is more environmentally responsible. And that’s the kind of thing that really turns me on. That makes me want to take it, and scale it and help other communities benefit from the things I’m learning. That’s the upside. The downside is hocking people for money.

Larry: Do you have any West Hollywood events planned?

Brian: We have done a number of West Hollywood events. Our very first fundraiser was at a home in West Hollywood, and we’ve done at least one community coffee in West Hollywood and we are going to do more.

Larry: Would you consider yourself an activist?

Brian: Community advocate for sure. It depends on what people mean by activist. I consider myself someone who has been really active in politics for a long time. But I’ve never called myself an activist.

Larry: What about shedding a little light on current events right now. The ICE raids. What would a State Senator do if ICE was coming into these parts right now—if we had a raid in West Hollywood—right at the car wash—what would you have done as a State Senator?

Brian: Well, you don’t wait. First of all. You know this is coming, or you know at least there is the potential for this to come and so you partner with the cities, the county and the state to come up with a coordinated strategy in partnership with law enforcement, in partnership with the attorney general’s office, the DA and others to protect our people, to use every tool—legislative, litigation, regulation—to try to create safe spaces for immigrants. To try to protect them at their schools and workplaces. One thing I’ve heard over and over again which is scandalous—horrible—a lot of folks are not going to work, they are not sending their kids to school, they are not reporting a crime, or getting treatment for a medical problem. So you have to figure out a way to protect these kind of core functions of government, schools, hospitals, public spaces where the state has general police power. You cannot control what happens if the federal government just decides to violate court orders, violate the law and the constitution, then you have to litigate it in the courts. You do everything possible to get ahead of these things, to have a strategy, to plan for them. And I think that’s what’s been missing in a lot of cases. You know, this is very foreseeable, that this could happen again. We know Trump’s playbook. We know, for example, that he is going to try to invoke the insurrection act, at some point to try to send American troops into cities, probably overwhelming blue cities in blue states, that is part of his war against blue America. Well, we should have a plan ahead of time for how we are going to break glass and how we are going to react. And I would be a core part of convening people and formulating that.

Larry: Anything else? You played sports in high school?

Brian: I played tennis, wasn’t very good at it. I was never at risk of going pro, shall we say.

Larry: And what college did you go to?

Brian: I went to Harvard—they make mistakes every year! Laughs

Larry: Well you have a great sense of humor, easy and approachable, — and the ease of contacting you and being available.

Brian: If you’re going to run for public office you have to be prepared to be accessible and accountable. You got to do a lot of open meetings. And you have to show up. There is really no substitute for that. And so.. I’ve said, I plan on winning this race. But, I’m certainly not going to be outworked. And of all the reasons I could lose, it’s not going to be because that somebody else outworked me.

Larry: “I plan on winning this race.”

Brian: Yes. Is that your headline?

Larry: Good luck.

For more information: www.BrianGoldsmith.com