Kevin de Leon refuses to resign from the LA City Council. What happens to his constituents?
LOS ANGELES — Just down the street from Pamela and Valentin Marquez's tidy two-bedroom home, next to an industrial strip where trains rumble through the night, is a park and playground with a walking path through oak trees.
For decades, the couple, now in their 70s, took on issue after issue in El Sereno, beating back plans to build a freeway offramp nearby, advocating for improvements in their working-class neighborhood — and building the El Sereno Arroyo Playground.
In their nook of Los Angeles, they are the type of hyperengaged citizens that turn a community's needs into political action. But leaked audio of three council members using racists insults as they plotted to reshape district maps has upended City Hall and thrown into question how much neighborhood advocates can do in a district that's in limbo.
Councilmember Kevin de Leon, the once powerful pro tempore of the California Senate who ran for mayor in the primary election this year, refuses to step down despite deafening calls to resign, saying he won't leave his constituents without representation.
Once considered a trailblazer, De Leon has been politically isolated by the scandal, and his council colleagues are moving to cut off the little power he has remaining in the two years left of his term.
Although a is already afoot, it could take months to qualify, if it does at all.
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