L.A. Charter Amendment ER election: Revamping Ethics Commission voter guide

Nearly 35 years ago, voters decided that Los Angeles City Hall needed a watchdog, one with the power to investigate illegal campaign donations, potential conflicts of interest and other ethics violations.

Now, after a string of corruption scandals, Charter Amendment ER, a measure on the Nov. 5 ballot, would strengthen the Ethics Commission by boosting its budget, increasing penalties for wrongdoing and giving it the power to hire its own lawyer, at least in some cases.

What would this measure do?

If approved by voters, Charter Amendment ER — which presumably stands for ethics reform — would give the Ethics Commission more financial stability by establishing a minimum annual budget of $7 million starting in 2025-26. That would represent an increase of more than 10% from the current budget.

Under the ballot proposal, the Ethics Commission’s budget would probably continue to grow in future years, matching any changes in overall city revenues, whether up or down.

Charter Amendment ER would also triple the penalties the commission could levy for violating city ethics laws, from $5,000 per violation to $15,000. Those penalties also would be adjusted each year, depending on changes in the consumer price index.

The Ethics Commission would be able to hire its own lawyer to deal with “special investigative or enforcement” matters. And the City Council would be required to take up policy proposals submitted by the Ethics Commission within six months of receiving them.

Several of these changes would come with limits. For example, the City Council could still impose a hiring freeze at the commission, or even intervene in its spending plans, if it found there were “exigent circumstances.” In addition, nothing in the measure requires that the council approve — or send to voters — any policy proposal it receives from the Ethics Commission.

Why is this on the ballot?

The City Council voted to put Charter Amendment ER on the ballot after a string of corruption cases buffeted City Hall. Since 2020, three former council members have been convicted on criminal charges, while a fourth is a defendant in a 10-count felony case. The city’s audio leak scandal, which spurred the resignations of City Council President Nury Martinez and county labor executive Ron Herrera, also sparked calls for a more robust Ethics Commission.

Good-government groups have pointed to other reasons for giving the Ethics Commission greater independence from the city’s political leaders.

In 2021, The Times reported on allegations that an unnamed City Council member pressured the commission to soften its enforcement of city gift laws or else face cuts to its budget. The allegation was contained in a whistleblower complaint filed by an Ethics Commission staffer.

What does the Ethics Commission do?

Discussing the Ethics Commission can be semantically tricky. The commission is a five-member body made up of volunteers, appointed by various politicians, including the mayor, the city attorney and the City Council president.

Those commissioners craft policy proposals and levy financial penalties on elected officials, city workers, lobbyists and others who violate city laws governing campaign fundraising, gifts, conflicts of interest and other activities.

At the same time, the Ethics Commission is also a city department, employing nearly four dozen staffers, including investigators who look into potential ethics violations. Other staffers draft legislation and work to make sure that fundraising reports, financial disclosure forms and other public documents are easily found on the agency’s website.

The Ethics Commission’s policy ideas have not always gained traction with the council. For example, the agency has proposed changes to the city’s lobbying ordinance three times — in 2009, 2018 and 2022. The council did not act on any of them.

Who supports the measure, and who’s holding back?

Los Angeles City Council President Paul Krekorian, a former ethics commissioner himself, signed the ballot argument in favor of Charter Amendment ER, calling the proposal “the first significant ethics reform measure in the history of the Ethics Commission.”

Others are much more lukewarm, saying the measure is too watered down. California Common Cause, a nonprofit that typically backs anti-corruption measures, expressed profound disappointment with the final language of the charter amendment.

California Common Cause and several of its allies had been hoping to give the Ethics Commission the power to send reform measures directly to voters, bypassing the council. In the end, the group declined to take a position on ER.

“The Los Angeles City Council had a chance to turn the tide of corruption at City Hall and begin a new era in which L.A. residents could trust their local elected officials,” Jonathan Mehta Stein, executive director of California Common Cause, said in May. “Instead they chose to uphold a broken, shameful status quo.”

Reform groups also tried, without success, to include language that would expand the size of the commission, ensuring that two of its members would not be appointed by politicians. The council removed that passage from the final draft.

Who opposes it?

No one submitted a ballot argument against the measure, which greatly increases the chances of its passage. But that doesn’t mean it has no opposition.

Ruth Galanter, who served on the City Council from 1987 to 2003, views the Ethics Commission as a waste of money, performing many of the duties already assigned to the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission.

Galanter noted that the FBI, not the Ethics Commission, investigated the three L.A. elected officials convicted of corruption-related crimes in recent years — former Councilmembers Jose Huizar, Mitchell Englander and Mark Ridley-Thomas. She also contends that the Ethics Commission, over its 34-year history, has not managed to make city leaders any more ethical.

“It doesn’t work,” she said earlier this year. “So if it doesn’t work, throwing more money and authority at it isn’t going to make it work.”

Galanter said she is in no way questioning the dedication of staff at the agency, even as she described their work as “an exercise in futility.” She also emphasized that she has been an outspoken critic for decades.

In 1990, Galanter signed the ballot argument opposing the creation of the Ethics Commission. The measure gave the council and the city controller a 40% pay increase, she noted at the time.