L.A. City Councilmember Kevin de León announced Wednesday that he’s running for re-election. De León was one of the councilmembers who was heard last October on a secretly recorded audio tape that featured racist, homophobic and anti-indigenous comments, prompting calls for his resignation.
De León told LAist that people should not be known only for their mistakes and that he’s found his constituents to be forgiving.
“What I discovered was people by and large have huge hearts,” he said. “When a lot of my friends and allies turned away from me, my constituents had my back.”
De León was heard calling Councilmember Mike Bonin’s young son, who is Black, just a prop for the colleague — like “a Louis Vuitton bag.”
President Biden and U.S. Senator Alex Padilla were among those who called on him to step down. For weeks, activists camped outside his home demanding he resign.
He refused and instead apologized for the comment, calling it “flippant.”
The scandal prompted a series of reform proposals, including one for an independent redistricting commission. The people heard on the tape — De León, then-Council President Nury Martinez, then-Councilmember Gil Cedillo and former labor leader Ron Herrera — were heard on the tape discussing how to redraw the politicians’ district boundaries in a way that would maintain their power.
Next week, LAist Studios will release a podcast with the first interview with Martinez, the central figure in the scandal, since she resigned from the council.
De León said he should not be ousted from politics because of his comments.
“If only the answer to racial division is to silence people, then we are all in trouble,” he said. De León added he has worked hard to build racial divisions, taking a…
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