Two Los Angeles city councilmembers have been removed from their committee roles after they were caught on tape in a conversation in which city leaders used racist and disparaging language about constituents and colleagues in a scandal that has thrown LA politics into turmoil.
Mitch O’Farrell, the acting city council president, announced on Monday that he would cut Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo from their committee assignments, the Los Angeles Times reported. De León chairs the committee on poverty and homelessness and has roles on committees dealing with finance, public works and environmental issues while Cedillo oversees the housing committee and serves on committees overseeing immigrant rights and environmental issues.
The move means the pair’s influence in city hall has dwindled and they have largely become token figures, unable to participate in the day-to-day work of the council and unwanted in council chambers, where their appearance is likely to cause an uproar.
“These members have lost all credibility, all standing,” O’Farrell said during a news conference at city hall. O’Farrell said the only path forward was through their resignation or a recall election in the case of De León, whose term ends in 2024. Cedillo lost his seat in the primary and will be replaced in December.
Over the last week, De León and Cedillo have resisted calls to resign over their comments crudely discussing Black voters and Indigenous residents of LA in a conversation about redistricting. They apologized for their role in the conversation last week.
The city council meetings in the immediate aftermath were rocked by protests from LA residents. De León and Cedillo briefly attended an 11 October meeting but left amid jeers from protesters. Demonstrators with Black Lives Matter Los Angeles have been camped outside De León’s home since the weekend.
Nury Martinez, the former council president, resigned from the council last week and apologized for her comments, including mocking the Black son of a white councilman. Ron Herrera, who was also featured in the recording, stepped down from his role as the president of the Los Angeles county federation of labor. Neither De León nor Cedillo objected to Martinez’s comments on the tape, and both at times laughed and joined in.
The conversation, which was made public in leaked audio, sparked outrage and days of protest in the second largest city in the US. Joe Biden and other top Democrats, including California’s governor, had urged the trio to resign.
The recording captured top political officials in the city using racist language as they strategized about how to protect Latino political strength in council districts at all costs. California’s attorney general has announced he will investigate Los Angeles’s redistricting process.
O’Farrell has pledged to guide the city through the political upheaval and had urged the councilmembers to resign.
“For Los Angeles to heal, and for its city council to govern, there must be accountability. The resignation of councilmember Nury Martinez is the first, necessary step in that process,” he said last week. “To that end, I repeat my call on Councilmembers De León and Cedillo to also resign. There is no other way forward.”
Cedillo is “reconciling his feelings about this transgression and understood the gravity of the moment”, O’Farrell said. The acting council president said he had not been able to reach De León.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
This article was amended on 17 October 2022 to correct a headline that implied the members had been removed from their posts entirely.
