{"id":381388,"date":"2026-06-30T23:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T23:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/381388\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T23:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T23:55:09","slug":"la-city-council-pulls-noncitizen-voting-lapd-measures-from-november-ballot-daily-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/381388\/","title":{"rendered":"LA City Council pulls noncitizen voting, LAPD measures from November ballot \u2013 Daily News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday pulled three proposed charter amendments, sending measures on noncitizen voting<\/a> and City Council authority over Los Angeles Police Department policy<\/a> back to committee for further study.<\/p>\n

The votes marked a reversal from council\u2019s action on June 17, when the panel gave preliminary approval to the proposals<\/a> and directed the City Attorney to prepare final ballot language for the Nov. 3 election.<\/p>\n

Council members voted unanimously to refer back to the council\u2019s Ad Hoc Committee on Charter Review two measures that would have allowed non-U.S. citizens to vote in city and Los Angeles Unified School District elections.<\/p>\n

In a separate 8-6 vote, the council also sent back a proposed charter amendment that would have extended the council\u2019s authority to adopt ordinances establishing policies for the LAPD, after concerns were raised about potential litigation from the Los Angeles Police Protective League over the city\u2019s handling of the proposal.<\/p>\n

The council otherwise advanced the remainder of a package of charter amendments that would ask voters to weigh changes affecting city planning, ethics rules, infrastructure and budgeting, recreation and parks funding, the Port of Los Angeles and Los Angeles World Airports, and campaign finance rules for Los Angeles Unified School District elections.<\/p>\n

The proposals on noncitizen voting<\/a> promoted debate among supporters and skeptics alike<\/p>\n

Councilmember John Lee, who voted against the noncitizen voting measure on June 17, urged colleagues to send them back for additional review, arguing the city had not adequately addressed legal, fiscal, administrative and privacy questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmpowering unknown future council members to alter major election laws ordinances, including voting eligibility, the use of separate ballots, and vote-counting processes, will inevitably be viewed by some as benefiting allies or harming opponents, regardless of the actual intent,\u201d he said. \u201cThat perception alone will undermine public confidence in our elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee pointed to San Francisco\u2019s experience administering noncitizen voting in school board elections, noting that the city \u2014 the only California city that currently allows noncitizen voting \u2014 warns prospective noncitizen voters on its registration form and election website that personal information they provide may be obtained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as other agencies. He argued those concerns must be addressed before Los Angeles asked voters to approve a similar system.<\/p>\n

Councilmember Traci Park, who voted to advance the proposal earlier this month, said reviewing the final ballot language convinced her the measure required substantially more work before being presented to voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy concern here is that if this goes to the ballot, the voters won\u2019t really know what they\u2019re voting for, because we don\u2019t really know either,\u201d she said. \u201cIf this passed, how are we going to protect people from the feds using it to target them? We don\u2019t know, and we don\u2019t have any control over what could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Park said fundamental questions remained unresolved, including who would be eligible to vote, how a noncitizen voting system would be administered, whether Los Angeles County could conduct a separate election and what safeguards would protect immigrants\u2019 personal information.<\/p>\n

The proposal\u2019s sponsor, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, ultimately agreed.<\/p>\n

Soto-Martinez said he still believes noncitizens who live, work and pay taxes in Los Angeles should eventually be allowed to vote in local elections. But he said he wanted more time to build support and address concerns raised by some communities before asking voters to amend the charter.<\/p>\n

Although Soto-Martinez dismissed some of the objections raised during the debate as \u201cfear mongering,\u201d he said organizers should not move ahead before building broader consensus, particularly after concerns were raised by some Black community groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want this to be something that gets pushed through, that is seen as something negative for the city of Los Angeles,\u201d he said. \u201cI want when we do get to this point and we pass it, that people are brought in together, and we can have a big celebration about what Los Angeles means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson also backed referring the measures to committee, saying the city should take additional time to develop the proposals before asking voters to amend the city charter.<\/p>\n

The delayed measures would have amended the City Charter to give the council authority to adopt future ordinances allowing non-U.S. citizens to vote in city elections and, separately, in Los Angeles Unified School District board elections. The charter amendments themselves would not have automatically expanded voting eligibility but would have authorized the council to do so through future ordinances.<\/p>\n

The LAPD proposal also stalled after Councilmember Tim McOsker moved to send it back to committee. Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez voiced their objections, arguing voters should be allowed to decide whether the council should have a greater role in setting general police policy.<\/p>\n

Soto-Martinez said the proposal had been discussed through the charter reform process and argued that concerns about whether the city needed to meet and confer with the Los Angeles Police Protective League had been addressed. Hernandez said the measure would not give council members authority over discipline or day-to-day operations, but would allow them to help shape general policy.<\/p>\n

The motion to refer back to committee passed 8-6, with Councilmembers Hernandez, Soto-Martinez, Ysable Jurado, Imelda Padilla, Nithya Raman, Katy Yaroslavsky voting no.<\/p>\n

The council also certified the results of the June 2 city primary and special elections during Tuesday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday pulled three proposed charter amendments, sending measures on noncitizen voting and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7,179,138,204,48,52,51,1071,205,47,5436,137,141044,50,49,100,13,136],"class_list":["post-381388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-california","tag-community","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-election","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-local-government","tag-local-politics","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-city-council","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-los-angeles-county-elections","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}