LA Councilmember’s Racism Revealed in Scandalous Leak

In a 2021 audio leaked on Oct. 9, since resigned LA City Council President Nury Martinez and Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León were heard discussing redistricting, the process of redrawing district lines. Throughout the conversation, Martinez said shockingly racist comments against Black and Oaxacan people such as calling the adopted Black child of another council member “un changuito” (a little monkey) and referring to Oaxacans as “tan feos” (so ugly). Because they currently aid racist agendas like Martinez’s and grant excessive power to politicians, redistricting practices in LA must be reformed.

During redistricting, politicians often try to reorganize district lines to increase the number of districts where a certain demographic is the most represented. In Martinez’s case, she wanted to redraw the lines so that there would be more districts where Latino politicians would be the favorites to win elections. This, by itself, is a reasonable cause as even though Latinos make up nearly a half of the city’s population, only three of the 15 current city council members are Latino. However, the current redistricting process is not the correct way to address such problems. As seen by her comments in the leaked audio, the current system transforms the push to get more Latino representation into a competition amongst different racial groups. In light of the clear flaws with LA’s current redistricting process, it is necessary to reform aspects which currently encourage egocentrism from council members and pit racial communities against each other.

The office of California State Attorney General Rob Bonta is currently investigating the 2021 LA redistricting to decide if Martinez and the other council members violated any laws. Of particular interest for the investigation is determining whether they used race as the “predominant” factor in their redrawing, which would violate the equal protections clause of the 14th constitutional amendment. Whether it was blatant racist remarks or offhand references to racial groups, their consistent race-centric comments throughout the audio indicates that race was the biggest factor of their decision-making. Though it does not excuse their personal racism, the redistricting process is what exacerbated and allowed it to significantly impact the city. 

Beyond Martinez, there have been several examples in recent years of LA politicians abusing the powers granted to them by the people. In 2017, top executive of the LA Department of Water and Power David Wright awarded a $30 million contract from the DWP to a private company under a secret agreement that the company would give him a $1 million salary job offer once he left the DWP. Wright also admitted to destroying evidence and was ultimately sentenced to eight years in prison. In 2020, former council member Jose Huizar was indicted for accepting $1.5 million in bribes from real estate developer Wei Huang. Huizar’s trial is scheduled to take place in 2023.

To fix the current redistricting process and curb rampant corruption, LA should take the power to redraw district lines away from the council members and create a new committee that presides over it, a practice that is already utilized by other California cities like San Francisco. Doing so would eradicate race-based feuds amongst minorities and build a future in which marginalized communities are safe – something that is not feasible when people are preoccupied with internal conflicts. Marginalized communities should instead cooperate in order to reach the collective goal of eliminating white supremacist structures in government.