Comments
MEASURE MISHAP - In the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests five years ago, L.A. County voters passed a seminal ballot measure aimed at enhancing alternatives to incarceration. Measure J, which passed with 57% of the vote, requires that 10% of the county’s unrestricted general funds be invested in a variety of social services. These include mental health and substance abuse counseling, pre-trial non-custody services, youth programs, jobs programs, rental assistance, and more.
Measure J was placed on the ballot by county supervisors. But what the board giveth, the board hath now taken away. In an embarrassing turn of events, it was recently discovered that another county-sponsored measure has accidentally wiped Measure J from the County Charter.
The undoing comes as a result of Measure G, which was passed by voters last November. Co-authored by Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn, Measure G updates the county charter to expand the board of supervisors and make the County Executive an elected position.
The Los Angeles Times explains how the blunder occurred:
The mistake appears to stem from a failure by the county’s executive office to update the county charter with Measure J after it passed in 2020. County lawyers then failed to include the Measure J language when they drafted the 2024 ballot measure.
So, when voters approved Measure G, they accidentally repealed Measure J, according to the county.
“We can confirm that due to an inadvertent administrative error by a prior Executive Officer administration, Measure J was not placed in the County’s Charter after its passage in 2020,” the County Counsel said in a statement. “As a result, when the voters passed Measure G, they repealed Measure J effective December 2028.”
The error was first discovered by former Duarte City Councilmember John Fasana, who now serves on the county’s governance reform task force.
“Someone goofed,” Fasana said. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.”
Horvath has said the error illustrates why reform was needed in the first place.
“When five people are in charge, no one is in charge, and this is a quintessential example of what that means,” she said.
But Kathryn Barger, who opposed Measure G, said it highlights the rushed nature of the ballot measure and “reinforces one of the key concerns I had about Measure G from the start.”
Another person who feels vindicated is Derek Hsieh, member of the Governance Reform Task Force and head of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs. He opposed both Measures J and G. He called the recent dust-up a “clusterfu—.”
In the coming weeks, county supervisors will work to rectify the situation. The board passed a motion last week directing county staff to explore legal and legislative options for reincorporating Measure J. Possible solutions include declaratory relief or a new Charter Amendment.
(This article was first featured in CaliforniaCountyNews.org.)
