Lefty Los Angeles politician Eunisses Hernandez is railing against billionaires and corporations — insisting their donations aren’t welcome — but her own campaign filings show she’s already cashing checks written by two billionaire families.
In a fiery Instagram video, the DSA-backed downtown lawmaker snarls at billionaires to “keep scrolling” while pitching her reelection battle as a fight against wealthy interests she claims are exploiting working families.
Eunisses Hernandez at City Hall — where she’s opposed plans to boost police funding. Los Angeles Times via Getty ImagesBut Hernandez is no stranger to hypocrisy — she’s the councilmember who was recently called out for not showing up to political meetings while a park in her district has become a drug-infested hellhole.
Two men doing drugs while sitting on a bench in MacArthur Park. Ringo ChiuOnce a neighborhood gathering place, MacArthur Park is now LA’s fentanyl ground zero, a chaos-soaked sprawl of open-air drug use, encampments and crime that residents say stands as a flashing symbol of Los Angeles City Hall’s failure.
“While Hernandez was taking money from billionaires — LAPD officers were being defunded and left saying they don’t feel safe in MacArthur Park,” said John Alle, a local businessman who owns numerous properties surrounding the park.
“She’s ignored human trafficking, approved needle and drug-pipe handouts multiple times a day and put more than 40,000 families living around the park in danger.”
In the campaign video, Hernandez even takes a swing at her challengers for “standing with” the New York Post. The Post has reached out more than a dozen times, including again on Wednesday, for comment — and have heard nothing back from the councilmember.
Behind the anti-rich swagger, Hernandez has taken money from billionaire families who bankroll progressive power players — including allies of newly elected New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Campaign finance records show donations from Patty Quillin, the wife of Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and a billionaire Democratic donor with a well-documented history of cutting six-figure checks to party power players and progressive groups, according to online donor-tracking records.
Follow The Post’s coverage of MacArthur Park
- While progressive LA wastes $27 million at MacArthur Park, one man buys the homeless an exit
- Homeless woman escapes 5 months of drug-fueled hell in LA just in time for Christmas
- Hernandez needs to fix MacArthur Park, not attack media
- LA landlord tells DSA-backed councilmember to ‘clean up your mess’ at ‘zombie’ park
- LA’s MacArthur Park shows where Mamdani’s homeless-enabling scheme leads
Quillin has written multiple six-figure checks for Democratic super PACs over multiple election cycles, including two separate $500,000 donations to the Senate Majority PAC in 2018 alone.
She also made a $50,000 contribution to the same PAC during the 2016 election cycle, records show. The PAC is one of the party’s most powerful national vehicles for influencing Senate races.
Working-class residents and small businesses say they’re left paying the price for City Hall’s breakdown. Ringo ChiuHernandez’s donors also include Elizabeth Simons, the daughter of late hedge-fund titan Jim Simons and heir to a roughly $32.5 billion family fortune shared with her stepmother Marilyn and two siblings.
Simons is a prolific Democratic megadonor in her own right, known for backing progressive candidates and causes through independent political spending.
In August, she cut a $250,000 check to New Yorkers For Lower Costs — the main outside group that backed Mamdani, according to Forbes.
Even with billionaire-adjacent backing, Hernandez’s cash haul is limp; she’s raised just $74,609 this cycle, only modestly ahead of challenger Sylvia Robledo, who’s pulled in $48,242.
