LOS ANGELES - The Council President has released the following statement in response to the Governor’s vetoes of SB 52 and AD 1248, bills that mandated a State-designed redistricting process that would only have applied to Los Angeles:
“I remain absolutely committed to establishing the first fully independent redistricting process in this city’s history. Over two years ago, Councilmember Raman and I proposed such an independent commission, but our reform efforts were stifled by Council leadership at that time. That’s why my first action as Council President was to create the Ad Hoc Committee on City Governance Reform.
“After an exhaustive process, that Committee has produced a detailed plan that will take redistricting out of the hands of the Council completely and give it to a truly independent commission. I am very proud of the difficult work that the Committee has done, working closely with reform advocates, community organizations and leading experts, to develop this plan fully. It will now be the Council’s responsibility to put this plan on the 2024 ballot and let the voters decide.
“As I have said all along, decisions about how to govern Los Angeles should be left to the voters of Los Angeles, not mandated by Sacramento. The Governor’s veto puts that question to rest with finality, and I am grateful to him for that. But to be clear – with or without state legislation, this Council will continue to advance our proposal to scrap the current scandalously broken redistricting system entirely, and replace it with a truly independent commission that is shielded from any political influence whatsoever from the Council.”
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