LA County's charter reform accidentally repealed anti-incarceration ballot measure
They didn't realize they were also repealing the county's landmark criminal justice reform.
Eight months later, county officials are just now realizing they unwittingly committed an administrative screw-up for the ages.
Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn co-authored Measure G, which changed the county charter to expand the five-person board and elect a new county executive, among other momentous shifts.
But nobody seemed to realize the new charter language would repeal Measure J, which voters approved in 2020 to dedicate hundreds of millions towards services that offer alternatives to incarceration.
'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,' said County Counsel in a statement. 'As a result, when the voters passed Measure G, they repealed Measure J effective December 2028.'
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So when voters approved Measure G, they accidentally repealed Measure J, according to the county.
The screw-up was first discovered by John Fasana, a former Duarte Councilmember who sits on the county's governance reform task force, which is tasked with implementing the government overhaul. He said he first raised the issue with the county in early June.
'Someone goofed,' said Fasana, who was appointed to the taskforce by Supervisor Kathryn Barger. 'I couldn't believe it when I saw it.'
Megan Castillo, a coordinator with the Reimagine LA Coalition, which pushed Measure J to the ballot in 2020, said she was disturbed to learn last week that the fruit of years of advocacy would soon be wiped away accidentally.
'It shouldn't be undermined just because folks rushed policy making,' said Castillo. 'We know more voters were for Measure J than Measure G. It's disrespectful to the will of the people to find this could unintentionally happen.'
Measure J requires that 10% of locally generated, unrestricted L.A. County money — estimated between $360 million and $900 million — be spent on social services, such as housing, mental health treatment and other jail diversion programs. The county is prohibited from spending the money on the carceral system — prisons, jails or law enforcement agencies.
Castillo said she was worried the repeal would result in a 'deep economic fallout' for these programs with county money potentially diverted to costs required by Measure G, like the salaries of new politicians and their staff. Measure G bars the county from raising taxes meaning this money will have to come from elsewhere in the county budget.
Castillo said she first brought the issue to the attention to deputies for Hahn and Horvath last week.
'They are shocked as well,' said Castillo.
Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who led the charge on Measure G, said in a statement a proposal was coming to correct the 'County bureaucracy's error related to Measure J.'
'This measure was the result of a hard-fought, community-led effort that I wholeheartedly supported—and remain deeply committed to upholding,' said Horvath. 'This situation makes clear why Measure G is so urgently needed. … When five people are in charge, no one is in charge, and this is a quintessential example of what that means.'
Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who opposed the overhaul of the county charter, saw it a little differently.
'It also reinforces one of the key concerns I had about Measure G from the start. When major changes to the County Charter are pushed forward without sufficient time for analysis, public input, and transparency, mistakes become more likely. Oversights like this are exactly what can happen,' Barger said in a statement. 'This error could–and should–have been caught before voters were asked to make a decision.'
Supervisor Hilda Solis said she was 'surprised and concerned' to learn about the error but was confident the funding envisioned by Measure J would 'continue unaffected.'
The Times reached out to the other two supervisors and has yet to receive their responses.
County attorneys said in a statement they were working with the executive office to 'address this situation' and ensure the executive office 'timely codified' charter amendments going forward. They emphasized that, despite the looming repeal of Measure J, the county will continue to align its budget with the goals of the measure.
Derek Hsieh, head of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs and a member of the governance reform taskforce member, called the mistake a 'cluster—.'
'I think the voters and county employees would like to know when the Board of Supervisors knew about this mistake and what they plan on doing to fix it,' said Hsieh, who was an outspoken opponent of both Measure G and Measure J.
The union, which represents sheriff's deputies, had spent more than $3.5 million on advertising on TV and social media to fight Measure J. The union had also joined other county labor unions to challenge the measure in court.
'There's absolutely no question both by the will of the voters and a decision by the California Supreme Court that Measure J is the law of the land,' said Hsieh.
The screw-up became public Wednesday night at the task force's second-ever meeting. Fasana told his fellow members who had gatherered at Bob Hope Patriotic Hall downtown he had found 'a major issue.'
The news created something of an uproar in meeting that was supposed to focus on more mundane bureaucratic matters. Some members said they wanted to wait to discuss it until everyone had been briefed on what exactly he was talking about.
Others said they didn't understand how they could talk about anything else.
'To me all the work we're trying to move forward with stops because there's a problem —a significant, fundamental one,' said Derek Steele, who was appointed by Supervisor Holly Mitchell.
'We may actually need to take Measure G back to the people,' said Steele. ' We need to make sure we have a solve for this.'
Both Mitchell and Barger opposed Measure G, arguing it had been put together too hastily and gave too much power to an ill-defined county executive.
Sara Sadhwani, who was appointed to the task force by Horvath, said she found the accidental repeal of Measure J 'incredibly concerning,' but found the way the news had been delivered to the task force 'obstructive.'
'It raises so many questions for me and raises concerns about who is operating in good faith on this task forcem,' said Sadhwani. 'If this was a good faith effort, wouldn't we have agendized this issue, instead of dropping a bomb that people have no knowledge of.'
The taskforce has asked for a report from the county's attorneys for their next meeting.
Jaclyn Cosgrove contributed to this story.
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Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Los Angeles Times
How a shrunken piece of bread explains Bolivia's economic catastrophe ahead of elections
LA PAZ, Bolivia — Juan de Dios Castillo, covered in flour and sweat, pulled a crisp roll from the cooling rack and weighed it on an old metal scale: 2 ounces. That's barely half what it would have been two years ago. Unlike American or European shoppers scrutinizing suspiciously capacious chip bags, Bolivians have no doubt that they're paying the same government-fixed price for a much smaller, lower-quality loaf. For years, you could walk into a government-subsidized bakery like Castillo's anywhere in Bolivia and get a 3.5 ounce roll for 50 centavos (7 U.S. cents), but as a cash crunch cripples flour imports and inflation squeezes budgets, bakers have almost halved the size of their staple bread. Early last year, rolls shrank to 80 grams, then 70, now 60. 'It's like eating a bit of air, a Communion wafer, it doesn't fill you up anymore,' said Rosario Manuelo Chura, 40, dipping some crust into her morning coffee in Bolivia's administrative capital of La Paz. Castillo isn't particularly pleased about it either. Forced to sell his bread far below market price, he's barely breaking even. 'This situation is not sustainable,' he said, slamming the oven door open. Bolivia's many harbingers of havoc ahead of its presidential election on Sunday seem to converge in this shrunken piece of subsidized bread that La Paz residents call 'pan de batalla' — 'battle bread.' The hallowed staple speaks to a state stuck in the past after 20 years under the state-directed economic model of ex-leader Evo Morales, and now struggling to pull itself out of its worst economic crisis in four decades. The right-wing frontrunners, businessman Samuel Doria Medina and former President Jorge 'Tuto' Quiroga, have proposed eliminating the politically combustible subsidies that underwrite Bolivia's social safety net. 'I say this openly, I'll remove subsidies because they're the greatest absurdity,' Doria Medina told The Associated Press this month, referring to the fuel that Bolivia subsidizes to the tune of billions of dollars a year. Legend has it that the battle bread earned its nickname from troop rations in the country's Chaco War against Paraguay in the 1930s. Today, a battle over bread rages within Bolivia, which is running out of hard currency to import wheat because the country grows less than 25% of what it consumes. Struggling to clear a backlog of imports, the government has slowed or in some cases suspended subsidized flour deliveries. Loaves have vanished from shelves and bread lines have started to appear across La Paz. The scarcity of U.S. dollars has also hampered diesel fuel imports, leading to fuel shortages and raising questions about the ability of import-dependent Bolivia to keep subsidizing its staples. Not only do farmers use diesel fuel to power machinery for irrigation, but diesel fuel also contributes to the price of imported foodstuffs. Some two years ago Bolivia had a lower annual inflation rate than Germany. Today it has among the region's highest, with the government reporting consumer prices rose 25% in July from a year earlier. But the price of bread hasn't changed in 17 years. Bolivia imports most of its wheat from Argentina, where prices have increased — along with the value of the Argentine peso — under libertarian President Javier Milei. Bolivia's grain agency, EMAPA, distributes the subsidized flour to bakers at a fixed price while requiring them to sell battle bread for 50 centavos a loaf — about a fifth of what it would cost to bake the same loaf with ingredients bought at retail prices. As the prices of other ingredients climb, many government-subsidized bakeries warn that they are facing bankruptcy. Scores of bakers last month staged a 24-hour strike demanding to sell their bread at market prices. But a quick scan of history from the 1789 French Revolution to 1989 Venezuelan riots underscores why Morales' Movement Toward Socialism party, or MAS, hasn't dared tinker with the agreement. 'When the price of battle bread goes up, that's the day everything collapses,' said Jacobo Choque, 40, an accountant waiting to buy bread rich in butter from a non-subsidized bakery. The line of Bolivians keen to shell out an extra 20 centavos for better-tasting, thicker rolls stretched almost two city blocks. Nearby, cash-strapped customers scoured an open-air market, swarming around one of the few stalls selling battle bread. 'We used to have breakfast with one roll, but now we need two to feel full,' said Carmen Muñoz, 65, fuming as she queued. 'Let's not forget that socialism brought us here.' When commodity prices surged in 2007, Morales, a coca-farming union leader elected the year before to his first of what would be three terms, harnessed revenues from booming natural gas exports to bankroll subsidies for bread and other essentials. But as gas production plummeted about a decade later, MAS dipped into foreign reserves to keep spending. The model became ruinously costly — last year's food and fuel subsidies made up over 4.2% of gross domestic product. With the government unable to pay suppliers on time and trucks trapped in fuel lines, EMAPA's monthly deliveries of milled wheat have hit snags, leaving subsidized bakeries suddenly without flour. Even as bakers eat into their savings to buy other ingredients, the subsidy agreement bars them from sourcing their own flour. 'Rather than helping, subsidies are hurting us,' Castillo said. Some bakers say that EMAPA — long accused of favoring MAS party members — has stopped supplying altogether. EMAPA denies cronyism, saying it has ramped up investigations into reports of bakers reselling subsidized flour at inflated prices on the black market, or trying to pass off rolls baked with low-cost additives like cassava starch. 'In all my 30 years at this market, this is the most stressful,' said Raquel de Quino, a 60-year-old bread vendor who now spends her mornings confronting customers outraged over the shrinkflation and shortages. On Saturday, she asked one angry woman to take her rant to the government — at least for its final week in power. 'I'm just the middleman,' said De Quino, throwing up her hands in exasperation. 'Let's pray to God that under the next government, there will bread for our children.' Debre and Flores write for the Associated Press.
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
How a shrunken piece of bread explains Bolivia's economic catastrophe ahead of elections
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Juan de Dios Castillo, covered in flour and sweat, pulled a crisp roll from the cooling rack and weighed it on an old metal scale: 60 grams (2 ounces). That's barely half what it would have been two years ago. Unlike American or European shoppers scrutinizing suspiciously capacious chip bags, Bolivians have no doubt that they're paying the same government-fixed price for a much smaller, lower-quality loaf. For years, you could walk into a government-subsidized bakery like Castillo's anywhere in Bolivia and get a 100-gram (3.5 ounce) roll for 50 centavos (7 U.S. cents), but as a cash crunch cripples flour imports and inflation squeezes budgets, bakers have almost halved the size of their staple bread. Early last year, rolls shrank to 80 grams, then 70, now 60. 'It's like eating a bit of air, a Communion wafer, it doesn't fill you up anymore,' said Rosario Manuelo Chura, 40, dipping some crust into her morning coffee in Bolivia's administrative capital of La Paz. Castillo isn't particularly pleased about it either. Forced to sell his bread far below market price, he's barely breaking even. 'This situation is not sustainable,' he said, slamming the oven door open. Bolivia's many harbingers of havoc ahead of its presidential election on Sunday seem to converge in this shrunken piece of subsidized bread that La Paz residents call 'pan de batalla" — 'battle bread.' The hallowed staple speaks to a state stuck in the past after 20 years under the state-directed economic model of ex-leader Evo Morales, and now struggling to pull itself out of its worst economic crisis in four decades. The right-wing frontrunners, businessman Samuel Doria Medina and former President Jorge 'Tuto' Quiroga, have proposed eliminating the politically combustible subsidies that underwrite Bolivia's social safety net. 'I say this openly, I'll remove subsidies because they're the greatest absurdity," Doria Medina told The Associated Press this month, referring to the fuel that Bolivia subsidizes to the tune of billions of dollars a year. Short on dough, literally Legend has it that the battle bread earned its nickname from troop rations in the country's Chaco War against Paraguay in the 1930s. Today, a battle over bread rages within Bolivia, which is running out of hard currency to import wheat because the country grows less than 25% of what it consumes. Struggling to clear a backlog of imports, the government has slowed or in some cases suspended subsidized flour deliveries. Loaves have vanished from shelves and bread lines have started to appear across La Paz. The scarcity of U.S. dollars has also hampered diesel fuel imports, leading to fuel shortages and raising questions about the ability of import-dependent Bolivia to keep subsidizing its staples. Not only do farmers use diesel fuel to power machinery for irrigation, but diesel fuel also contributes to the price of imported foodstuffs. Prices rise and loaves shrink Some two years ago Bolivia had a lower annual inflation rate than Germany. Today it has among the region's highest, with the government reporting consumer prices rose 25% in July from a year earlier. But the price of bread hasn't changed in 17 years. Bolivia imports most of its wheat from Argentina, where prices have increased — along with the value of the Argentine peso — under libertarian President Javier Milei. Bolivia's grain agency, EMAPA, distributes the subsidized flour to bakers at a fixed price while requiring them to sell battle bread for 50 centavos a loaf — about a fifth of what it would cost to bake the same loaf with ingredients bought at retail prices. As the prices of other ingredients climb, many government-subsidized bakeries warn that they are facing bankruptcy. Scores of bakers last month staged a 24-hour strike demanding to sell their bread at market prices. But a quick scan of history from the 1789 French Revolution to 1989 Venezuelan riots underscores why Morales' Movement Toward Socialism party, or MAS, hasn't dared tinker with the agreement. 'When the price of battle bread goes up, that's the day everything collapses,' said Jacobo Choque, 40, an accountant waiting to buy bread rich in butter from a non-subsidized bakery. The line of Bolivians keen to shell out an extra 20 centavos for better-tasting, thicker rolls stretched almost two city blocks. Nearby, cash-strapped customers scoured an open-air market, swarming around one of the few stalls selling battle bread. 'We used to have breakfast with one roll, but now we need two to feel full,' said Carmen Muñoz, 65, fuming as she queued. 'Let's not forget that socialism brought us here." A subsidy system gone bust When commodity prices surged in 2007, Morales, a coca-farming union leader elected the year before to his first of what would be three terms, harnessed revenues from booming natural gas exports to bankroll subsidies for bread and other essentials. But as gas production plummeted about a decade later, MAS dipped into foreign reserves to keep spending. The model became ruinously costly — last year's food and fuel subsidies made up over 4.2% of gross domestic product. With the government unable to pay suppliers on time and trucks trapped in fuel lines, EMAPA's monthly deliveries of milled wheat have hit snags, leaving subsidized bakeries suddenly without flour. Even as bakers eat into their savings to buy other ingredients, the subsidy agreement bars them from sourcing their own flour. 'Rather than helping, subsidies are hurting us,' Castillo said. Some bakers say that EMAPA — long accused of favoring MAS party members — has stopped supplying altogether. EMAPA denies cronyism, saying it has ramped up investigations into reports of bakers reselling subsidized flour at inflated prices on the black market, or trying to pass off rolls baked with low-cost additives like cassava starch. 'In all my 30 years at this market, this is the most stressful," said Raquel de Quino, a 60-year-old bread vendor who now spends her mornings confronting customers outraged over the shrinkflation and shortages. On Saturday, she asked one angry woman to take her rant to the government — at least for its final week in power.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Newsom says special election on California redistricting planned for November
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said Friday they were moving forward with plans to hold a special election in November for voters to approve a ballot measure that would ultimately allow Democrats to pass a new House map ahead of 2026. 'We have till Aug. 22. With the leadership behind me, they will get this on the ballot. We're calling for a special election, that will be the first week of November,' Newsom said. The governor — flanked by several California lawmakers, as well as Texas Democrats who fled their state — said they did not want to eliminate the independent redistricting commission in charge of drawing the map. 'We are talking about emergency measures to respond to what's happening in Texas, and we will nullify what happens in Texas,' Newsom vowed. The move comes in response to Texas Republicans who are looking to create five pickup opportunities in a new House map. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the chair of the California Democratic congressional delegation, said Democrats found they could create a new House map that would allow the party to pick up five additional seats next year while also not running afoul with the Voting Rights Act. 'So as we went through the details of the possibilities, I'm happy to report that every single member of the California delegation is willing to support a plan to do that,' she said of the state's Democratic lawmakers. California State Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D) told reporters they anticipated that maps 'will be available next week.' 'Once these maps are released, voters will have the opportunity to digest these maps, review them for weeks and months leading to this election,' he added. California would be the first Democratic state to tangibly begin the process of trying to pass new lines ahead of 2026 in response to Texas. The Lone Star State, under pressure from President Trump, are vying to pick up five seats in their state as Republicans brace for a challenging midterm environment next year. California currently uses an independent redistricting commission to draw its maps. Democrats' aim, however, is to temporarily bypass the commission in response to what's happening in Texas to pass their own congressional lines. Newsom insisted Democrats supported independent redistricting but argued 'we're not going to unilaterally disarm in the state of California.' The California governor said he is confident that the voters will pass the proposed ballot measure. 'We believe in independent redistricting, that will be on the ballot,' he said. 'We believe it should be nationalized. That will be on the ballot. We have the opportunity to send a message 'enough.' And I believe Republicans, not just Democrats and independents, will meet that call, and we will overwhelmingly support this change.' Updated at 6:48 p.m. EDT Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
