LOS ANGELES — Three Los Angeles City Council members went to a squat office building near MacArthur Park last October to seek advice from an influential labor leader about solidifying their grip on power.
The strategy session was supposed to be a discreet backroom conversation, but as it got underway in a private room at the headquarters of the L.A. County Federation of Labor, someone was recording it. Over the next hour, a device captured the Democratic politicians and the labor leader, all Latino, speaking contemptuously about those they regarded as rivals or impediments. The recordings included racist, bigoted and crude remarks about Black, Jewish, Armenian, Indigenous and gay people.
“My goal in life is to get the three of you elected, and you know, I’m just focused on that,” Ron Herrera, president of the federation, told Councilmembers Nury Martinez, Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León at one point. “I mean, we’re like the little Latino caucus of, you know, our own.”
