A year from now, voters in Los Angeles will get to decide if they want an independent redistricting commission to draw the lines that create City Council district boundaries — or if the City Council will keep its long-held power of drawing its own district boundaries, an often politicized process without voter approval.
The City Council voted unanimously on Wednesday, Nov. 29, to place on the November 2024 ballot the question of whether voters should decide who draws the lines.
“Unfortunately, in the 100 years that this city has had council districts, we have never had independent redistricting,” City Council President Paul Krekorian said during a press conference ahead of the council vote. “It’s been the council that has drawn its own districts. And the system that we have right now is frankly the worst of all worlds.”
The council vote followed months of debate and discussion by a council committee assigned to look into local government reforms for Los Angeles.
Calls to end the City Council’s power over redistricting, which occurs every 10 years when the 15 City Council district’s boundaries are redrawn, began before last year’s audio leak scandal. In that backroom discussion, which was secretly taped and released to the public, three current or former city councilmembers met privately to discuss how to redraw the city council district lines to benefit themselves or their allies.
The scandal upended City Hall and put a spotlight on the potential for the city’s longstanding redistricting process to be tainted. In the existing system, the politically-appointed commissioners who make recommendations to redraw the district boundaries are handpicked by city elected officials, and the City Council has the power to override their recommendations.
Next November, voters in L.A. will decide if they want an independent commission to redraw council maps, or stick with the status quo. Under the ballot measure, the redrawn district maps would be…
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