Los Angeles council tries to get back to business after leaked tape scandal

LOS ANGELES — Still reeling from the fallout over leaked recordings, the LA City Council must now decide if it’s ready to get back to business and choose a new leader amid deep divisions.

The council can elect a new president to steer legislation, including important reforms of a tarnished municipal government, as early as Tuesday. The leader would replace Nury Martinez, who resigned last week under pressure following the release of a recording that captured her and two fellow members in a conversation that included racist, disparaging comments about colleagues and efforts to manipulate district boundaries.

At least three members are considered likely candidates to replace Martinez at a moment when Acting President Mitch O’Farrell says it’s not even appropriate to campaign for the post given the raw emotions unleashed by the recording.

“It's unseemly for this council to exhibit any form of self-indulgence or jockeying for positions of power when the entire issue that was brought forward was over a presumption, and a thirst, and a desperation for one's own power to disempower others,” said O’Farrell, who says he’s not interested in the job.

A vote that would have gotten little attention outside of Los Angeles in the past is under intense scrutiny because of leaked recordings that exposed painful racial divisions in America’s second-largest city. The scandal and its fallout come as LA faces a looming mayoral election as well as major economic challenges and prepares to host the 2028 Olympics.

Two council members who were involved in the recorded conversation — Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León — have refused widespread calls for their resignations. It’s unknown if either plans to take part in Tuesday’s meeting, which will be held virtually and feature dozens of mostly routine items of municipal governance.

Whoever becomes council president will lead the body as LA considers significant changes to how the city is governed, including an expansion in the number of council districts and the creation of an independent redistricting commission — long-standing issues made urgent by the backroom dealing brought to light by the leaked recordings at the office of a union official who has also resigned because of the scandal.

They’ll also serve a powerful role akin to leaders in the state legislature, setting the policy agenda and appointing fellow council members to important committee roles.

The council was expected to vote Tuesday on a preliminary step toward putting a redistricting plan on the ballot.

Three members — Curren Price, Paul Krekorian and Bob Blumenfield — have appeared as front runners for the job of president, according to conversations with consultants, staff and the members themselves, though it’s not clear if any of them have the eight votes needed to win. Even under harsher-than-ever scrutiny, political alliances and grudges are still likely to influence votes.

With only 12 of the council’s 14 voting members expected to attend Tuesday’s meeting, the path for any candidate to reach majority support is exceedingly slim. Only one member, Monica Rodriguez, has publicly indicated her support for a candidate, telling reporters that she is backing Price.

That uncertainty over vote tallies and the optics of political jockeying in the wake of scandal has pushed observers to call for a process where council members hash out a leadership decision in private before making a unanimous decision public.

There are also questions about whether enough members will participate in the meeting to establish a quorum. At least 10 members need to be present for the council to operate, a threshold that was missed twice last week as Councilmember John Lee was out of town on an approved absence and Councilmembers Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Mike Bonin refused to appear in protest of de León and Cedillo refusing to resign.

Lee has since returned for council duty, and O’Farrell announced that Tuesday’s meeting will be held virtually after Bonin tested positive for Covid. That move reduces concerns that the meeting will be disrupted, which protesters have promised to do until de León and Cedillo resign.

Activists have called for the new council president to be a person of color, given the racist content of the leaked conversation. Three Latino council members, and a Latino labor leader, were captured discussing ways to dilute the power of Black voters, who make up a small portion of the LA population as a whole, but have far greater voter turnout than Latino groups.

“I think a person of color has to lead this council right now,” said Mark Gonzalez, chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. “The eyes of the world are watching what LA does.”

Price, Krekorian and Blumenfield are all former state legislators who are among the longest tenured members of city council, Krekorian having joined the body in 2010, followed by Price and Blumenfield in 2013. Price represents a majority-Latino district encompassing much of downtown and South Los Angeles, while Krekorian and Blumenfield hail from whiter districts in the San Fernando Valley.

Price, who is Black, is the only person of color among the top candidates.

The tumult in the City Council comes as Los Angeles is just weeks away from electing a new mayor. Both Rep. Karen Bass and developer Rick Caruso have called for resignations from the members and said the incident demonstrates a dire need for strong leadership in City Hall.

Bass, who built much of her legacy on bridging divides between Black and Latino Angelenos in South LA, has been seen by some as having a slight advantage in this area compared to Caruso, a white billionaire known for building some of the city’s most luxurious shopping centers.

A majority of council members support Bass, who has not publicly said who she’d prefer as council president, save for Cedillo and Joe Buscaino, who both backed Caruso earlier this year.