This story was originally published by the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation.
Los Angeles County is on course to blow a voter-imposed deadline to get an independent Ethics Commission up and running by the end of the year – unless it asks voters to sign off on county ethics reform yet again, this time in the Nov. 3 election.
An independent Ethics Commission “to increase restrictions on lobbying and investigate misconduct” was an integral part of Measure G, the historic county government overhaul adopted by voters in November 2024 to expand the Board of Supervisors and create an elected county executive. A 13-member Governance Reform Task Force is advising the board on how best to flesh out and comply with the ballot measure’s requirements. It sent the supervisors an Ethics Commission proposal late last month.
The process has not been smooth. A number of Task Force members have become increasingly frustrated by the perceived untimeliness of county legal advice and inadequacy of county staff support. Simmering tension reached a boiling point at the panel’s April 8 meeting in Castaic, at which several members suggested that the county establishment may be trying to undermine the reforms already adopted by voters.
“In the process of developing the ethics recommendations, what I saw from various places within the county was a real interest in not advancing any real reform,” Task Force member Sara Sadhwani told her colleagues. “It became clear that having independence for the Ethics Commission, which was mandated in Measure G, was not an interest of other county departments.”
Continue reading at the John Randoph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation.