Plans to expand the Los Angeles City Council from 15 to 25 members as a key council committee said the proposal needs more research before it goes to voters.
The Laws, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee, made up of five council members, recommended that plans to expand the council be withdrawn as part of a measure to reform voting laws on November 3, saying the measure needs more research before it can be put before the voters. This idea has been discussed for almost four years.
A council committee, which held its final meeting on charter proposals Monday, also rejected proposals to adopt selective voting, where voters list candidates by choice, and to split the city attorney’s office into two roles — an elected city attorney and an appointed city attorney.
The committee continued to put other measures before voters – including allowing non-voters to vote in LA city and LA Unified School District elections, increasing oversight of the Police Department, establishing a Public Works director, implementing a biennial (instead of annual) budget cycle, establishing a city infrastructure improvement plan, and removing part of the charter that prohibited the sale of city produce.
The panel’s recommendations will be taken up Wednesday by the full City Council, which will have the final say on which proposals are included in the proposed reform ballot.
The committee’s decision to cancel the expansion of the council and other hot issues came after the chief legal analyst’s office recommended that these measures be considered, and the expansion of the council will come before the voters in 2028. The President of the Council, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who is the chairman of the committee, said that he will establish a committee of the council to deal with the upcoming changes in employment.
Councilor Nithya Raman pushed for the expansion of the council to be included in the vote, but she was unable to persuade other committee members when the measure was about to be discussed on Friday.
Raman, who is challenging Mayor Karen Bass in the Nov. 3 mayoral election, said the expansion of the council was one of the factors that prompted the changes and asked what other research was needed.
“I am disappointed that we may have to answer big questions in the future reform process,” Raman said on Friday. “There’s a lot of mistrust in LA city government right now.”
Harris-Dawson said that while she supports the larger council ideologically, it also changes the power of the city between the council and the mayor. Council expansion has been an issue for 27 years, he said. At the moment, he said, he is “totally conflicted.”
“The great council makes the mayor more powerful than the mayor may have now,” he said during the committee’s deliberations. “In all cities with a large council, the mayor is much more powerful than the situation we have in LA today, where there is a good balance between the mayor and the council, which is why all this is focused on the council.”
A senior legal analyst’s report suggested that the City Council should move forward with nearly one-third of the 66 recommendations made by the Reform Commission, a group of citizens tasked with reviewing the charter and making recommendations on how to revise it to improve governance. They also considered proposals made by council members, including a proposal from Hugo Soto-Martínez that would allow non-citizens to vote in LA and school board elections.
On Monday, a council committee moved forward with Soto-Martínez’s proposal before the City Council, although it was not part of the Law Reform Commission’s recommendations.
“We hope that most of them agree that the people who work here, live here, have roots here, who have contributed to the community for a long time, should be able to have a say in their local elections,” he said.
The committee also recommended further measures to reform police accountability, including increasing the council’s authority over the policies of the Los Angeles Police Department.
The committee took three police accountability measures to a full council vote, each against the opposition of Council Member John Lee, who said he was concerned about politicizing oversight of the LAPD.
“It’s the best department. It’s a progressive department,” Lee said. “A department that is trying … to make positive changes.”
During public comments, many speakers voiced criticism and urged the committee to make major changes in this document. Some of the strongest criticism of the entire plan comes from within City Hall. City Administrator Kenneth Mejia, who won re-election this year, posted a video on Sunday. He said he was disappointed with the committee’s decision to stop major proposals such as the expansion of the council, and described it as “the current state of the political machine that works, it wants to maintain its power.”
“We all went into the office trying to change City Hall because it doesn’t work here,” said Mejia. “But no, when it comes to things like increasing the size of the council … when it comes to selective voting to make our elections more democratic, and to be able to vote our conscience, that was punishable.”
Mejia criticized the council committee for not taking up his office’s recommendations to increase office oversight and funding for the employment program.
“City Hall does not care about transparency and accountability and oversight,” he said. “We are not serious about City Hall.”
The effort to change the city ordinance began in 2022, when The Times reported on a leaked audio recording of former City Council President Nury Martinez and two other council members making racist remarks, insulting fellow council members and talking bad about recording the city politically.
After the audio leak, the council created a committee to discuss how to improve the government and voter trust. In 2022, then-council member Mitch O’Farrell approved a motion to direct city staff to take the necessary steps to prepare for the 2024 council expansion ballot.
Finally, the city established a Charter Reform Commission, made up of volunteers, to discuss big-ticket items including council expansion. That took nearly a year to get underway, and the commission issued a report in April with a number of recommendations.
But advocates for better governance say many big-ticket items are being pushed back to the ground again.
Godfrey Plata, deputy director of LA Forward, a progressive group, said he disagreed with the senior legal analyst’s proposal to “continue research” on issues that have already been studied.
He said he was happy to see police accountability measures moving forward, but he felt council members should “pass the baton” and allow voters to decide on changes.
“We are disappointed that we have another ten-month committee to look forward to. … Lawyers are getting impatient,” said Plata. “It feels like we’re going to parties.”
Rob Quan, who is the organizer of the group Unrig LA, said that the committee that withdrew most of the proposals is troubling to watch.
“It’s really strange to see the big things that affect why this commission was created and it seems like it won’t go anywhere,” he said. “What has the committee decided, we will form a new committee after this to manage the lamp. … [It’s] joy goes round in hell.”
