Opinion: The Los Angeles Ballot Measure That Could Change Caliornia

Are men biting dogs? Are pigs flying? Has hell frozen over, despite October’s heat wave? 

Fair questions, all. Because politicians in the most populous local jurisdiction of America’s most populous state are actually seeking to reduce their own power.

Even in times as strange as our own, Measure G seems impossible.

An amendment to the Los Angeles County charter on this November’s ballot, Measure G proposes to add four new supervisorial seats to the county board and establish an elected county executive. Both additions would dilute the power of the existing five elected supervisors, who now serve as both legislators and executives of the 10-million-person county. 

Remarkably, three of those five supervisors put Measure G on the ballot. That this extraordinary act was taken by people elected in politically incestuous Los Angeles — it’s still Chinatown, Jake — makes even a cynical columnist wonder if we are entering an era of actual, honest-to-goodness structural change. 

To be sure, structural change in California is a cousin of Bigfoot — often discussed, but rarely seen.  But Measure G improbably brings to Southern California the idea of making our elected legislative bodies bigger, more representative, and closer to the people.

This is part of a larger trend. Nationally, we’re seeing proposals in Congress and the academy to expand the Supreme Court and the House of Representatives. In California, we’ve seen including attempts to increase the size of our legislature from 120 to 10,000 or more.

Such proposals are typically seen as politically unrealistic. A win for G would be the L.A. political equivalent of the Chicago Cubs’ 2016 World Series victory — the baseball team’s first title in a century. The L.A. County Charter, adopted in 1912 when there were only 500,000 people here and women couldn’t vote, established a five-member board of supervisors. Attempts to expand the board have all failed.

So why does change seem possible now?

One potential reason is the election of more progressive board members, notably former West Hollywood Mayor Lindsay Horvath, who has championed Measure G. Racial and ethnic groups have embraced the idea of greater representation on the board. Some observers  suggest that the fact that all five L.A. county supervisors are now women made the board more open to power-sharing. 

Events have fueled Measure G as well. It helped that, after the last census, the county’s redistricting commission recommended an increase in the number of seats (to at least 15). Also, high-profile scandals at a different local government — the city of Los Angeles — have put a new focus on governance here. 

But the greatest momentum for structural change comes from L.A.’s acute social problems of economy, mental health, and housing. Supervisors and other progressives have complained that the outdated county government structure gives too much power to county bureaucrats, who can stall and wait out proposals for change from term-limited supervisors. More elected representatives, and an elected executive, could galvanize the public and pressure the county bureaucracy to act.  

L.A. County has more people than all but 10 U.S. states. So, it’s fitting that Measure G would make the county government more like a state government. The elected county executive job would give Southern California its own version of the governorship. And Measure G would make the board of supervisors more like the state legislature, by establishing a public budgeting process, a non-partisan legislative analyst, and an ethics body to police official behavior.

Given the state-like ambition behind Measure G, one crucial detail seems too small. If G passes, the nine L.A. County supervisors will still represent more than one million people each — by far the largest local elected jurisdictions in America. By contrast, the three states with populations most similar to L.A. — Michigan, North Carolina, and New Jersey — each have at least 120 elected legislators. Measure G supporters have said that adding even more supervisors would add to the costs of the board and risk backlash from voters who don’t want more politicians. 

A Measure G victory, while far from assured, wculd be the big political earthquake this state has needed. L.A.’s example might prompt other local governments to expand their own representation and democratic capacity.

Local structure change might even inspire structural change in the dysfunctional state government. If hell stays frozen over, and L.A. politicians manage to reduce their own power, then who knows? California might finally get the new constitution it needs.

Joe Mathews is the California columnist for Zócalo Public Square, an ASU Media Enterprise publication. He is a founder, publisher and columnist of Democracy Local and a Renovating Democracy fellow at the Berggruen Institute.