If the Los Angeles City Council members caught on a recording making racist and vicious comments about their colleagues and constituents were hoping that the uproar would blow over and they could return to their positions of power, they need to face these hard truths:
Public indignation is not dissipating; it’s growing. Nury Martinez, Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo have lost the trust of the public, as well as the support of virtually every Democrat everywhere. Their political careers are effectively over — even President Joe Biden said, through his press secretary, that they should step down. They are not victims. They are public servants who have gravely harmed the city and the people they are supposed to represent.
On Wednesday afternoon, Martinez, the ringleader of that conversation, finally did the right thing and stepped down. L.A. County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, who joined the elected officials in the taped conversation at the private meeting in October 2021, resigned the day before.
