California lawmakers call for resignations after LA City Council racist comments
Leaked audio of Los Angeles City Council members making racist comments roiled California politics Monday, with multiple officials calling for the members’ resignations, including Sen. Alex Padilla.
The audio, brought to light by the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, captured a conversation from about a year ago concerning redistricting between Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez, Council members Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera.
Martinez — who has since resigned as president, though not relinquished her seat — can be heard using racist and derisive terms, joined by de León. The language included homophobic terminology toward another councilman; racist descriptions of his Black son; and harmful stereotypes of Indigenous people in the city’s Koreatown.
Response to the leak was swift, with protesters congregating outside City Hall calling for Martinez’s full resignation.
Multiple council members have condemned their conversation and asked Martinez, Cedillo and de León to resign.
Leaders for the California Democratic Party and the Los Angeles Democratic Party called for them to step down.
Padilla, a Democrat who served on the L.A. City Council from 1999-2006 and was its president for most of that tenure, wrote that he was “appalled at the racist, dehumanizing remarks.” He said that he was “especially offended that an innocent child was the target of these remarks.”
Padilla and Martinez attended the same high school. She worked for him when he was a California state senator.
“At a time when our nation is grappling with a rise in hate speech and hate crimes, these racist comments have deepened the pain that our communities have endured,” Padilla wrote in a statement posted to Twitter on Monday. “Los Angeles deserves better.”
Lawmakers weigh in
Gov. Gavin Newsom did not call for any formal resignations on Monday, but said he’s “encouraged” that Martinez, Cedillo and de León “have apologized and begun to take responsibility for their actions.”
“These comments have no place in our state, or in our politics,” he said.
Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis on Monday afternoon called for all four public officials to resign. The comments were “deeply troubling,” she said, especially for “the innocent child who was the target of this dehumanizing language.”
The California Legislative Black Caucus also called for an immediate resignation of all three council members and Herrera. In a statement posted to its Instagram page, members called the comments “reprehensible” not just for the racist comments but for homophobic comments, too.
“No matter how nuanced you try to spin it, repeatedly referring to the only two openly gay council members as ‘diva’ and ‘little bitch’ are just synonyms for more aggressive anti-gay hate speech,” they said.
The Chairman of the CLBC is Sen. Steven Bradford, who represents the 35th District, which includes LA neighborhoods like Compton, Inglewood, and Gardena.
“We expect more from our leaders – not just at the pulpit – when the cameras are rolling, but also behind closed doors,” Bradford wrote on Twitter Monday morning.
“How can we trust those who were elected to represent the diverse & complicated communities when we now know their true thoughts & minds? They cannot represent communities when they despise the individuals that make up that community.”
Malia Cohen, the current Chair of the Board of Equalization and candidate for State Controller, also called for all four resignations.
“Racism and homophobia have no place in California,” she wrote on Twitter.
Leaders of the powerful unions SEIU California and the California Federation of Teachers also denounced the language and called for the council members to step down.
In the recording
Martinez said in the recording that fellow Councilman Mike Bonin uses his Black, adopted son as an “accessory” and described him in Spanish as “parece changuito,” or “like a monkey.” Martinez further commented on Bonin’s parenting in relation to the child’s behavior on a parade float and called the councilman a “little bitch.”
Councilman de León chimed in, seemingly saying that Bonin handles his child like a designer handbag. He said that Bonin, who is white, was like the “fourth Black member” of the city council.
Separately, Martinez said of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón in comments about lending support to him: “F— that guy … He’s with the Blacks.”
The hour-long October 2021 conversation centered around redistricting, the once-a-decade redrawing of legislative boundaries. In the explicit conversation, the four partakers talk about getting the Latino council members re-elected and preserving assets in Latino-heavy districts. All of them are Latino.
Martinez also used a racist stereotype to describe members of the Oaxacan community who live in Koreatown while talking about how the area in Los Angeles should be handled in redistricting. “Tan feos,” she said of the community: “They are ugly.” Cedillo added further comments.
Martinez was talking about not wanting to give the area to Council member Nithya Raman, who is of South Asian descent, because that “solidifies her renters’ district.” A district holding a lot of people who rent homes would presumably favor a more politically progressive candidate for the council, which currently has 14 Democrats and one Independent.
Martinez issued a lengthy apology on Monday while announcing she would step down as president, in which she asks for forgiveness from colleagues and constituents.
“In the end, it is not my apologies that matter most; it will be the actions I take from this day forward,” she wrote. “I hope that you will give me the opportunity to make amends.”
Cedillo, de León and Herrera also issued apologies.
Local response
The recording, which had been circulating on Reddit before the poster was suspended, gained national attention via a report by the Los Angeles Times on Sunday. The paper’s editorial board called on Martinez, Cedillo and de León to resign the following day.
It is not clear who recorded the conversation or who the person on Reddit, who has since been suspended, is. Or if there were any other folks present during the conversation.
Bonin and his husband said in a statement that they “condemn the entirety of the recorded conversation, which displayed a repeated and vulgar anti-Black sentiment.”
“It hurts that some of our son’s earliest encounters with overt racism comes from some of the most powerful public officials in Los Angeles,” they wrote in a statement posted to Twitter on Sunday.
Bonin and Raman called on their colleagues to resign.
Gascón wrote on Twitter that he was “saddened & disappointed” by the comments.
“I share the outrage of Council member Bonin as well as all members of the African American community,” he posted on Sunday. “Anti-Blackness has no place in Los Angeles.”
Outgoing L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said, per local reporters, that “There is no place in our city family for attacks on colleagues and their loved ones, and there is no place for racism anywhere in L.A.” He initially did not say whether anyone should resign and his team did not immediately respond to a voicemail or email for comment, but on Monday afternoon he called for resignations.
“Stepping down from the council would be the right response by these members in a moment that demands accountability and healing at a time of great pain and deep disappointment,” he said.
Both candidates running to replace Garcetti — Congresswoman Karen Bass and businessman Rick Caruso — said that the council members should resign in statements posted to Twitter.
L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer, in calling for resignations, said: “The wounds from these hateful comments are profound and will continue to reverberate.”
“There can be no room for racism, or homophobia, in Los Angeles,” he wrote in a statement.
This story was originally published October 10, 2022 at 4:21 PM.
