Robert Greene is an independent journalist and 2026-27 fellow for the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, which supports his ongoing examination of Los Angeles as it rethinks and remakes how it is governed. You can find his work at LosAngelesRules.com.
A brand-new Los Angeles County Ethics Commission is currently in formation, with three appointees already confirmed by the Board of Supervisors. Those three will nominate four others and send their names to the board as well. The commission is expected to begin its work before the end of the year.
Los Angeles County Measure E on the Nov. 3 ballot would give the commission greater independence and structure. Who wouldn’t want that?
It also includes a requirement that the county “continue” its “commitment to community investment and alternatives to incarceration.” That sounds good too.
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But wait. How is an Ethics Commission related to community investment and incarceration? Why are these things lumped into the same measure?
And why do we have to vote to continue anything? Back in 2020, we approved “community investment and alternatives to incarceration” programs – officially known as Care First Community Investment, and more colloquially as Care First, Jails Last – and made them perpetual. They were on the ballot as Measure J. Why are we voting on that again?
And come to think of it, didn’t we already approve an independent county Ethics Commission? Wasn’t that a major plank in Measure G, the governance overhaul that voters passed two years ago limiting the power of the Board of Supervisors by putting into place an elected county executive in 2028?
The answer to all of these questions is that Measure E is Los Angeles County’s bucket, mop and clean-up crew. It corrects significant drafting and filing blunders in the earlier ballot measures – so significant that they could undo what voters chose.
To understand why, we have to go back to 2020.
That’s when the Board of Supervisors went to the ballot with Measure J, which amended the charter to require the board to spend 10% of annual locally generated unrestricted county revenue to Care First programs.
Golden State staff
For whatever reason – pandemic and lockdown chaos, online-only board meetings, lack of administrative or legal diligence – the charter language didn’t get filed with state officials after the election, as required, and it wasn’t added to the charter document.
Four years later, the Measure J oversight was compounded when Measure G, the governance overhaul, was drafted and adopted. Adding an elected executive to the county hierarchy requires entirely revising the powers and duties of the supervisors in the county charter. The changes Measure G mandated, however, mistakenly overwrote the provision that the board must fund Care First programs.
The upshot is that Measure G accidentally threw out Measure J. Oops.
Measure G had other technical problems. It promised an “independent Ethics Commission” by this year, but the fine print failed to include the necessary charter amendments that would provide that independence.
That leaves the Board of Supervisors with the power to hire the commission director – officially, the ethics compliance officer – now. Later, that authority passes to the new county executive. In both instances, instead of operating as an independent watchdog, the Ethics Commission is under the thumbs of the very same politicians whose campaign accounts and official conduct it is supposed to be scrutinizing.
Even the commission’s legal advisers – the Los Angeles County Counsel’s Office – are also the politicians’ advisers, sitting for all practical purposes on both sides of the table during any investigation or enforcement proceeding.
That’s not the “independence” Measure G voters had in mind.
Jon Regardie
An advisory implementation team known as the Governance Reform Task Force spent months studying how to put the Measure G ethics reforms in place. It designed a seven-member commission with power to hire its own staff and lawyer. But late in the process – very late – the team was advised that the deficiencies in Measure G’s details meant that the county charter did not actually permit any such independence.
Measure E would patch the J and G screw-ups: re-amending the county charter to permit the Ethics Commission to operate with the freedom voters thought they had already given it. It would also codify Measure J’s Care First spending requirement, as per voters’ wishes in 2020.
If you want your Ethics Commission to be largely independent and you also want a spending floor for Care First, Measure E was made for you. Despite its convoluted origins, think E for Easy as well as Ethics.
But if you don’t want a county Ethics Commission at all, or you want it but you don’t also want a portion of county funds to be applied to Care First programs in perpetuity – after all, such directives strip the board of its duty to make spending decisions and cement a budget priority no matter changing conditions – the county has you over a barrel.
Measure J’s emphasis away from incarceration was unpopular with law enforcement leaders and unions, who saw it as part of the “defund the police” movement. If it went to the ballot today, perhaps it would pass again – but then again, perhaps not. Voter attitudes in 2026 aren’t the same as they were in 2020.
Defeating Measure E would leave the Care First funding requirement to the courts, which would consider the legal issues raised by the failure to get the voters directive securely into the charter.
Meanwhile, the county’s ethics situation would be … unethical.
There would still be a commission but its enforcement and legal staff would be hired and fired by the politicians it was meant to oversee. A clear case of foxes guarding the henhouse. We would be better off with no Ethics Commission at all. But that’s no longer an option, because Measure G mandates that we have a commission.
Jim Newton
And here’s yet another wrinkle to Measure E. You might think that the state Constitution’s single-subject rule for ballot measures would mean that a vote related to an Ethics Commission wouldn’t be shoehorned into a vote requiring that the county spend its money a certain way. Why isn’t the rule coming into play here?
It’s because the single-subject rule applies only to initiatives – measures placed on the ballot by voter petition. Lawmakers can group multiple topics into a single measure.
Los Angeles County has decided to partially disempower its Board of Supervisors, and elect a very powerful executive. If you want the supervisors and the county executive to be held accountable – and you do – you’ll probably want to vote for Measure E, even if you’re miffed that earlier county errors and omissions make it necessary.
As for the second part of the measure, Care First programs at least further the county’s mission, and by putting an independent Ethics Commission in place, Measure E can help assure that all that spending remains above board.
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