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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Charter

With only a week before voters go to the polls, the fate of L.A.’s charter reform proposal considered likely to win approval just a few months ago is very much in doubt. A coalition of local labor unions opposing the new charter has been growing joining an opposition group that already includes nine of 14 City Council members and a handful of homeowners groups and elected state and county officials. If charter reform gets through, according to political insiders on both sides, it could be by the slimmest of margins. Both groups are touting the results of the one poll on charter reform, completed earlier this month by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin and Associates. It shows that 41 percent of likely voters would support the measure. Thirty-six percent would oppose it and 23 percent said they need more information or don’t know how they would vote. The survey, however, was conducted before most of the unions now opposing the new charter voiced their disapproval. “Whether this succeeds or fails depends on how serious the unions are about taking this thing down, and how serious are the council president and his colleagues,” said Richard Lichtenstein, a local political consultant. “And I don’t know the answer to that.” If charter reform is defeated when voters go to the polls on June 8, it will nullify two years of work by two commissions one 21-member panel appointed by the L.A. City Council, and another 15-member panel elected by voters. It also could mark the last charter reform measure on a city ballot for years to come. “If this fails, it is inconceivable that any charter reform effort could succeed,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, chairman of the Elected Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission. “This has the biggest consensus behind it, and I’m not sure what could be done differently to produce a bigger consensus.” Supporters of the proposed 143-page charter which would replace the current 700-plus-page document say that council members, worried that they would see their power reduced, have been encouraging labor unions, long their political allies, to oppose the measure. “For four years the council has been trying to frustrate any meaningful reform that would improve the efficiency of government, make it more cost-effective and bring it closer to the people,” said Bill Wardlaw, chairman of the charter reform campaign. “So their behavior now is totally consistent with what it has been for four years.” Among the council members opposing the new charter are Jackie Goldberg, Hal Bernson, Richard Alatorre and council President John Ferraro. “For one reason or another, politically, they don’t like this and have tried to use their political influence with the unions successfully, apparently,” said Bill Carrick, the charter reform campaign’s strategist. “I’m not surprised by the council’s behavior. They have used every type of guerilla warfare tactic against charter reform they can.” Proponents say that council members are opposed to the new charter because it would take away some of their control over the firing of city department general managers and transfer that power to the mayor’s office. Under the current charter, the mayor’s firing of a general manager can be overridden by a simple majority of the council. Under the new charter, an override would require a two-thirds majority. “It all comes down to power,” said Mayor Richard Riordan, who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money to get an elected charter reform commission approved by voters. “No time in the history of mankind has anybody ever voted to give up their own power.” But Goldberg, the proposed charter’s most vocal opponent, said the issue is not the council’s lost power. She argues that the new charter is attempting to make too many sweeping changes at once. “The problem is that, as much as everyone would like to do it in one fell swoop, it probably can’t be done that way,” she said. She said the new document actually would give the council more power. In keeping the charter relatively short and simple, and allowing many parts of city government to be dictated by City Council ordinance, “I think the council would gain a great deal of power under this charter,” Goldberg said. “I think we would get too much power.” Goldberg also took issue with those who say council members are using their longstanding relationships with labor unions to encourage them to oppose charter reform. “It’s kind of narrow-minded to believe this is a quid pro quo,” she said. “There’s no quid pro quo. They (labor unions) don’t have to curry favor with me.” Union officials opposing the new charter agree they are not doing so because of their relationship with Goldberg or with any other council members, but rather because they have problems with the charter itself. Julie Butcher, general manager of the Service Employees International Union, Local 347, said her group opposes the new charter because SEIU officials and members are worried that it would bring about too big a shift in the balance of power to the mayor’s office. The union’s members are typically more aligned with council members than with the mayor. While many say the growing opposition of labor to the new charter provides a strong blow to its chances of being approved (“I would much rather have labor on my side than against the charter,” Chemerinsky says), that opposition may not mean its death. One reason is that labor is being outspent by charter proponents. Taxpayers for Good Government, the group opposing the new charter, had only raised $150,000 as of last week, while proponents have raised more than $1 million, and now have a fund-raising goal of $1.5 million. Proponents are running commercials on local cable television, and have started an extensive mail campaign. Opponents, meanwhile, are hoping to drop five mailers before the election, said campaign consultant Steven Afriat.

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