Four years after leaked recordings of Los Angeles elected officials sparked a crisis of confidence in City Hall, many of the reforms intended to rebuild public trust will not appear before voters this November.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council finalized its charter reform package, deciding which recommendations from the city’s Charter Reform Commission would advance to the ballot and which would be set aside for future consideration. While measures involving noncitizen voting and police governance survived the process, along with a proposal to create a dedicated funding stream for parks, many of the commission’s most ambitious structural reforms were deferred to “further study.”
Among the proposals left off the ballot were plans to expand the City Council from 15 seats to 25, adopt ranked-choice voting, split the City Attorney’s office into separate advisory and prosecutorial functions, and establish additional ethics and oversight mechanisms. Those recommendations were among the most consequential reforms proposed by the commission and would have directly altered how political power is distributed within City Hall.
The outcome marks a dramatic narrowing of a process that began in the aftermath of the 2022 leaked recordings, in which councilmembers were heard making racist remarks while discussing political redistricting. The scandal led to resignations, national headlines, and widespread calls for structural reforms to Los Angeles government. In response, city leaders created the 13-member Charter Reform Commission and tasked it with examining how the city is governed.
Over the course of more than a year, the commission held dozens of public meetings, heard hours of testimony, and ultimately produced 59 substantive recommendations aimed at improving representation, accountability, transparency, and public participation in local government.
Some of those recommendations will now move forward. Voters are expected to consider a proposal allowing noncitizen residents to vote in local elections, several measures related to police oversight and governance, and reforms intended to provide more stable funding for parks and recreation services.
Many of the proposals that generated the most public discussion will not appear on the ballot. Perhaps the most consequential is council expansion. Los Angeles has maintained 15 council districts since 1925, when the city’s population was roughly 600,000. Today, nearly four million people live in Los Angeles, meaning each councilmember represents approximately 270,000 residents. The Charter Reform Commission concluded that expanding the council would improve representation and make local government more responsive to residents by creating smaller districts. Instead, the proposal was sent to further study.
The same fate met ranked-choice voting, which supporters argued would give voters more choices while reducing the influence of low-turnout runoff elections. Proposals to strengthen ethics oversight and restructure the City Attorney’s office were also deferred.
Councilmembers who supported delaying those measures argued that major structural changes require additional analysis before being presented to voters. Reform advocates counter that proposals sent to “further study” often languish for years without returning to the ballot.
The final package highlights a striking contrast. Several reforms that reached the ballot involve specific policy questions, including who can vote in local elections, how police discipline is administered, and how parks are funded. Many of the reforms that did not advance were those that would have reshaped the structure of city government itself.