The secretly recorded conversation from October 2021 involving three members of the Los Angeles City Council and a labor leader is yet another scandal that will further damage public trust in the city’s government.
Los Angeles has had plenty of corruption problems involving City Councilmembers centered on kickbacks, obstruction and conspiracies. The current scandal is somewhat different in its exposure of ugly racism and the use of redistricting to disempower certain racial groups and others. Still, there is a commonality with the other scandals: They are all devastating to public trust and corrosive to the governing process.
Piecemeal, limited proposals are unlikely to change the governing structure that has made such misconduct possible. That’s why reforms must be made to empower more democracy in the city. One place to start is with reforming the redistricting process, on which the governing structure rests.
The recorded conversation was about redistricting and showed the vicious political process that often accompanies it. Truly independent redistricting commissions that take drawing district boundaries out of the hands of politicians can make a big difference in government transparency and public confidence. States that have independent commissions have found that they can limit partisan gerrymandering.
Commissions like these would be useful at the municipal level, too, helping to balance competing interests, including racial and ethnic interests, and preventing elected officials from choosing their voters and the economic assets they might covet. By charter, L.A. has a redistricting commission, but it’s not independent of the politicians who appoint them. That commission and California Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog group for government issues, support the idea of an independent redistricting commission for L.A.
Reforms to redistricting could be accompanied by reforms to the City Council that would strengthen local democracy. Per person, L.A. City…