What are city councils, charters, districts?
RewriteLA 2026 Citizens Assembly Participant Briefing Materials
Part 1 of 5 What is your role: in this process, and generally in a democracy?
Democracy is best defined as everyday people governing themselves. And this process is about the city charter—which is the document through which the people of Los Angeles establish a city government. The charter is a city constitution, and it can only be changed by votes of the people.
So it’s quite natural to ask a body of everyday Angelenos—that’s all of you— to make recommendations on charter changes. The recommendations that you make will go to the L.A. charter reform commission, which will review them and decide whether to incorporate them into its own proposed changes to the charter. In April, those proposed changes will go to the city council, which has until early July to decide whether to put them on the November 2026 city ballot, so Angelenos can decide whether to adopt them.
Part 2 of 5 What is the City Council, and who are its members?
The City Council is the governing body of the City of Los Angeles, except as otherwise provided in the Charter. The City Council is a legislative body, which is defined in California State Law as having “continuing subject matter jurisdiction” and a “fixed meeting schedule.”
The 15 members of the city council, each representing one district of the city, play many roles. They enact ordinances (laws), which the Mayor can approve or veto. They order elections, levy taxes, authorize public improvements, approve contracts, and adopt traffic regulations — that’s a lot of power! Additionally, the City Council adopts or modifies the budget proposed by the Mayor and approves the spending of the necessary funds, equipment, and supplies for the budgetary departments. The Council confirms or rejects appointments for various departments or boards proposed by the Mayor. And councilmembers have huge sway over development and permitting decisions made in their district.
One question of the charter reform process has been whether the city council is too powerful or not powerful enough. Four city councilmembers have faced federal prosecution in the past decade, and some critics say that the extensive powers of the councilmembers enabled the corruption.
Part 3 of 5 What are electoral districts?
Electoral districts are geographic areas within a City within which voters (see Your Role, above) elect representatives to a city's legislative body. LA City Council electoral districts are drawn by the Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission, a 21-member body appointed by the Mayor and City Council to review census data and redraw boundaries every 10 years. While the commission creates the maps, the final approval currently rests with the City Council.
Electoral districts are not statistical creatures, they are political. Lines on maps are the output of negotiations and the wielding of power.
The City of LA is divided up into 15 council districts composed of multiple neighborhoods and each containing approximately 260,000 residents.
Part 4 of 5 How are electoral districts used?
Cities in the United States almost always elect their city councils using two electoral system types: single member districts or at-large elections. In an at-large system, members of the city council are selected by the entire city electorate. In most cities this means that voters are offered a slate of candidates and are allowed to vote for the same number of candidates as there are seats available. At-large elections encourage councils to consider a citywide perspective.
In California, at-large elections have often been found under state law to be racially discriminatory, diminishing the election of representatives of historically underrepresented groups. As a result, many cities have switched to single-member district elections. L.A. has had single-member districts for more than 100 years.
When councilmembers are elected one-per-district, districts are created by dividing a City into geographic areas of roughly equal population size that elect a single member to the city council in a plurality or majoritarian election. District elections increase descriptive representation for racial/ethnic minorities when the group is moderately sized and segregated. District elections can allow neighborhoods to protect their interests.
There’s a third option being discussed in Los Angeles as part of charter reform: Districts that elect more than one member, called “multi-member districts.” Such districts are commonplace in other countries but rare in the United States.
Part 5 of 5 Field Guide to the scenarios for changing the size of City Council
Read the following sentence slowly, because it is accurate but a little head-scratching.
The political puzzle: L.A. has a charter review commission, appointed by the city council, which is recommending that the size of the city council be expanded—even though some members of the city council may not want the council expanded.
Expanding the city council may make each city councilmember less powerful. Some councilmembers say that the power they have–as one of just 15–gives them more power and leverage to use in their districts. Having more councilmembers means that there are more colleagues for councilmembers to have to convince on a particular law or vote.
Expanding the city council may be opposed by the public. Indeed, Los Angeles voters turned down a council expansion proposal made by charter review commissions back in 1999. A common reaction to the idea in focus groups is: “Why do we want more politicians?”
That’s the case for the status quo. Nevertheless, many different groups in civic life—non-profits, political reform organizations, neighborhood groups, media, academics, and a number of politicains—want to expand the council. Why?
The Los Angeles City Council is by far the smallest city council in the United States, with 15 people representing 4 million. Each Los Angeles councilmember has about 260,000 constituents; the next largest is New York, with 170,000 constituents per councilmember. The main argument for expanding the size of the council is that Angelenos deserve more representation, and councilmembers should have fewer constituents so they can better serve each constituent. There’s also an argument about the quality of representation: in a city of LA’s diversity, 15 people can’t represent all the different graphics and racial/ethnic groups. Recent corruption cases involving councilmembers have also led to calls for a larger council with less powerful individual councilmembers.
How much to increase? The charter commission has focused on relatively small increases: to 23, or 25, or 31 members. (As of this writing, the number is 23). This approach is cautious and openly political–asking for too many members might lead the city council to oppose the expansion.
Some political reform and democracy groups have suggested a bigger expansion—to 50 or 51 (New York has 51). You also may read from or hear from international experts, who will point out that major global cities overseas–Berlin, Tokyo, Seoul–often have more than 100 representatives in their City’s legislative bodies.
