Supporters of Measure G declared victory this week, achieving a victory with approximately 51% support. While the Los Angeles County charter changes didn't get as much attention as other high-profile ballot measures, make no mistake: This shaky governance reform package may be the most transformative decision county voters have done in decades.
By 2026, the county will have for the first time an ethics commission regulate conflicts of interest and lobbying and investigate misconduct by elected officials and county employees. This is something that should have been done a long time ago for a government with a $45 billion budget and 100,000 employees. TO recent research Triggered by the federal corruption case against former Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas found significant problems in the county's hiring process, leading investigators to recommend a new ethics and compliance officer and other measures to prevent conflicts of interest.
Additionally, in 2028, voters will elect an executive to lead the county government. The position (indeed, that of a county mayor) should also have been given a long time ago. For more than a century, Los Angeles County has been governed by a five-member Board of Supervisors, which was fine when the region had more cows than people. But today the county has a population and geographic footprint larger than many states. Imagine trying to govern New Jersey with a five-member legislature and no governor.
An independently elected chief executive who can manage departments and make decisions will be clearly accountable to the public. This should motivate progress on long-standing needs, such as closing the dangerously decrepit Men's Central Prison and divert qualified inmates to rehabilitation centers; address problems in the child welfare system; and provide appropriate mental health and substance abuse treatment.
And in 2032, nine members will be elected to the Board of Supervisors, which should allow for greater representation of the county's geography, politics and ethnic diversity. Supervisor Kathryn Barger's 5th District currently stretches from Los Feliz to Lancaster, for example; It is an impossible task to understand and act on behalf of communities with such divergent needs.
With a county executive in place, supervisors' jobs will also change. The board will primarily be responsible for providing services to the unincorporated parts of the county, legislating and holding the executive accountable.
This should ensure better and more transparent government. Countless failures and inefficiencies have never come to light because the country lacked even the most basic checks and balances that are essential for democracy.
This will be a monumental change for Los Angeles County that good government advocates, including the Times editorial board, have long been pushing for. Four times since 1962, voters have rejected ballot measures to expand the board of supervisors or add an elected county official. The state Legislature considered bills to make similar changes in 2015 and 2017, but neither gained enough support.
Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn deserve credit for co-authoring Measure G. They recognized that with a popular Los Angeles city governance reform package already on the November ballot, this year presented a unique opportunity to overcome voters' historic skepticism about expanding county leadership.
While Measure G clears the way for government reform, many of the details still need to be worked out. A Governance Reform Task Force will be appointed in the coming weeks to make recommendations to the Board of Supervisors on how to implement governance and ethics reforms. This will be crucial to laying the foundation for success and ensuring that special interests who opposed Measure G, including county employee unions, do not attempt to weaken or stop the ambitious plans.
County voters ultimately accepted the change. They deserve a government that can keep its promises.
