A former leader of the Vermont Democratic Party, Faisal Gill, is running for Los Angeles city attorney.
Gill, 48, briefly chaired the state’s Democratic party in 2017, becoming the first Muslim to lead a state party in U.S. history.
With his latest foray into electoral politics, Gill will have sought public office in three states as a member of two parties: He ran for the Virginia House of Delegates as a Republican in 2007, the Vermont Senate as a Democrat in 2016 and now Los Angeles’ top law enforcement job as a Democrat.
Gill relocated to California in 2018 and has since taken on criminal defense and civil rights cases. He is currently representing Antone Austin, a music producer who is suing the Los Angeles Police Department over wrongful arrest, racial profiling and excessive force.
The candidate told VTDigger that challenging the Los Angeles Police Department and city attorney’s office in the Austin case inspired him to seek the office.
“That was kind of the experience that led me to say, ‘You know what, somebody’s got to change the system,’ so I decided to run,” he said Monday.
Gill said his No. 1 focus is police accountability.
“When the police do actions that are not right, their actions are wrong, I’m going to hold them accountable,” he said. “I’m not going to automatically just defend every police officer.”
Gill is involved in other high-profile cases. He is representing Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in her suit against Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to U.S. intelligence, the crown prince approved the 2018 killing of the Washington Post columnist in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
In his race for city attorney, Gill faces a competitive field. So far, five other candidates are vying for the post. The primary election won’t take place until next year.
But Gill has already received endorsements from high profile progressive Democrats, including Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; and Karen Bass, D-Calif.
Before returning to Los Angeles to be closer to his children, Gill was involved in state and local politics in the Green Mountain State.
He moved to Winooski at the beginning of 2013 and chaired the city’s Community Services Commission. Gill served as chair of the Chittenden County Democratic Party before waging an unsuccessful campaign for the Vermont Senate in 2016.
When former Vermont Democratic Party chair Dottie Deans stepped down in 2017, Gill took over the post for about eight months.
He told Seven Days at the time that he wasn’t seeking reelection to the position because he’s “too interested in policy.” Party chairs are generally expected to stay out of policy debates.
The former Republican worked as a senior policy adviser in the Department of Homeland Security under President George Bush.
Though he now lives in California, Gill has remained involved in Vermont politics.
Records show he donated to Democratic campaigns in the 2020 election cycle, including gubernatorial candidate David Zuckerman and state Senate candidate David Scherr.
Former Burlington Democratic Party chair Sam Donnelly, who also ran Attorney General T.J. Donovan’s 2020 campaign, helped Gill launch his campaign.
Gill said that his time in Vermont helped him learn more about issues such as single payer health care, which had been a priority for former Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin, and minimum wage increases.
“I think Vermont made me, certainly my experiences there made me a bit more progressive than I was before I got there,” Gill said.
“I just loved the activism in Vermont,” Gill said. “It was great.”
