What California can learn from LA’s hot mess era of governmental reforms

LA's two largest governments took opposite paths on charter reform with stark results. Per CalMatters, the County Board of Supervisors moved swiftly in twenty twenty-four: they introduced a major governance overhaul in early July and sent it to voters by November, expanding the board from five to nine members, creating an elected executive, and establishing an ethics commission. Voters narrowly approved it. But that speed had consequences. The measure inadvertently overwrote protections for alternatives to incarceration, made the ethics commission legally impossible without a second ballot measure, and left other structural questions unresolved. Supervisors are now preparing a cleanup measure for November. LA City took the opposite approach. Its Charter Reform Commission spent nine months in rigorous hearings before delivering proposals in March—including expanding the City Council, lowering the voting age to sixteen, and allowing non-citizen voting. But the City Council rejected or delayed most of those proposals in late June, citing insufficient vetting. Only minor reforms around contracting and meeting procedures are moving to the ballot. One government rushed and created problems; the other deliberated deeply and changed almost nothing. CalMatters notes that LA voters have shown restlessness about governance since twenty twenty, and both approaches now risk disappointing them further.

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