State attorney general wants L.A. to redraw council districts, confidential document says

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has begun pressing Los Angeles political leaders to sign a legal agreement that would force them to draw new boundaries for the city’s 15 council districts — a dramatic step that could set off shock waves at City Hall.

The draft legal document prepared by Bonta’s office, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times, would require the city to finalize new council district maps in time for the 2026 primary election. Council members would be barred from considering their own political fortunes when approving those maps, the confidential document said.

The document does not indicate whether elected city officials have agreed to any of Bonta’s demands — or plan to push back on them. It also does not say whether Bonta’s office found any legal violations or other wrongdoing during the city’s 2021 redistricting process.

However, two sources familiar with the discussions said Bonta’s legal team has voiced concerns in recent weeks that the map approved by the City Council in 2021 does not currently provide sufficient representation for Latinos in parts of the city.

Bonta’s office singled out two council districts on the Eastside — one represented by Eunisses Hernandez, the other by Kevin de León — as areas of concern, saying those districts do not have a sufficient number of Latino voters to ensure that Latinos have the opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice, according to the sources, who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak on the matter publicly.

In briefings with council members, lawyers for the city said Bonta’s team also has discussed the possibility of creating a third “Latino” district in the San Fernando Valley — one with a significant concentration of Latino voters, the two sources said. That idea was proposed by the city’s citizen redistricting commission in 2021 but discarded by the council.

Bonta has been investigating the City Council’s contentious redistricting process for nearly two years. He announced his inquiry in the wake of a scandal over a secretly recorded conversation about the proposed maps.

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Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson declined to discuss Bonta’s demands, which were the topic of a lengthy closed-door session of the council last week. He referred questions to City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, whose office declined to comment.

Joanne Adams, deputy director of communications for Bonta’s office, also declined to comment, saying only that the attorney general’s investigation into L.A.’s 2021 redistricting process “remains ongoing.”

The draft document, which is titled “(Proposed) Stipulated Judgment,” does not say when talks with the city began or when they are expected to conclude. Several council members have declined to comment, saying they are barred from discussing legal matters taken up in closed sessions.

Bonta’s document calls for the city to prepare a new map that complies with the federal Voting Rights Act and the state’s Fair Maps Act, which require that district boundaries be drawn to ensure that underrepresented groups, such as Black and Latino voters, have the ability to elect the candidates of their choice.

Any stipulated judgment would need to be signed by both parties and approved by a Superior Court judge.

Councilmember Paul Krekorian, while declining to answer questions about Bonta’s investigation, defended the legality of the district maps approved by the council in 2021. In a statement, he said the maps were “carefully reviewed by attorneys and redistricting experts who found them fully compliant with the law.”

“Not one of the many citizens groups and civic associations who participated in the redistricting process has made any legal challenge to the current maps,” he said.

The talks between Bonta and the city come at a striking moment. Candidates in the Nov. 5 election have been waging fierce campaigns to represent three council districts, whose boundaries were approved in 2021 and had been considered final. Voters will also decide next month whether to create an independent redistricting process in L.A. — one in which the council has no involvement — that would begin in 2031.

Redrawing council district boundaries by 2026 also would potentially collide with the city’s new charter reform commission, which is being formed and is expected to look next year at expanding the size of the City Council.

Redistricting normally occurs only at the start of each decade, following the release of U.S. census data. In L.A. up until now, the City Council has had final say over the maps. The process has been politically fraught, with neighborhood, advocacy and civil rights groups, as well as council members, pressing for boundaries they believe will best serve themselves or their constituencies.

The demands from Bonta’s office could spark new questions about whether the council could have done more to enhance Latino voting power in 2021, when the map was approved. Although Latinos make up nearly half the city’s population, only one-third of the council’s seats — five out of 15 — are held by Latinos.

A new redistricting process could also force the council to revisit a particularly tumultuous period.

In 2022, the public heard a secretly recorded audio featuring three council members — De León, Nury Martinez and Gil Cedillo — discussing redistricting with a high-level labor leader. That conversation, which took place in 2021, featured crude and racist remarks as well as commentary about Latino political clout, or lack of it. The participants also discussed how to rework the council district map that was being prepared by the citizen redistricting commission.

Activists packed the council chamber, accusing the three council members of working to undermine Black voting power. Martinez quickly resigned. Cedillo served out the remainder of his term, having already lost reelection.

De León apologized for things he said and did not say during the conversation. But he repeatedly denied trying to diminish Black voting power, noting that the council had left the three districts with Black representatives almost entirely unchanged during the 2021 redistricting.

On Thursday, De León went further, saying in an interview: “I’ve faced a false narrative — a narrative that said I was part of an effort to diminish the representation of others. The truth is, I have always fought for fair and equitable representation of all individuals, and in particular Latinos.”

De León declined to discuss Bonta’s findings, saying they were part of confidential legal discussions. Hernandez, for her part, had no comment on Bonta’s investigation or the notion that there could be issues with Latino representation in her district.

Bonta announced his investigation days after the audio leak broke, saying that the redistricting process is “foundational for our democracy and for the ability of our communities to make their voices heard.”

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The leaked audio, he said at the time, had cast doubt on that process.

“We will endeavor to bring the truth to light to help restore confidence in the process for the people of our state,” Bonta said.

The 2021 redistricting process was especially contentious, with several council members at odds with the 21-member citizens commission. That commission recommended major changes to the boundaries of districts in or near the San Fernando Valley.

During the deliberations, the commission called for the creation of a council district with a majority-Latino population in the west Valley. About 40% of the voting-eligible population would have been Latino, potentially increasing the prospects for a Latino council member in future years.

That proposal would have required major changes to districts represented by Martinez and three other council members — Paul Krekorian, Nithya Raman and Bob Blumenfield. At one point, Raman and Krekorian faced the possibility of losing their entire districts.

In the end, the City Council rejected many of the changes proposed for the Valley, bringing the final district maps closer to what they had originally been.

This isn’t the only time the city has faced outside scrutiny over redistricting and Latino representation. In 1985, the federal Department of Justice sued the city, accusing council members of fracturing Latino voters’ political influence in maps approved a few years earlier.

The lawsuit alleged that the city’s 1982 redistricting process dispersed Latino residents who lived in or near downtown across several council districts. It also alleged that the maps were drawn in a way that weakened Latino voting strength in the northeast Valley.

The council resolved the case by creating a new district near downtown — one with a high concentration of Latinos. They also made major changes to the lines in the San Fernando Valley, increasing the number of Latinos in the district that includes Sylmar and Pacoima.

Although the document drafted by Bonta’s office does not say whether investigators found specific wrongdoing, it highlights other areas of concern.

The document calls for council members, their staff and all other city employees to take a training course on the state’s Ralph M. Brown Act and the California Public Records Act, both designed to ensure transparency and open government.

The city also would be required to create new safeguards on communications and recordkeeping by its employees. City officials would need to develop a policy prohibiting the use of “personal accounts” to conduct city business.