L.A.'s First-Ever Civic Assembly Calls for Expanding the City Council—And Watching It More Closely
2026 Los Angeles City Charter Civic Assembly
Final Recommendations
March 8, 2026
The following Recommendations were created and approved by the 2026 Los Angeles City Charter Civic Assembly. The Assembly addressed the following question: “What should be the size and structure of the Los Angeles City Council?”
The Recommendations below were written by the Assembly’s Delegates after approximately 26 hours of in-person information gathering, deliberation, and decision making between Feb. 28 and March 8. The Assembly heard from 17 informational presenters and reviewed many supporting documents. The Assembly identified 68 initial policy concepts and worked to refine these into a slate of Final Recommendations through a multi-stage small- and large-group deliberative process. These Final Recommendations were supported by 31 of 35 voting Delegates (that is, 89%) at the end of the Assembly. With the exception of this explanatory text preamble, this report is composed exclusively of the words of Delegates themselves, with no additions, deletions, or edits of any kind by staff.
The official recipient of these Recommendations is the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission, which committed to receiving the results and thoroughly considering them as the Commission prepares its own final recommendations for the Los Angeles City Council on proposed changes to the City Charter. This Assembly was a project of Rewrite LA, a coalition of several nonprofits and individuals working to expand public participation in the charter reform process. Rewrite LA includes Nick Goddard, Joe Mathews, and leaders of Public Democracy Los Angeles, Metagov, Healthy Democracy, and Sortition USA. This Civic Assembly was funded by contributions from local individual donors and foundations – including the Broad Foundation, the California Wellness Foundation, and the Berggruen Institute.
Assembly Delegates were selected from among respondents to a postcard mailed to 20,000 residential addresses equally distributed across each Council district in the City of Los Angeles – as well as to outreach in partnership with social service organizations to residents without addresses. Delegates were randomly selected from this respondent pool to reflect a microcosm of the city in terms of age, gender, race/ethnicity, location of residence, political party, housing status, and educational attainment. Healthy Democracy, which designed and coordinated both the selection process and the in-room deliberations, will release a final Demographic Profile of the Assembly soon. This Profile, as well as all further communication related to the Assembly, will be posted at healthydemocracy.org/LA.
Recommendations:
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Establish a permanent civic assembly, randomly selected to reflect LA demographics, to review, advise, and refer Council decisions back for consideration, with a minimum of two assemblies per year.
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The City Council should be 25 single-member districts. The office of City Council president should randomly rotate between members with nonconsecutive terms ending at the end of each session, including special sessions.
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As population increases per the U.S. Census, the size of the City Council should automatically increase. There should be no more than 170,000 people per district.
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Councilmembers must live in their respective district for at least one year prior to the election.
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Councilmembers and the Mayor will no longer have appointment powers to the Ethics Commission.
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Create an independent, nonpartisan office of the Inspector General with the authority to investigate, audit, and refer for prosecution any City employee, whether they be elected or appointed. The Inspector General will lead the Ethics Commission.
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Voting will be done by ranked choice.
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One council size option should be presented for the vote, Language shall include that an increase in City Council membership is an increase in representation.
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Hire a qualified COO and CFO independently, not appointed by the mayor or City Council.
The delegates agreed on 9 things. Some delegates will discuss the recommendations on Tuesday, March 10 at a hearing of the Los Angeles Charter Review Commission, an appointed city body.
