Election 2026 · Federal

U.S. House, California District 37

Published September 29, 2026 · Updated October 2, 2026

Sydney Kamlager-Dove (incumbent) and Samantha Mota are the candidates for U.S. House, California District 37 on the November 3, 2026 ballot.

U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove and Samantha Mota, both Democrats, are running for the U.S. House seat in the 37th Congressional District. About 707,000 City of Los Angeles residents live in the district, mainly in Council Districts 9, 10 and 8, in neighborhood council areas that include South Central, West Adams, Mid City and Park Mesa Heights.

Summary by CityHallPass, not the official text or legal advice. The official text controls: LA County's official election information.

What it means for the City of LA

Congress writes the budgets for federal grant programs that pay for some City of Los Angeles services. One example is the Community Development Block Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The City's 2026-27 Proposed Budget says the City gets these funds based on its population, poverty and housing overcrowding, and uses them for housing, economic development and social services for low- and moderate-income residents. The same budget estimates $749,787,681 in grant receipts for City departments in 2026-27, from federal, state, local and other sources. About 707,000 City residents live in this district, the second-largest City share of any House district.

Primary results, June 2, 2026

Nine candidates. Sydney Kamlager-Dove and Samantha Mota, both Democrats, placed first and second and advanced to November 3. The whole district is in Los Angeles County. Total votes: 128,660. Certified results

The candidates

The job

Powers. The House “makes and passes federal laws.” Members introduce bills and resolutions, offer amendments and serve on committees, which also oversee federal agencies (House.gov). Under Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, bills for raising revenue must start in the House (Constitution, National Archives transcript).

Pay. $174,000 a year. Members last got a raise in January 2009. Congress has blocked every scheduled raise since, most recently in a law signed November 12, 2025 (CRS).

The district. California’s new congressional map was drawn by the Legislature (AB 604) and approved by voters as Proposition 50 in November 2025. The Secretary of State says the map is used from 2026 through 2030 and the new districts take effect January 3, 2027 (SOS).

• City of Los Angeles share. 706,970 City residents live in the district (2020 Census), out of 3,912,115 citywide. Only the 29th District has more. The district also includes 34,958 of Culver City’s 40,892 residents (Statewide Database city splits report), plus small unincorporated areas, based on the tracts in the AB 604 map data.
• City council districts. The district’s City neighborhoods fall mainly in Council Districts 9, 10 and 8, with parts of District 5 and small pieces of Districts 14 and 1. Method: census tracts assigned to the district in the state’s AB 604 map data, matched to City council and neighborhood council maps from the City’s GeoHub.
• Neighborhood councils in the district, by the same tract match against the GeoHub neighborhood council map, include the Empowerment Congress North, West, Central, Southwest and Southeast councils, United Neighborhoods, Voices, South Central, Zapata-King, South Robertson, CANNDU, Park Mesa Heights, P.I.C.O., Mid City, West Adams, Central Alameda, parts of Downtown Los Angeles and Palms, and Olympic Park.

Federal money and the City.

• The February 2026 spending law that ended a partial shutdown included $94.3 million for 2028 Olympics transportation, according to Metro (LAist). Metro had asked for $3.2 billion (LAist).
• On August 26, 2026, Kamlager-Dove joined Reps. Lieu, Chu and Waters at a panel convened by Rep. Laura Friedman with Metro and City transportation officials, including LADOT General Manager Laura Rubio-Cornejo, on Olympic transit readiness (Lieu release).
• Her office’s site includes a page of fiscal 2027 community project funding selections (Kamlager-Dove site).

Records

Sydney Kamlager-Dove

Offices. LA County Commission on Children and Families (appointed 2013), Los Angeles Community College District board (elected 2015), State Assembly (elected 2018), State Senate (elected 2021), U.S. House since January 2023 (House bio). In the 119th Congress she serves on Foreign Affairs (South and Central Asia, where she is ranking member, and Western Hemisphere) and Judiciary (subcommittees on courts, IP, AI and the internet, and on crime and federal government surveillance) (House Clerk). She is Whip of the Congressional Black Caucus and policy co-chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus (House bio). On September 14, 2026 she announced a run for co-chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (release).

Bills. Congress.gov lists 71 bills and resolutions sponsored by Kamlager-Dove, 37 in the current Congress (Congress.gov). None she sponsored has become law as a standalone bill (Congress.gov). Her office says she “passed the GRATEFUL Act,” which lets locally employed U.S. embassy staff immigrate after long service (House bio). Current-Congress bills include:

• Stop ICE’s Medical Neglect Act of 2026 (H.R. 10027, August 2026). It would set up a system to report medical neglect in ICE detention and require investigation of each complaint. She introduced it after a constituent who was shot during an immigration traffic stop and held at Adelanto was denied proper care, her office says (release, July 29, 2026).
• Articles of impeachment against OMB Director Russell Vought (H.Res. 1479, August 6, 2026), charging abuse of power after the administration cut federal funding to states based on how they voted. Her office said 79 California projects were at risk (release).
• Criminal justice bills: Second Look Act of 2026 (H.R. 8549), End Solitary Confinement Act (H.R. 4682), One Stop Shop Community Reentry Program Act (H.R. 8548), Women in Criminal Justice Reform Act (H.R. 8976), Pregnant Women in Custody Act (H.R. 8690).
• Foster care: Promoting Permanency Through Kinship Families Act (H.R. 5583) and a bill on college access for homeless and foster youth (H.R. 9960).
• Foreign affairs bills approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee: the YALI Act of 2025 (H.R. 4332), the Export Controls Enforcement Act (H.R. 4505) and the Rejecting the Erasure of Afghan Women and Girls Act (H.R. 7669).
• A bill naming the post office at 819 West Washington Boulevard for Jerry T. Hodges, Jr. (H.R. 8105).
• She co-led Tyler’s Law, a fentanyl-testing bill that passed the House, with Rep. Ted Lieu (Lieu release).

Key votes, 2025-2026. The same votes are shown for every House incumbent on CityHallPass.

She was among the 94 Democrats who voted against the FY 2026 defense bill (115 Democrats voted yes) and among the 64 who voted against the first House version of H.R. 7148 (Roll 320; Roll 45). The final version of H.R. 7148 included the Olympics transportation money (LAist). The S. 1071 short title, “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026,” is from the enrolled bill (Congress.gov; GovInfo text).

Attendance. Of 676 House roll calls from January 3, 2025 to September 16, 2026, Kamlager-Dove did not vote on 22 (3.3%), based on House Clerk roll call records.

Immigration detention oversight. In late May 2026 she made an oversight visit to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, met a detained constituent and obtained his medical records. Her office says a federal judge later ordered changes to conditions at Adelanto (release, July 23, 2026).

Ethics and court records.

• FPPC. In July 2022 the FPPC issued her a warning letter, with no fine, for not filing a behested payment report on time for a $7,500 payment San Diego Gas & Electric made at her behest to the Los Angeles County Delegation in September 2021. It cited the low amount, her filing before the FPPC contacted her and her lack of enforcement history (FPPC warning letter, No. 2022-00503).
• No other official findings were found in House Ethics Committee statements and reports, Office of Congressional Conduct referrals, FEC enforcement records (MURs, administrative fines and ADR cases, searched by her name, her committee’s name and its ID, C00795823), or City Ethics Commission records. She holds no State Bar license (searched Sept. 30, 2026).

Samantha Mota

Career. Mota’s campaign site says she was appointed to Santa Monica’s Public Safety Reform and Oversight Commission, which reviewed police policies after the May 31, 2020 unrest (campaign site). She says she spent six years on community gardening and green-space work, including a push for the City of Santa Monica to adopt urban agriculture rules under Assembly Bill 551, and that the city’s Hispanic Heritage Month Committee gave her its Premio de Orgullo award (campaign site). These roles are as her campaign describes them; no independent record of them was found.

Record. No elected office, votes or programs to report; her campaign biography lists no elected office (campaign site).

Ethics and court records. No public enforcement actions found in FPPC, City Ethics Commission or FEC enforcement records (MURs, administrative fines and ADR cases, searched by her name, her committee’s name and its ID, C00908947), and no license in her name at the State Bar. No court case naming her as a party was found in CourtListener federal dockets and opinions, GovInfo federal court opinions or news coverage (searched Oct. 1, 2026).

Where they stand

Issues are drawn from Mota’s campaign issue pages (checked September 30, 2026) and from Kamlager-Dove’s bills and votes, linked in each cell. No reputable voter survey specific to this district was found.

On the other ballot measures

No statement by either candidate on any November 3, 2026 state proposition was found on their House page, campaign site or in the sources cited here.

Source: measure list from the Secretary of State’s qualified ballot measures page; positions checked on Kamlager-Dove’s House site and Mota’s issues page.

City residents in the district also vote on City measures FD, TE, LA, PL, EE, PRK and PRT (City Clerk Voter Information Pamphlet). Voters who live in LAUSD also decide City Charter Amendment SC, shown in the table above. No position by either candidate was found on those.

Endorsements

Sydney Kamlager-Dove

No current endorsement list or campaign website was found. Her FEC committee is Sydney Kamlager-Dove for Congress (FEC). No newspaper endorsement was found.

Samantha Mota

No endorsements are listed on her campaign site, and none were found elsewhere. No newspaper endorsement was found.

Polls

No public polls of this race were found.

Money

Source: FEC candidate summaries (Kamlager-Dove; Mota), from the FEC’s bulk candidate summary dated September 29, 2026. Committees: Sydney Kamlager-Dove for Congress (C00795823); Mota’s committee is registered as “My Committee” (C00908947). Mota’s committee filed a third-quarter report dated August 1, 2026 that covers through September 30 (FEC filing). Federal law limits individuals to $3,500 per candidate per election (FEC contribution limits).

Who is giving

Method: FEC itemized individual contributions to each principal committee, 2025-2026 cycle, from the FEC bulk data. Committees must itemize donors who give more than $200 in a cycle (FEC). Gifts through ActBlue or another conduit are itemized too. A donor is a normalized name plus ZIP code, with refunds netted. Geography uses the City’s ZIP code list and Census ZIP-to-county files. “In the district” means the ZIP code’s center falls inside the new district (21 ZIP codes).

Source: CityHallPass analysis of FEC itemized receipts (Kamlager-Dove; Mota) and FEC candidate totals (links above).

Sydney Kamlager-Dove

• Who. About half her individual money came in gifts too small to itemize. Of itemized dollars, 45.2% came from City of Los Angeles ZIP codes and 32.9% from out of state, led by Illinois ($36,100) and Washington, D.C. ($23,800) (FEC receipts).
• Industries: retired or not employed 27.3%; law 10.3%; entertainment and media 9.1%; finance and investment 6.6%; health care 5.4% (FEC receipts).
• Largest individual donors. Three gave the $7,000 two-election maximum (FEC receipts, largest first).
• Employers by donor count. City of Los Angeles (6), County of Los Angeles (4), NVG (4), FGS Global (4), Netflix (3) and Holland & Knight (3). No cluster of five or more donors from one employer was found (FEC receipts).
• Conduits. 29 donors gave $15,852 earmarked through J Street PAC (FEC: J Street PAC payments to the committee). Most other conduit gifts came through ActBlue (FEC receipts).
• PACs and other committees. FEC committee data show $425,387 from 144 committees (FEC receipts from committees). By type: labor unions $143,500 (IBEW, AFSCME, LiUNA and the Machinists at $10,000 each; the firefighters’ IAFF $7,500); corporate PACs $131,500 (Amazon $10,000; Charter Communications $9,000; Blue Shield of California and Dell $7,500 each; Fox and HDR $6,000 each; Sony Pictures $5,500; Paramount $5,000); leadership and other PACs $50,000; trade associations $48,108; membership groups $41,500, including the American Association for Justice at $10,000. Tribes gave $6,250 (FEC receipts from committees).

Samantha Mota

• Four itemized donors gave $800. Most of her individual money ($3,026.32) came in unitemized small gifts. She put in $6,107.54 of her own money, more than all her donors combined (FEC candidate page; FEC receipts).

Outside spending

Source: FEC independent expenditure reports (Schedule E). No independent spending for or against either candidate was reported in the 2025-2026 cycle as of September 29, 2026 (FEC: Kamlager-Dove; FEC: Mota).

Key moments

Debates and forums

No debates or candidate forums for this race were found.

Events

• Primary (June 2, 2026). Kamlager-Dove won 55.2%. Mota finished second, ahead of Republican Baltazar Fedalizo, 11.7% to 10.7% (SOS Statement of Vote).
• Adelanto detainee case (May to August 2026).
  • What happened: Kamlager-Dove made an oversight visit to Adelanto, spoke on the House floor about her constituent’s medical care and introduced a bill on detention medical neglect (release, July 23; release, July 29). No news coverage was found.
  • Mota: no statement on the case found. Her platform calls for dismantling ICE (campaign site).