The City Council Wednesday approved a proposal for an Independent Redistricting Commission that would be tasked with redrawing the boundaries of council districts for future elections.
Council members voted unanimously on the matter, and city officials will now work to prepare the proposal for placement on the November 2024 ballot for voters to decide.
Council President Paul Krekorian said it would be the first time in the city’s history that council redistricting would be taken out of the hands of the council itself and entrusted to a commission, through a process he called “transparent, inclusive, and entirely independent.”
“In November of next year, we will for the first time have a truly independent redistricting, which is completely independent from the City Council,” Krekorian said prior to the vote.
Redistricting takes place every 10 years, following the completion of the U.S. Census, to account for population shifts. Under the city’s current system, council members appoint redistricting commissioners who create new maps, which are then forwarded to the council for approval and implementation.
But, as Councilwoman Nithya Raman said, over the past couple of years, city leaders have lost the trust and faith of the people of Los Angeles.
In the wake of the 2022 City Hall scandal in which three council members, two of them now gone, were caught on a leaked recording discussing ways to redraw districts in their favor, officials created the Ad Hoc Committee on City Governance Reform, which is chaired by Krekorian.
“One of the ways in which we must respond to that, and we have had to respond to that, is by actually taking away some of our own power and giving it back to the people of Los Angeles,” Raman said.
The proposal approved Wednesday was a culmination of 10 months of work by the ad hoc committee and by the office of the chief legislative analyst. City officials also received feedback from residents, community groups and organizations such as UnrigLA, the League of Women Voters, the L.A. Governance Reform Project, Our LA Coalition and Common Cause.
The independent commission would be composed of 16 members and four alternates who would serve 10-year terms. Commissioners would not be able to run for office or work in specific elected offices or city positions for four years from the end of service, or once they complete their 10-year term.
The City Clerk’s Office would be responsible for the selection process of commissioners, and the Ethics Department would provide oversight.
Applications would be received and whittled down using certain criteria, followed by public input given online, and final applicants would be determined by the City Clerk’s Office, Ethics Department or some third party determined by the previous two entities.
Once eight commissioners are selected, officials would then determine the remaining commissioners while considering, in part, geographical and diversity criteria. The selection of the four alternates would be randomly drawn.
While the 15 members of the City Council supported the proposal, Council President Pro Tem Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Councilwoman Imelda Padilla introduced amendments to tweak certain aspects of the plan.
Harris-Dawson’s first amendment sought to reduce the wait time for ex-city workers to apply as commissioners from four years to two years; his second amendment called for the commission to consider economic and cultural assets as part of the map-drawing process.
Padilla’s amendment sought to change a requirement that commission applicants will need to have five years of residency — up from the original three years.
A brief debate happened, stirred up by Harris-Dawson’s amendment related to districts’ assets.
Raman emphasized the issue is more of a “problem with our planning process” and it should not be added to process of setting district boundaries. The councilwoman previously stated she would be working on a plan to take the zoning process out of the hands of council members.
Harris-Dawson said the amendment would serve as a policy to address “a function of investment patterns.”
“I think that coming from a community that’s very much at the low-income side, where our average medium income is about $32,000 a year, these economic assets mean differently to our community because we are poor,” said Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, who backed Harris-Dawson’s amendment on assets.
She added, “It’s naive of us to not see that for what it is and try to create something on paper that acknowledges that process. If we need to tackle it through planning policy and other things, let’s start doing that right now.”
The three amendments garnered enough support for approval.
“For 100 years, the Los Angeles City Council has effectively designed its own districts,” Krekorian said in a statement. “When this charter amendment passes, we will finally have a process where the voters choose their council members, instead of the council members choosing their voters.”
Several members of the public criticized the council’s decision not to open public comment prior to the vote, especially as council members introduced “significant” amendments. But many also applauded the council for approving the proposal, and encouraged members to improve on the plan, such as by securing a separate budget for the commission, so as to further separate the group from council influence.
The governance reform organizations California Common Cause, OUR LA and the LA Governance Reform Project, in a joint statement, lauded the council, describing the proposal as “well formulated.” However, the groups also said it doesn’t go far enough.
The groups are also calling for an expansion of council from its current 15 members; strengthening ethics rules; establishing an independent redistricting commission for the Los Angeles Unified School District’s School Board, and increasing membership on the board as well.
“The creation of an IRC is not the be-all, end-all to achieving structural reform in the city government,” the joint statement reads. “Recapturing the trust of Angelenos lost amid the 2022 tapes scandal is paramount and a multifaceted challenge.”
“While an IRC for the council is an important first step, this process of reform must continue with additional proposals placed in front of the voters next November,” the statement continued.
In fact, those additional moves are already on the council’s radar.
As part of the council’s continuing efforts on governance reform, leaders are also expected to explore proposals for increasing the number of council districts, as well as introducing ethics reforms.
In addition, the office of the chief legislative analyst is expected to come back to the ad hoc committee at a future date with recommendations to establish an independent redistricting commission and process for LAUSD.