Karen Bass’ Curious Absence From A Push To Clean Up Los Angeles City Hall

LOS ANGELES — The push for sweeping City Hall reforms, born out of corruption scandals and an explosive leaked audio controversy, has quietly stalled out in the nation’s second-largest city.

The hold-up: its embattled mayor, Karen Bass.

Bass has failed to name appointees to a commission to change the city’s charter for more than six months, well before historic wildfires ravaged the city in January, consigning the fledgling effort to purgatory. The inaction from the mayor’s office makes Bass the most conspicuous logjam in a process fraught with political tripwires, a reworking of the city’s balance of power certain to face backlash from those who enjoy tremendous sway under the status quo.

The inertia gives fresh ammo to critics who have been increasingly vocal in light of her handling of the fires, including her absence during the first fateful days and her sacking of the city’s fire chief last week. They say her absence on the charter commission dovetails with a broader failure to fill key city roles — and, more pointedly, question her commitment to clean up the city in the wake of scandals that grabbed national headlines largely before she took office.

“She has very different priorities, and those priorities are not delivering a better, more effective, ethical government,” said Rob Quan, an organizer with Unrig LA, a local government watchdog group. Her priorities, he said, are "staying alive, getting reelected."

The parade of embarrassing headlines on City Hall breathed new life into a new suite of far-reaching potential changes, including expanding the size of the council and overhauling how land use decisions are made, that reformers hoped to put to voters next year.

But with the commission unable to begin the daunting work of reexamining the charter, effectively Los Angeles’ constitution, backers of such changes are increasingly pessimistic.

“The further we get from that moment of the tapes leaking, the harder it will be to … institute true reforms,” said city Councilmember Nithya Raman. “We may have already missed that moment, frankly.”

Gabby Maarse, a spokesperson for Bass, said the mayor had been working with the city council president on “immediate next steps” for charter reform, but that “the process has been delayed this year by wildfires and recovery efforts.”

“The mayor is committed to filling the seats of the commission as soon as possible so they begin their work to prepare for the November 2026 ballot,” Maarse said. “The mayor does see this as a high priority, which is why she is working to carefully select the best people for the job.”

Hours after POLITICO inquired with Bass’ office about the commission appointments, a member of her staff reached out to Quan in response to a letter sent a month earlier by a coalition of reform supporters — the first proactive outreach he’s heard from the mayor’s team in months.

Bass’ plate is undeniably full. Even before the fires, the city was facing a perilous budget crunch and a stubborn homelessness crisis that Bass had championed as her single-highest priority. (She’s had some success on that front, notching a 10 percent drop in street homelessness last year.)

But advocates say there’s no reason that governance overhaul could not happen simultaneously.

“All too often, big reform efforts like this often get put on the back burner,” said Sean McMorris, program manager with California Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that advocates for government transparency. “They can easily be pointed to as something that’s not as important as a budget or an emergency … But our politicians can walk and chew gum at the same time. They’re elected to do multiple things.”

Councilmember Tim McOsker uttered a similar refrain last week — “We have to be able to do more than one thing at once” — to explain why he formally asked for an update on the commission’s progress.

The answer? Not much.

Clamor for change

Governance reform efforts gained traction after a leaked audio tape of multiple council members and a top labor leader roiled City Hall. The recordings, which included racist language and a blunt peek behind the curtain of how redistricting could be weaponized to consolidate power, was just the latest embarrassment for the city, which had four council members charged or convicted of corruption charges in recent years.

In the clamor for change, councilmembers advanced an independent redistricting commission and changes to the city’s ethics commission — the latter of which was watered down last-minute after strong pushback from organized labor. Voters overwhelmingly approved both measures in last November’s elections.

The controversy even propelled Los Angeles County to devise its own governance changes, including expanding the board of supervisors and creating an elected county executive position — proposals that had been gathering dust for decades. The changes were also supported, albeit narrowly, by voters.

Back in the city, the brass ring for reformers — and the tallest task — was taking on the charter. The last time it was revised was in the late 1990s, driven by then-Mayor Richard Riordan’s desire to strengthen the mayor’s powers and efforts by city leaders to quell restive secession movements throughout town by promising a charter that would be more responsive to community needs. The process was messy, with two competing commissions that eventually found compromise, and served as a cautionary tale of just how big a lift charter reform can be.

The tapes scandal breathed new life into efforts to expand the city council size; with just 15 members, the body is conspicuously smaller than other major cities such as Chicago (50 representatives) or New York City (51). Proponents say a larger council will be more representative for the sprawling city and could increase diversity on the council.

Councilmembers, unable to reach a consensus on the proposal, decided last summer to establish a charter reform commission instead, which some reform advocates saw as a punt. Bass signed the ordinance to establish the commission on July 1.

But the commission’s broad mandate could amount to an earth-shaking overhaul in how Los Angeles runs.

In addition to council expansion, the commission could contemplate changes to fundamental operations, such as the frequency of meetings or how to fill vacancies. It could tackle lobbying and ethics reform or elections changes, such as instituting ranked-choice voting. It could even enshrine a regular schedule for charter reform updates, ensuring that a re-examination would not only happen in times of crisis.

‘Exactly the right time to do this’

The recent wildfires could also shape the contours of debate, as the catastrophe exposed the city’s confusing delegation of power when it comes to emergencies. And the need to rebuild gives more salience to land use decisions. Individual council members currently have tremendous influence over development in their own districts, which some observers say slows down new building and exacerbates Los Angeles’ twin crises of a housing shortage and homelessness.

Initially, in the immediate wake of City Hall’s scandals, the call to revisit the charter “was largely seen as reforming the council more than reforming the government,” said Raphael Sonenshein, who served as executive director of one of the charter reform commissions in the late 1990s.

“The difference now, because of the wildfire and all the things that have happened, is the focus may be more on reforming government than just the council,” said Sonenshein, now the executive director of the Haynes Foundation, which supports research on governance and democracy in the Los Angeles region.

Last year, the council approved the formation of an independent panel with 13 commissioners: four appointed by council leaders, four appointed by Bass, and five members of the public. The City Council filled its seats, but so far, Bass has not proposed any names. Without Bass’ appointees, the commission lacks a quorum and cannot meet. Meanwhile, the commission’s executive director recently left her post to join the mayor’s office.

The lack of movement has left current commissioners in limbo.

“I'm really concerned about whether this is going to happen, and certainly at this point, whether there's enough time,” said Mona Field, the past president of the League of Women Voters of Los Angeles who was appointed to the commission by former council president Paul Krekorian.

Granted, it’s not easy to find qualified appointees who are willing to take on such a heavy lift — for free. Bass may also be hobbled by a rule barring her from appointing anyone who has donated to her campaigns.

Government reform groups have offered recommendations of potential appointees but until this week, they had not heard back. Councilmember Raman has also provided suggestions but said she has not gotten any indication when those decisions will be named.

“A lot of these players are just plain distracted,” said Doug Epperhart, a longtime civic activist who serves on the board overseeing neighborhood councils, a product of the last charter reform effort. “I'm a little bit leery of pushing a process too much, if people are just preoccupied.”

Epperhart and others predict it would take at least a year for the commission to complete its work and report back to council, which would then vote whether or not to take the suggestions to the public.

With so much going on and the protracted delays, reform supporters are split as to whether they want to continue to push for recommendations for the 2026 ballot or if that deadline should be jettisoned for a more comprehensive process.

But backers are more unanimous in their insistence that the recent fires only strengthen the case for charter reform.

“Every crisis we’ve faced as a municipal government over the course of my career, whether it was 9/11 or a budget downturn or a wildfire or Covid, all of it comes back to how is the local government responsive to the needs of the people?” said McOsker, who began his career in city politics as a charter reform commissioner. “When we are in crisis is exactly the right time to do this.”