Mayor Karen Bass vetoes ballot proposal to let police chief fire problem officers

Mayor Karen Bass has vetoed a proposed ballot measure to rework the disciplinary process at the Los Angeles Police Department — a step that could result in its removal from the Nov. 5 ballot.

In her veto letter to the City Council, Bass said the proposal, which would have allowed the police chief to fire officers accused of committing serious misconduct, “risks creating bureaucratic confusion” within the LAPD.

Bass said the proposal, which also would have reworked the composition of the department’s three-member disciplinary panels, provided “ambiguous direction” and “gaps in guidance.”

“I look forward to working with each of you to do a thorough and comprehensive review with officers, the department, and other stakeholders to ensure fairness for all,” she wrote. “The current system remains until this collaborative review is complete and can be placed before the voters.”

Bass issued her veto during the council’s summer recess, when meetings are canceled for three weeks. The deadline for reworking the language of the ballot proposal has already passed, City Clerk Holly Wolcott said.

“If the council does not override the veto or take any action, the measure will be pulled from the ballot,” Wolcott said in an email.

The council’s next meeting is scheduled for July 30. Whether it can muster 10 votes to override the mayor’s veto is unclear.

By issuing the veto, Bass effectively sided with top LAPD brass, who warned last month that the proposal would create a two-tier disciplinary system, with some offenses resulting in termination by the chief and others heading to a disciplinary panel known as a Board of Rights.

The mayor’s appointees on the Board of Police Commissioners also criticized the ballot proposal, saying they felt excluded from the deliberations. At least one commissioner voiced concern about the proposal’s creation of a binding arbitration process to resolve cases where an officer files an appeal of his or her termination.

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez expressed similar worries, arguing that binding arbitration would lead to more lenient outcomes for officers accused of serious wrongdoing. Soto-Martínez, who voted against the proposal last month, had also argued that the range of offenses that would lead to termination by the police chief was too narrow.

An aide to Soto-Martínez said Tuesday that his boss supports the veto.

Councilmember Tim McOsker, who spearheaded the ballot proposal, said he is “deeply disappointed” with the mayor’s action, arguing that it threatens the most significant reform of the LAPD’s disciplinary system in more than two decades.

If the council fails to override the veto, the next opportunity for major reform would not occur until the 2026 election, McOsker said.

“What this veto would do is put us back in the status quo for at least two years,” he said in an interview.

McOsker said he is still looking at the options for responding to the mayor’s veto. During the council’s deliberations last month, four council members — Soto-Martínez, Nithya Raman, Eunisses Hernandez and Curren Price — backed a proposal to seek additional changes to the ballot measure.

Soto-Martínez took aim at the decision to let a police chief fire officers for some offenses but not others, saying it would create “ambiguity” in the disciplinary system.

That proposal was defeated on a 9 to 4 vote. Had it passed, it would have effectively killed the ballot measure for this year’s election, since the deadline had passed for making extensive changes.

The proposal vetoed by Bass had been billed as a way to undo some of changes brought by Charter Amendment C, a ballot measure approved by voters in 2017, which paved the way for all-civilian disciplinary panels at the LAPD.

The ballot proposal would have reworked the system, ensuring that each panel would have have two civilian members and one commanding officer.

Representatives of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents about 8,800 rank-and-file officers, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last month, the union issued a statement saying the ballot proposal struck “the right balance” on disciplinary issues, ensuring that officers who are terminated by a chief have access to an appeal process with binding arbitration.