Council Adopts Final Proposal For The Creation Of An Independent Redistricting Commission

For Immediate Release: April 30,  2024

Today, the Los Angeles City Council adopted the final proposal for the creation of an Independent Redistricting Commission for the City of Los Angeles, placing a Charter amendment on the ballot for the City’s General Municipal Election in November 2024. 

Originally put forth in a motion introduced by Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Paul Krekorian in December 2021, the Ad Hoc Committee on City Governance Reform worked over the course of a year to develop an independent redistricting system for the drawing of Council district boundaries in the City of Los Angeles. This new system would replace the City’s advisory redistricting commission with an independent commission authorized to adopt Council district boundaries every ten years without the involvement or approval of the City Council.

The redistricting process for Los Angeles last underwent review over two decades ago during the charter reform process of 1999. The result was a redistricting commission deeply intertwined with the City’s legislative body, in which Commissioners are selected by the City’s elected officials—including the members of the City Council whose districts are to be redrawn—and who may be lobbied and replaced at will by the very people who appointed them. Following the leaked recordings that emerged from a private meeting between three sitting councilmembers discussing the 2021 redistricting process, this type of explicit lobbying and intervention has now been made public. 

The proposed Charter amendment – slated to go before voters on the November 2024 ballot – would establish a new independent redistricting commission composed of 16 commissioners and four alternates who will serve 10-year terms. A person will not be eligible to apply for or serve on the independent redistricting commission if they have been an employee of the City or a member of another City commission in the two years prior to application, or if they or their spouse or family member has engaged in prior political or lobbying activities regarding eligibility requirements for independent redistricting commissions. After completing their service, commissioners will be ineligible to run for any council district seat whose boundaries they helped draw. For the first time in the City’s history, voters – not elected officials – will be responsible for determining council district boundaries.

“Today is truly an historic day for the City of Los Angeles,” said Councilmember Raman, who serves as Vice Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on City Governance Reform. “With this charter amendment, voters will finally have the opportunity to remove individual councilmembers’ influence over their own district lines, moving us closer to a system that reflects the best interests of Angelenos, not the interests of political players. These changes that we’ve put forth will help rewrite this city’s history from one of corruption and conflicts of interest to one that lives up to a higher standard and that all Angelenos can be proud of.”
“Common Cause has called this proposed Charter amendment the gold standard of redistricting reform,” said Council President Paul Krekorian, who chairs the Ad Hoc Committee on City Governance Reform. “After a hundred years, we are taking redistricting completely out of the hands of the Council. If the voters approve this amendment, we will finally have a process where the voters choose their Councilmembers, instead of the Councilmembers choosing their voters.”

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