Council President Krekorian speaks immediately prior to Council vote on Charter amendment creating an independent Redistricting Commission.
By unanimous vote, the Los Angeles City Council voted this week to place on the November ballot a Charter Amendment creating an Independent Redistricting Commission for the City of Los Angeles.
The proposed amendment, created by the Ad Hoc Committee on City Governance Reform, has been dubbed “the gold standard of independent redistricting” by government reform advocates Common Cause.
- Volunteers can apply to become redistricting commissioners, but will be screened for conflict of interest.
- Eight applicants will be chosen at random, like a lottery, from eight large geographic areas of the City.
- The first eight commissioners will pick eight others, to balance the diversity of the Commission.
- The commissioners will draw Council districts that are roughly equal in size and will comply with the U.S Constitution, the Constitution of the State of California, and the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 to ensure that no race or ethnicity is arbitrarily divided into multiple districts to dilute their representation.
“Today, for the first time in the hundred years that this Council has existed as a 15-member body, we are taking redistricting completely out of the hands of this Council,” said Council President Krekorian prior to the Council’s unanimous vote. If the voters approve this Charter amendment in November, we will finally have a process where the voters choose their Councilmembers, instead of the Councilmembers choosing their voters.