The Los Angeles City Council reversed course on two high-profile ballot proposals on Tuesday, postponing plans to increase their oversight of the police department and to expand voting rights for noncitizens.
Council members unanimously held off on a Nov. 3 ballot measure that would have asked voters to create a pathway for noncitizens — possibly green-card holders and recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — to vote in city and school board elections.
Roughly an hour later, council members voted 8-6 to delay a second ballot measure that would have given themselves direct power over broad policy decisions at the Los Angeles Police Department. That vote took place after the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, threatened to sue, saying the city’s labor negotiators had failed to meet and confer with the union on the changes.
Both proposals are now out of the running for the Nov. 3 ballot — but will be studied by a committee for consideration in a future election year.
The two votes brought an underwhelming end to a yearlong effort to rewrite the City Charter, L.A.’s municipal governing document. A citizens commission on charter reform convened in June and held dozens of meetings, submitting a lengthy list of proposals to the council.
Two weeks ago, council members declined to draft a measure expanding the number of council seats to 25, up from 15, saying it needed more study. They also held off on a proposal to move to ranked choice voting, which allows voters to list candidates in order of preference. Both had been recommended by the commission.
Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, who represents part of Hollywood, voiced frustration over the results.
“It’s almost laughable,” he said. “We have nothing to show for it. A yearslong process, and engaging the entire city, and we have nothing significant to show for it.”
Soto-Martínez had been the chief proponent of the proposal to expand noncitizen voting rights in L.A. But on Tuesday, he announced he would join his colleagues in withdrawing the proposal, saying he had been hearing concerns from members of the Black community.
MPAC Los Angeles, or Mobilizing Preachers and Communities, sent Soto-Martínez a letter on Sunday saying his proposal could “unintentionally expose vulnerable residents to greater scrutiny, political attacks, and fear.”
“The issue deserves far more public discussion than it has received,” wrote the Rev. K.W. Tulloss, the group’s western regional director, in the letter. “A change of this magnitude should not move forward without broad community engagement, a full analysis of the legal and financial impacts, and a clear understanding of how it could affect the very people it seeks to help.”
Soto-Martínez agreed to send the proposal to committee and vowed to put it on ballot in a future election.
“I grew up in South Central Los Angeles,” he said. “The Black and Brown solidarity is deep to me, and means something to me, and I don’t want this to be something that gets pushed through that is seen as a negative — something negative for the city of Los Angeles.”
MPAC was not the only one to raise alarms about the noncitizen voting proposal.
Councilmember Traci Park, who voted in favor of Soto-Martínez’s proposal two weeks ago, said she had concluded since then that too much was unknown about how it would work. She voiced fears that the city would be unable to protect noncitizen voters if federal immigration agents show up at polling places.
“My concern here is that if this goes to the ballot, the voters won’t really know what they’re voting for, because we don’t really know either,” she said. “These are things that should be figured out well in advance before we put anything in the charter at all.”
Councilmember John Lee offered a similar argument, reading from a warning posted on the elections website in San Francisco, which allows noncitizens to vote in school board elections. That warning states: “Any information you provide to the Department of Elections, including your name and address, may be obtained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies, organizations, and individuals.”
“It is not fearmongering to raise these concerns,” he said. “They are real issues that must be addressed before Los Angeles asks voters to approve a similar system.”
Soto-Martínez said he viewed the warnings from Lee and Park as fearmongering, noting that immigrant rights groups were ready to move forward with his proposal.
“This country was created by people taking courage and pushing so that everyone can have the right to vote,” he said.
The noncitizen voting proposal was not the only one to be dropped at the last minute.
The council held off on a ballot measure that would have given council members greater power over police policy, an idea endorsed by the 13-member Charter Reform Commission. That power currently rests with the Board of Police Commissioners, whose members are appointed by the mayor.
That vote took place after council members emerged from a closed-door discussion about the legal threat from the police union.
Councilmember Tim McOsker, a lawyer who once counted the police union among his clients, said he supports the council’s ability to set policy for the police department. However, he said the measure was being rushed to the ballot.
McOsker said he wants a council committee to take a closer look at the idea and come up with “a more comprehensive set of proposals.”
“Police structure and reform is so critically important,” he said. “I don’t want to do one little piece [where] we don’t understand what it does and what it doesn’t do.”
