Outrage in LA: Can reforms help heal wounds left by City Council racism?
California’s attorney general said this week that his office plans to investigate last year’s voter redistricting process in Los Angeles. The once-in-a-decade redrawing of the voting districts was the context for a secretly recorded conversation among Latino City Council members whose raw power-scheming over district boundaries and blatant racist comments sparked an explosion of outrage and hurt when the audio was made public on Sunday.
Whether the state’s highest law enforcement official finds civil or criminal liability remains to be seen, but some people are now calling for an overhaul of the decennial mapping process. Proponents, including the outgoing Los Angeles attorney, are demanding that City Council members no longer have a say in the maps, and that the process be tasked entirely to an independent commission – as was approved by voters for California’s congressional and state legislative districts in 2008.
Could the transparency of an independent commission restore integrity and trust in LA’s government, as well as heal
