A key Los Angeles City Council committee recommended dropping plans to expand the City Council from 15 to 25 members from a Nov. 3 charter reform ballot, saying the proposal needs more study. The panel also rejected ranked choice voting and splitting the city
For more than four years, Los Angeles has wrestled with a simple idea: expand the City Council from 15 members to 25. Monday, that debate hit a wall inside City Hall.
The Rules. Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee—made up of five council members—recommended dropping the council expansion as part of a charter reform measure set for the Nov. 3 ballot. In its final meeting on charter proposals. the committee said the measure needed more study before it could be put to voters.
Council expansion wasn’t the only hot-button item blocked. The committee also rejected adopting ranked choice voting and rejected a plan to split the city attorney’s office into two roles—an elected city prosecutor and an appointed city attorney.
The committee’s decision lands in front of the full City Council on Wednesday, where the members will have the final say on what goes onto the charter reform ballot measure. For now, council leaders are signaling that some of the most consequential governance questions will wait.
That timing matters. The committee’s hold-the-line approach followed a recommendation from the chief legislative analyst office that the council expansion should go before voters in 2028.
Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who chairs the committee, said he would establish a council committee to address future charter reform. He framed his stance as both principled and practical.
In committee discussion. Harris-Dawson said he supports a larger council “in theory. ” but warned that expanding it would shift Los Angeles’s power dynamic between the council and the mayor. He said council expansion has been raised as an issue for 27 years and that, for now, he was “absolutely opposed.”.
“A bigger council makes the mayor more powerful than the mayor would be now,” Harris-Dawson said. “In every city that has a large council. the mayor is vastly more powerful than the situation that we have in L.A. today. where there’s a good amount of balance between the mayor and the council. which is why there’s all this focus on the council.”.
The committee’s direction drew sharp disappointment from Nithya Raman, a councilmember who pushed to have the council expansion included on the ballot and who is challenging Mayor Karen Bass in the Nov. 3 mayoral election.
Raman said she couldn’t persuade other committee members when the measure was discussed on Friday. She questioned what more study was needed and called the decision a postponement of central governance questions.
“I am a little disappointed that we may be punting big questions again to a future charter reform process,” Raman said Friday. “There is a great deal of mistrust in L.A. city government right now.”
While the committee stepped back from council expansion and other governance overhauls, it did move other measures forward to the ballot.
Among them was allowing noncitizens to vote in L.A. city and L.A. Unified School District elections. increasing Police Department oversight. establishing a director of Public Works. implementing a two-year budget cycle instead of every year. establishing a capital improvement program to guide the city’s infrastructure. and removing a section of the charter that had prevented the city from selling goods it produces.
The committee also considered motions made by council members. including a proposal from Hugo Soto-Martínez that would allow noncitizen residents to vote in L.A. and school board elections. Even though Soto-Martínez’s motion was not part of the Charter Reform Commission’s recommendations. the committee moved it forward before the City Council.
Soto-Martínez said the goal was giving a voice to people who contribute locally.
“Hopefully, a majority of them agree that people that work here, that live here, that have roots here, that have been contributing to society for such a long time, should be able to have a say in their local elections,” he said.
On police accountability, the committee took additional steps. It recommended moving forward with police accountability reform measures, including one to increase the council’s authority over Los Angeles Police Department policies.
The committee moved three police accountability measures to a full council vote, each over the dissent of Councilmember John Lee, who said he was concerned about politicizing oversight of the LAPD.
“It’s a much better department. It’s a department that is extremely progressive,” Lee said. “It is a department that strives to … make positive changes.”
Not everyone in the building agreed on the pacing of reform.
During public comment, many speakers criticized the overall process and urged the committee to take up major reforms to the charter. Several of the harshest concerns came from within City Hall itself.
City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who won reelection this year, posted a video Sunday criticizing the committee for holding off on major proposals such as council expansion. He described the decision as a pattern of preserving power.
Mejia said the committee’s approach amounted to “the status quo of the political machine working, wanting to maintain its power.”
“We all got into office trying to flip City Hall because it’s not working here,” Mejia said. “But no, when it comes to things like expanding council sizes … when it comes to ranked choice voting to make our elections more democratic, and being able to vote our conscience, that got punted.”
He also criticized the committee for not taking up recommendations from his office to increase the office’s oversight and funding through the charter process.
“City Hall doesn’t care about transparency and accountability and oversight,” Mejia said. “We are not serious at City Hall.”
The reform push has been underway for years, and advocates say patience is running thin.
The effort to reform the city’s charter began in 2022, after The Times reported on a leaked audio recording in which former City Council President Nury Martinez and two other council members made racist remarks, disparaged council colleagues and talked crassly about carving up the city politically.
After the audio leak scandal, the council created a committee to discuss how to improve government and trust with voters. In 2022. then-Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell authored a motion to direct city staff to take steps necessary to prepare a ballot measure on council expansion in 2024. The city eventually established the Charter Reform Commission, made up of volunteers, to discuss big-ticket items including council expansion.
That commission took nearly a year to get off the ground, then issued a report in April with several recommendations.
But advocates pushing for changes like council expansion say major items are being postponed again.
Godfrey Plata, deputy director of L.A. Forward, disputed the idea of “further study,” saying issues already reviewed shouldn’t be held back. He said he was glad police accountability measures were moving forward but argued council members should “pass the baton” to voters.
“We are disappointed that we have yet another 10-month committee to look forward to. … Advocates are getting more and more impatient,” Plata said. “It feels like we’re going in circles.”
Rob Quan, an organizer with the group Unrig LA, said it was frustrating to see the committee drop the vast majority of proposals.
“It’s really weird to see major items central to why this commission was created appear like they’re not going to go anywhere,” Quan said. “What has the committee decided? We’re going to create a new committee after this that is going to carry the torch. … [It’s] a merry go round from hell.”
Whether council expansion ultimately reaches voters now appears less certain, at least for the Nov. 3 ballot. The full City Council will decide Wednesday what proposals make it into the final charter reform package—and for critics. the central worry is what they see as another cycle of delay replacing actual change.
Los Angeles City Council charter reform council expansion Marqueece Harris-Dawson Nithya Raman Karen Bass police accountability ranked choice voting city attorney office noncitizen voting