It has been more than a year since an explosive recording leak exposed three Los Angeles City Council members making racist remarks as they discussed redistricting for the city.

The recordings, which were nearly a year old when they leaked in October 2022, featured incredibly hateful language toward multiple racial groups in the city, including disparaging comments about Oaxacan immigrants in Koreatown and mocking the Black child of another white councilman. The council members also discussed how to divide Jewish, Armenian and Black communities in the decennial redistricting process to consolidate political power for the council members involved. 

Since then, the council’s Ad Hoc Committee on City Governance Reform has aimed to redress this massive breach in governmental trust. The two reforms that have received priority and have been subject to an immense amount of research and public comment include creating an independent redistricting commission and expanding the size of the City Council. If the committee determines the details of the reforms and approves them, they will be put before voters via a ballot measure next November.

The first reform is quite self-explanatory and has long been a subject of criticism because of the obvious conflict of interest. Despite the existence of a so-called independent citizen’s redistricting commission, maps are still currently approved by the City Council — which effectively means that council members draw the maps for the districts they are elected to represent.

The second reform is attempting to address the unusual nature of L.A.’s city government. Not only is L.A. the second largest city in the United States, but it has by far the largest city council districts in the nation at about 260,000 residents per district. For comparison, each U.S. House representative represents about 750,000 people. Combined with a charter that provides for a relatively strong legislative body, the city’s 15 council members wield extraordinary political power. 

In a city as socioeconomically diverse as L.A., these council districts are also difficult to accurately represent, with some constituencies combining neighborhoods burdened by housing insecurity and poverty with some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the world. Expanding the city council would make districts smaller and allow communities to elect council members that are more representative of their specific policy concerns.

To the credit of the council members on the committee, refining the details of these two reforms — which council members, advocacy organizations, academics and the public all largely agree are necessary — is a process fraught with complications and nuance. There are numerous unseen considerations that go into creating a commission and expanding the council. For example, who is eligible to be a commissioner? What exact number of districts will most appropriately balance the needs of each community? How will these decisions impact the city 10 or 20 years from now? All of these questions merit thorough scrutiny; changing a city charter should not be taken lightly. 

But given the urgency of reform, it is disappointing that the committee still has not arrived at their final proposals despite setting a deadline of Sept. 18 earlier this year. While the committee has moved forward with details for the independent redistricting commission, it is still grappling with whether or not to expand the City Council.

To complicate matters further, it is likely that both of these reforms will not take place until 2032 — an entire decade after the recording scandals. This is in part because the 2032 election would take place after the 2030 Census, making it easier to facilitate redrawing districts. 

Councilmembers also cite the difficulty of putting together a redistricting commission so quickly in advance of the nearest City Council election in 2026 — although it should not be lost on voters that delaying implementation of reforms would allow many of the incumbents to run for re-election under the same maps before 2030.

What all of this uncertainty ultimately indicates, however, is that regardless of whatever and whenever reforms are put forth, our local government is still deeply disconnected from its constituents. In addition to the recording leak, L.A.’s City Council has been plagued in recent years by scandals ranging from charges of embezzlement to bribes and fraud.

In the last City Council election in 2022, only 44% of registered voters in L.A. cast a ballot — a number that was surely supplemented by the mayoral election and congressional midterms. However, local government makes some of the most important decisions that impact our everyday lives, especially in a city as large as L.A. While city governance reform will be welcome, voters must turn out to hold their local officials accountable, both on the reform ballot measures and in electing the next cohort of councilmembers.