Who Will Replace Garcetti Until the Next Election? That ideal leader would be less concerned with currying favor and image-burnishing than an elected official whose success depends on public support. Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti (Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Bloomberg Philanthropies) As Eric Garcetti prepares to head off to India as the U.S. Ambassador to that country, Los Angeles is still almost a year and a half away from its next scheduled election. While several potential candidates are lining up for that race, the city’s economic, housing, public safety and transportation crises are not going to fix themselves over the next eighteen months. The temptation among many local political leaders will be to defer significant action on these policy fronts and simply maintain the status quo until LA voters select our next chief executive, but this path of least political resistance ignores the urgency that these challenges require.