If Los Angeles is going to rewrite its city charter, should everyday Angelenos be in charge of that effort?
Those running Los Angeles city government are skeptical.
Mayor Karen Bass, City Council President Paul Krekorian and other city leaders called for the first amendment in a quarter-century to the city's main governing document, a quasi-constitution known as the charter.
Momentum for the charter change is coming from community groups, civic leaders and the media who want to change the scandal-plagued Los Angeles City Council. In recent years, senior city officials and four City Council members have been indicted multiple times, and a tape was leaked of three City Council members and a top LA labor leader making racially biased comments.
The LA City Council, with 15 members representing 4 million people, is too small to represent the city's diversity or be close to the public, as each member represents more than 250,000 people. . In fact, the Los Angeles City Council is one of the smallest and least represented metropolitan councils in the world. (The number of members in Seoul, where I recently visited, is 102.)
Changing the size or composition of the council requires an amendment to the city charter. Bass, Krekorian and other city leaders are developing plans for a November ballot measure that would create a charter reform commission.
But in preparing this ballot measure, they are moving toward giving themselves the power to appoint most of the members of the Charter Reform Commission. The end result will likely be a founding committee that mixes technocrats, lobbyists, and experts allied with the city's most powerful labor, business, and philanthropic organizations.
This approach is predictable. Los Angeles' elected officials and powerful institutions have long been reluctant to cede power to ordinary people. But creating such a top-down commission makes it difficult for Los Angeles to seize the historic opportunity to empower its people, incorporate promising 21st century ideas into its governance, and become a bigger player on the world stage. Become.
The politician-appointed Charter Commission also grossly misreads Los Angeles' current political moment. If Charter reform is led by political elites, it may be met with the same public distaste that prompted calls for reform in the first place.
There's a better way. It's a way to gain more political credibility and bring in more new ideas. Cities around the world have used “people's assemblies” (also known as citizen or citizens' assemblies) to tackle difficult problems, incorporate best local thinking, and implement reforms.
To name just one example among hundreds, Ireland used the People's Assembly to rewrite its constitution. The city of Petaluma in Northern California near Los Angeles has convened a lottery-based assembly in 2022 to address a bitter dispute over land use.
This Charter is an opportunity to incorporate 21st century practices into our local democracy and reshape America's most enjoyable city for a faster, more digital, and more globalized era.
The members of such citizen assemblies are everyday people chosen by lot. The lottery will be administered using technology to ensure that the resulting parliament reflects its jurisdiction with respect to gender, race, neighborhood, and other selected factors. These gatherings are designed not just to ensure representation but also to prevent those in power from dominating the discussion. Research on popular assemblies also shows that everyday people bring more diverse concerns and new ideas to the governing process. For example, in Ireland's constitutional effort, amendments included legalizing abortion and same-sex marriage.
Using the People's Assembly to reform the Los Angeles Charter does not completely freeze out politicians and powerful interest groups. They will be able to testify before the meeting. Nor can we leave mission-critical tasks to amateurs. The Los Angeles commission, like other selective commissions around the world, could have the power to hire experts and technocrats to answer questions and assist with research.
When I asked key officials at City Hall about this idea, they deflected.
Many are pointing to a bill on the November ballot that would create an independent redistricting commission. They point out that the bodies would likely be made up of everyday Angelenos as well.
However, they seem to view the Charter Reform Committee, made up of ordinary people, as too much of a bridge. They favor committees of urban governance experts, major interest groups, and their own political allies. In short, Los Angeles elites have a narrow view of charter reform.
To be fair, Council President Krekorian was the voice of the people demanding that the Charter Reform Commission be free to address any topic it wished. He and other City Council members wisely proposed creating a new process for periodic review of the City Charter that would allow for more frequent amendments and updates.
But choosing a committee of political allies will likely limit the agenda to obvious, pressing issues like homelessness and public safety. The founding committee does not need to promote new ideas or change the basic governance structure. Because those changes can make life difficult for political patrons.
If you stick to the status quo, you will miss opportunities. Los Angeles, like other American cities, retains its antiquated 20th-century corporate structure of functional divisions that divide local government into bureaucratic fiefdoms.
This Charter is an opportunity to incorporate 21st century practices into our local democracy and reshape America's most enjoyable city for a faster, more digital, and more globalized era. The new LA Charter will incorporate new democratic processes (including expanded use of lottery assemblies, which I am proposing to the committee) and a digital environment that will allow citizens to exercise more decision-making and governance. Should.
More broadly, Los Angeles needs more power and flexibility in the city, not just to solve local problems, but to address the global challenges that shape life in Los Angeles, including the environment, health, economy, and corruption. We need governance structures that provide gender.
Some of the best thinking on how to do this comes from Angelenos. In their upcoming book, Children of a modest planet: Planetary thinking in times of crisis, Jonathan S. Blake and Nils Gilman of the Berggruhn Institute in Los Angeles, argue that governance in different cities should be aligned to better address global concerns. They envision stronger local governments collaborating with each other and world institutions working together to address problems that weakened nation-states have failed to solve.
“Nations should relinquish many of their governing functions, tasks, and decision-making powers. Planetary functions should be transferred to planetary institutions, and many other functions should be transferred to local institutions,” Blake said. Gilman writes.
A new charter could turn such ideas into reality. This gives the City's well-managed International Secretariat broad new powers to help the City solve global challenges, and allows the City to collaborate with other local governments on new global policy initiatives. A governance process for establishing and participating in decision-making bodies could be outlined.
These and other novel ideas are more likely to come from a charter reform committee made up of ordinary people who represent the city's diversity and reckless thinking. New ideas are more likely to gain traction if they originate from neighboring countries.
So let's make it a project to create a new charter ourselves.