LA’s Sweeping Charter Reform Debate Moves Forward
After a nearly year-long process of discussions, presentations and public meetings, a set of LA City charter reform proposals has come to the City Council’s Rules Committee, with the first hearing on April 30. A series of scandals, including federal bribery and corruption cases and a leaked 2022 recording of senior council members speaking in racist, cynical ways helped build pressure for change. But as the Charter Commission report stated, the deeper reason reform is needed now is structural.
LA grew up differently from other big cities, “with a government designed partly to avoid old-style party machines. That sounded clean and modern,” the report explains. “But over time it produced a system with diffused authority, weak lines of accountability, oversized council districts, and a long-standing custom — known as councilmember prerogative — that gives each member enormous influence over what happens inside their district.” All this calls for structural reforms that will make government work for the people, as it’s supposed to.
“I am not the only one who has deep love for our city. I see it in most residents,” said Raymond Meza, who chaired the Charter Reform Commission. “However, when it comes to city government, Angelenos are heartbroken,” he said. “There is no magic formula, but change is necessary. Los Angeles residents are ready to change the rules of the game so they can help shape the future of the city we all love.”
The recommendations are described in terms of four themes:
- Strengthening Democratic Voice and Representation,
- Rebuilding Trust Through Accountability,
- Improving Long-Term Planning and Service Delivery, and
- Modernizing Government Structure.
As readers will see in the months ahead, most of the changes make sense, but the question is, are they enough? For example, charter reform would be made a regular, recurrent process, but it would only recur every 10 years. Why wait so long?
The report itself has a page “Issues for the Future” highlighting four issues a future review process should focus on:
- Reforming the city’s commission system.
- Revising the neighborhood council system to give neighborhood voices real weight.
- Conducting a rigorous review to draw clear lines between the council’s legislative authority and the mayor’s executive power.
- Reform civil service in partnership with the city’s labor organizations.
There’s no reason to wait 10 years to take on these issues, and others that have surfaced, but have not been addressed in the current package. Every two-year election cycle should be linked to a charter review process, so that dealing with systemic governance issues becomes a regular part of the city’s political process.
Derek Galey, presenting comments on behalf of the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council, made a related suggestion. “It’s appropriate to have more independent ongoing and issue specific charter reform, so that it’s not left again for such a long period to have to try to reform everything all at once,” he said.
The most comments came in favor of doubling spending on parks and recreation—from experts, volunteers and park users across the city—but there was also widespread support for democracy-enhancing proposals—expanding the council to 25 seats, adopting rank choice voting, lowering the voting age to 16, strengthening neighborhood councils, and lowering ballot access barriers.
There were no comments opposing any of these. Rather, the comments echoed what Meza said about process of drafting the recommendations: “Despite a wide range of views, one common message emerged. People want a city government that listens to their voices, respects their votes, and delivers results. They want accountability when officials break the rules. They want residents to have real power in decisions that affect their daily lives. They want long-term investments in infrastructure and parks, not short-term fixes. And they want elections that provide greater representation.”
One democracy-enhancing proposal left out of the process—non-citizen voting—has been separately introduced for council consideration by Council Member Hugo Soto-Martínez, who explained his motivation in his opening remarks.
“After my parents immigrated here from Mexico, they worked hard, paid taxes, raised their kids in our public schools, but for decades, they had no voice in the decisions shaping their community until they became citizens,” he said. “That story is shared by hundreds of thousands of Angelinos. And as someone who grew up in one of those families, I believe they deserve a voice in the city they helped build.”
Non-citizen voting was commonplace in the American colonies at the time of the Revolution—residency, not citizenship, was the most common standard. So there’s nothing particularly radical about the idea. The charter reform proposal to allow 16-year-olds to vote is more unprecedented—it’s only been allowed locally in a handful of places in America, starting in 2013—but lowering the voting age is not: Prior to the Vietnam War it was 21 in most states, but the 26th Amendment in 1971 lowered it to 18 nationwide. Several countries have begun lowering it to 16 since Brazil’s 1988 constitution. Lowering it now in LA has broad support.
For school elections in particular it makes sense to give those directly affected a voice, and because it matters to directly to them, it could well help establish voting as a habit at an early age, which currently isn’t the case for most Americans.
“I am a former LAUSD student, but I graduated in 2007. I am no longer paying attention to what’s happening in LAUSD, but 16year-olds are. They are greatly impacted by the decisions made,” said Amy Percher, of Council District 4. “My school was heavily impacted by No Child Left Behind and I wish I had a voice then. These kids deserve a voice now.”
Two other democracy reforms drew especially broad support: expanding the council size—which no one felt the need to explain—and rank choice voting.
“People are asking for rank choice voting because they are tired of a winner take all system that pressures voters to choose the lesser evil instead of the candidates who truly represents their values,” said Chris Harris, with the California Rank Choice Voting Coalition. “Too often candidates advance and win office without majority support, leaving many voters feeling unheard and disconnected from the political process at a time when trust in government needs to be strengthened.”
But there was also support for another democracy reform that wasn’t in the reform package, but that played a role in forming it: civic assemblies, which function like juries for policy purposes.
A civic assembly was held as part of the process of developing the reform package, and Max Clark, who volunteered with Public Democracy LA and Rewrite LA in that process spoke about its broader potential. The normal of public comment “isn’t enough,” Clark said. “It selects only for a narrow slice of our community. It doesn’t give the time, consideration, or representation to all the voices of Los Angeles. I believe civic assemblies can.”
And he went on to explain, “Civic assemblies are formed through sortition, which just means random selection. It’s how our juries are formed. Randomness ensures it’s representative of the community. And in a civic assembly, the people come together to talk about a single issue. They’re given time, resources, and access to subject domain experts,” and can address any number of issues.
He thanked the commission chair for authorizing the civic assembly, and concluded, “I want to urge this council to consider the use of civic assemblies and every activist in this room to learn about this democratic reform.”
Galey, who helped organize and moderate the assembly called attention to it as well, going on to note, “there’s really an opportunity for a stronger role for neighborhood councils and community bodies in charter reform as well as city governance.”
Support for doubling park funding came from dozens of park users, as well as volunteers on multiple park advisory boards and other park-related organizations, many with decades of experience. Rob Barrett, from the Prevention Institute, a public health advocacy nonprofit, summed up well what they were saying. “Parks are essential infrastructure. They’re not a nice to have, they’re a must have,” he said. “I’m saying that also as a parent who uses the park system on a regular basis”
He also shared results of a recent study they’d done with UCLA measuring life expectancy and correlating it with green space. “What we found is that 160,000 years of life expectancy can be added to this city by funding parks better than it is now. And most almost all of that amount is in black and brown communities that have been denied equitable parks and quality parks programming for generations.”
There was also considerable support for increased police accountability, part of the overall effort to increase accountability in multiple ways. Olivia McKinley explained the thinking of LA Forward, a prime mover in advancing charter reform. “LA Forward supports the commission’s proposals to ensure charter provisions that apply to city departments at large also apply to LAPD, including allowing the chief of police to remove officers with repeated history of harm, ensuring that LAPD honors ordinances passed through normal city council processes, and LAPD upholds and protects the first amendment rights of free speech and press in its work,” she said. “These reforms don’t give the chief of police or counsel any special powers. instead simply that they give the chief and council tools that other departments can access.”
The fact that LAPD is such an outlier isn’t well understood, Jack Gross pointed out.
“Ask anyone in LA and they would assume the chief of police can remove problematic officers. Ask anyone and they would assume that the city council has the ability to exercise oversight over the LAPD and that the LAPD needs to follow the First Amendment,” Gross said.
“Not only does the widespread misunderstanding that these aren’t already in place serve as a reminder that these [reforms] are popular and sensible, it also means that when the city fails to exercise the functions that residents expect, it contributes to the crisis of loss of faith in government,” he said. “Please correct these errors and bring city government in line with the logical expectations of the residents of LA so that our government can be more efficient, responsive, accountable, and effective.”
One thing missing from the package was a set of racial equity proposals put forth by the Los Angeles Black Workers Center that remain hung up in process. Georgia Flowers Lee, representing United Teachers Los Angeles, was one more than a dozen spoke out in support.
“At its core, this is about access and accountability,” Lee said. “For too long, our city’s hiring systems have made it harder, not easier, for black workers, brown workers, and working class Angelinos to
access stable unionized public sector jobs. That’s not a coincidence. It’s the result of policies that haven’t been updated to reflect the needs or values of our city,” she said. “These reforms offer a clear path forward. By modernizing hiring and testing, establishing independent oversight, and requiring workforce equity audits, we can begin to dismantle those barriers. By creating a public service career pipeline and prioritizing inclusive recruitment, we can actively open doors instead of quietly closing them.”
From a broader perspective, she continued, “I also want to ground this in what it means for our communities. When families have access to stable, well-paying public sector jobs, it creates real stability, less displacement, stronger neighborhoods, and better outcomes for young people. As someone who works closely with youth, I can tell you when families are supported, students are
more focused, more engaged, and more likely to succeed.” In the end, she said, “This is not just a workforce issue. It’s a community stability issue. It’s about whether the people who built this city can continue to live and thrive in it.”
One proposal that did draw some dissent was the proposal to divide the city attorney’s office in two, with an elected city prosecutor, handling criminal matters, and an appointed city attorney handling everything else. Several people questioned the logic of doing this, and Assistant City Attorney Joshua Geller appeared unofficially as vice president of the Los Angeles City Attorneys Association “to express our strenuous opposition to bifurcating the city attorney’s office,” noting that “we have
grave concerns” with the proposal.
Over the decades, “we have seen how politics is an inescapable part of how our office works,” he acknowledged, but, “For those of us on the non-prosecutorial side of the office, we fear that creating an appointed city attorney would only amplify the political influence and interference in how we do our jobs.” On the other hand, “Those of us on the prosecutorial side of the office see the logic in having an elected city prosecutor, but fear that will stifle the career aspirations and long-term mobility that is possible because we all work for a unified city attorney’s office.”
But rather than holding back, LA Forward wants to go farther, splitting the office into three, as explained by their deputy director, Godfrey Blata. The first would not only have a criminal branch but also “a public rights branch which brings civil rights civil enforcement actions in the name of the people,” he explained, adding, “This is the model followed by the city of Long Beach.”
Second is “an appointed corporation counselor or city attorney,” which he said “is the model of nearly all major cities outside California.” It have three branches, “ a municipal branch giving legal guidance to the municipal government, a civil litigation branch which manages the majority of claims and lawsuits for the city’s defendant and a real estate branch which advises elected official staff and non-proprietary departments on matters involving land use planning and estate and housing.”
Third, is “a legislative council like peer cities in New York, Chicago, and Seattle responsible for drafting legislation and advising you all as council.”
As if this diversity of opinions weren’t enough, Harbor Area attorney Noel Weiss suggested a number of other reforms, addressing problems such as conflicts of interest between different municipal bodies, which Random Lengths will be addressing in the near future. In short, it seems possible that City Attorney reform may require a longer period of time to be fully explored in a manner that gets the kind of widespread support it should have.
One further note of discord calls out for attention. The only business interests that spoke out in the comment period were a variety of groups representing port-related businesses, citing dangers of doing anything to interfere with how the Port of LA is currently run. This is noteworthy and curious, since none of those who spoke cited any specific objection—hardly a surprise since there is no proposal to alter port governance. But their cries of imaginary pain may serve as a reminder that perhaps there should be.
The charter reform process will take a few months in city council, before going on the ballot in November. Random Lengths will be publishing more about the reforms as the process unfolds.