AAPI community says more City Council seats in LA will help with representation – Daily News

The Asian American and Pacific Islander community had a strong showing during a Los Angeles City Council committee meeting this week to discuss proposals for increasing the number of council seats and redistricting reforms in the wake of a political scandal the last time City Council boundaries were redrawn.

Members of the public and the OUR LA coalition, many of whom represented the AAPI community, told the council’s governance reform committee that the number of council districts should increase from 15, the current number, to a range between 23 and 31. That range was based on an analysis by OUR LA, a coalition of community-based organizations and racial justice advocates which presented its recommendations to the committee.

Speakers who addressed the committee during the Thursday, Aug. 10, meeting noted that despite being one of the fastest-growing groups in L.A., there is no council district currently where AAPIs make up more than a quarter of the voting-age population.

For example, Council District 10, represented by Councilmember Heather Hutt, includes Koreatown – one of the largest concentrated AAPI communities in the city – as well as Little Bangladesh. Still, Asians make up just 17.5% of that district’s voting-age population who are U.S. citizens compared to 32.6% for Latinos and 32% for Blacks.

Juily Phun, a professor at Cal State L.A. and a member of the Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment, said there cannot be racial equity without inclusion of the AAPI community, which she said makes up 12% of the city’s population and is rapidly growing.

John Lee, Los Angeles City Councilmember, District 12 on Monday, May 22, 2023. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Of the 15 elected officials currently serving on the City Council, two – roughly 13% of the councilmembers – identify as Asian or South Asian: Councilmembers John Lee and Nithya Raman.

“At (the current) 15 seats, it is very difficult to elect candidates who come from our community,” Phun said. “However, expanding the council to a range of 23 to 31 would begin to achieve this goal.”

LA City Council member Nithya Raman at a press conference Monday, July 31, 2023. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
LA City Council member Nithya Raman at a press conference Monday, July 31, 2023. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Jason Bautista, of the Thai Community Development Center, echoed similar sentiments. L.A.’s Thai Town is the only officially recognized Thai Town in the nation, according to Bautista, who said that the roughly 33,000 people who are members of the Thai community in East Hollywood make up the largest number of Thais concentrated in an area outside of Thailand.

“Our community has a specific set of needs that can have a better chance of being met if there is an expansion of the council to a suffice number of seats,” he said. “Right now, there is no district in which Thais or even APIs make up more than 25% of voters, making it difficult to elect candidates who are from our community.”

The L.A. City Council has had 15 councilmembers since 1925.

While the OUR LA coalition recommended the council be made up of 23 to 31 individual council districts, two other groups invited to present their recommendations on Thursday offered their own take on council expansion.

The LA Governance Reform Project, made up of professors from various colleges and universities in the L.A. area, had proposed in a set of draft recommendations to increase the City Council to 25 members. This would include 21 members representing individual council districts and four at-large members whose focus would be on advancing the interests of all constituents, not just residents from a single district.

“We received a fair amount of pushback on that one and we are continuing conversations, both with community-based organizations, members of the voting rights community and with additional research to try to find out whether or not this is in fact a wise way to go,” Gary Segura, a public policy professor at UCLA and co-chair of the LA Governance Reform Project, said about the prospect of having at-large councilmembers.

The group expects to issue its final recommendations in November.

Group members also spoke about why they did not recommend increasing the council to 51 members, as in New York City, or to 50 members, such as in Chicago. In both those cities, the mayor has a lot more power while the city councils are weaker.

Members of the LA Governance Reform Project said the opposite is true in L.A., where the City Council has significantly more power in relations to the mayor.

Moderator Fernando J. Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at LMU, during a candidate forum for 9 candidates competing for a seat to represent LAUSD School Board District 5 at Eagle Rock Elementary School in Eagle Rock, Wednesday, Feb 13, 2019. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Moderator Fernando J. Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at LMU, during a candidate forum for 9 candidates competing for a seat to represent LAUSD School Board District 5 at Eagle Rock Elementary School in Eagle Rock, Wednesday, Feb 13, 2019. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

“The No. 1 thing we do not want to do is weaken this council vis-a-vis the mayor,” said Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. “We believe that in the municipal systems of the United States, that this is one of the better systems with that balance, and so we feel very strongly about protecting that.”

California Common Cause, a nonprofit that focuses on voting rights, redistricting reform and government transparency, meanwhile, recommended that the City Council expand to approximately 26 seats.

Currently in L.A., councilmembers each represent about 264,000 residents. California Common Cause is recommending increasing the number of councilmembers so that each represents no more than 150,000 residents. Excluding Los Angeles, the other top 10 largest cities in the U.S. have on average 143,000 residents per council district, according to the nonprofit.

“What we really want to do is increase representation by deepening the connection between councilmembers and residents and their community, to ensure that the offices are more responsive to the residents,” said Russia Chavis Cardenas, voting rights and redistricting program manager with California Common Cause.

Beyond the matter of the council size, Thursday’s meeting also touched on the topic of having independent redistricting commissions draw the maps to determine the boundaries for City Council districts and the Los Angeles Unified school board.

All three groups that presented said they supported independent commissions – an issue that has gained traction following a leaked audio scandal in which three current or former city councilmembers were caught discussing how they wanted maps to be redrawn during the 2021 redistricting process to benefit their own interests. Currently in L.A., the City Council has the final say over redistricting maps.

As far as criteria for serving on an independent redistricting commission, California Common Cause said  applicants should be registered voters, have lived in the city for at least four years and voted in at least one city election in the last four years, and that commissioners should not be allowed to run for office if they played a role in redrawing the lines for that seat. The nonprofit also suggested leaving it to the city’s ethics commission to oversee the commissioners’ selection process.

OUR LA is recommending that applicants for the redistricting commission should demonstrate a record of civic engagement but should not be required to have voted in recent elections since that would prohibit non-U.S. citizens and some former inmates from applying. Additionally, to be inclusive, the group said that applicants should not be required to have a formal education or have English as their primary language.

The City Council’s governance reform committee will meet again Aug. 28 to discuss the recommendations. The committee is expected to adopt final recommendations for the full council to consider on Sept. 18.

Both the LA Governance Reform Project and OUR LA recommended the council wait until November 2024, rather than spring 2024, to place any ballot question for government reforms before voters. Proponents have said this would allow more time for public outreach and to take advantage of higher voter turnouts during general elections.

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