The city of Los Angeles has a corruption problem. Since 2020, three Los Angeles City Council members and a former deputy mayor have been convicted or pleaded guilty to charges including bribery and lying to authoritiesanother board member was charged with embezzlement, perjury and conflict of interest, and yet another is accused of violating city ethics laws. During the same period, three other council members (including a former municipal council president) were filmed making racist comments as they discussed how to gerrymander municipal districts to their advantage.
This cascade of scandals has eroded trust in local authorities. The City Council is now considering charter reform that would grant new powers to the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission. The council should be commended for dealing with its corruption problem. However, the proposed reforms are insufficient.
What is proposed has some positive points: the reforms include expanding the number of members of the ethics commission, setting a minimum budget for it and increasing sanctions for violating the ethics code. ethics of Los Angeles. But the overall package is far from ideal because the City Council won’t cede enough of its power to ensure the commission will have the independence it needs to do its oversight work.
Specifically, the proposed charter reforms do not grant the Ethics Commission the authority to place ordinances related to its mandate directly on the local ballot – without the City Council having the final say.
This type of independent power has worked well in San Francisco. During the decade 2013-2023, in response to government scandals, the San Francisco Ethics Commission placed two ethics-related measures on the local ballot. Both succeeded by significant margins. These two measures represented only 2% of all measures passed in San Francisco during this period. In other words, the SF Commission did not abuse its authority to independently update the city’s ethics laws, as some Los Angeles council members fear might happen in Los Angeles.
Giving the Ethics Commission the power to speak directly to voters would not prevent the agency from first engaging with the City Council to achieve its goals. In fact, it would be better: elected Angelenos should be able to weigh in and reach an agreement with the commission to fix loopholes in ethics laws as they arise. But if the council and commission can’t find common ground, commissioners should be given the opportunity to put an ordinance on the ballot.
In other words, the vote would be an action of last resort, a lever to help the council adequately address the city’s ethics problems.
Unfortunately, the proposal the full city council is not expected to vote on until this week. looks as if this allows the Ethics Commission to recruit voters against a recalcitrant council. The flaws are gigantic.
First, the charter reforms would allow the commission to pass ordinances only if the council completely ignores its proposals or disapproves them without any amendments. If the council takes a proposal from the commission and waters it down or even guts it with amendments, the commission will have no recourse. Worse yet, if the council ignores or votes no on an ethics reform and the commission decides to put it to a vote, the council could veto that decision.
This is far from San Francisco’s proven model, and is unlikely to result in changes that will strike at the heart of corruption: consolidated power and inaction on reform.
The deluge of scandals at Los Angeles City Hall has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity to clean up Los Angeles government. It should not be wasted on half-corrections. The reform package approved by the City Council, which must be passed by voters in November, is expected to give the Ethics Commission the independence it needs to hold public officials accountable to the citizens they represent.
To meet the present moment, the city council must cede power for the common good.
Sean McMorris is the California Common Cause program manager for transparency, ethics and accountability.
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