Hundreds of protesters gathered at Gloria Molina Grand Park on Saturday, Oct. 17, for the largest "No Kings" rally in Los Angeles County. The downtown event was one of more than a dozen rallies across the county urging early voter turnout ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The rally, organized by 50501 SoCal and more than 30 partner groups, began around 1 p.m. near City Hall at 200 N. Spring St. A march followed about an hour later, with demonstrators walking a roughly 1.5-mile loop along Spring Street, First Street and Grand Avenue before returning to City Hall, the Daily News reported.
Marchers carried American, Mexican and pride flags alongside handmade signs reading "No Kings," "Impeach, convict, remove" and "Abolish ICE," according to the Daily News.
The event got off to a slow start. Roughly 100 people were on hand at the 1 p.m. kickoff. The crowd grew to several hundred by the time speeches began, the Daily News reported.
Speaker Jessica Denson acknowledged the gap. "I'm not lying to anybody, this crowd is significantly smaller than it has been in the past," she told the crowd. The previous No Kings rally in March drew thousands to downtown alone, the Los Angeles Times reported.
State Sen. Sasha Renee Perez, D-Pasadena, focused her remarks on voting rights. She told the crowd that Trump is "trying to scare Californians out of voting" and pointed to immigration enforcement activity near the election, according to the Times.
"If your vote was not so powerful, we would not see this administration spending millions of dollars on Operation Safe California to terrorize our community," Perez said, according to the Times.
The rallies came two days after the Trump administration sued California election officials on Thursday, Oct. 15, asking a federal judge to bar the state from counting mail-in ballots from roughly 20,000 people the federal government identified as "likely" noncitizens. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber called the demand "an emergency of the DOJ's creation" and said the federal government had not provided evidence to support its claims, PBS reported.
Gov. Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit a "sad, desperate attempt" to "suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day," according to Al Jazeera.
Organizers described the Oct. 17 action as the fourth No Kings demonstration in roughly a year, according to the Times. Previous rallies focused on opposition to Trump, immigration raids and rising prices. This round shifted toward voter participation, with on-site outreach to help eligible residents understand their ballot options.
Satellite rallies stretched across the Eastside and beyond, The Eastsider LA reported. Elysian Valley held an 11 a.m. gathering at Elysian Valley Gateway Park. Silver Lake hosted a noon event at Front Patio on Armstrong Avenue. Highland Park's rally began at 4 p.m. at 6150 Piedmont Ave. Pasadena held a separate demonstration at Colorado Boulevard and Fair Oaks Avenue, organized by San Gabriel Foothills Indivisible.
Other speakers at the downtown event included Assemblyman Isaac Bryan, D-Los Angeles, activist Melina Abdullah, Jillian Burgos of Housing for All and Paul Ramirez, founder of Valley Defensa.
California's voter registration deadline for the Nov. 3 election is Monday, Oct. 19.
