Los Angeles County voters will decide whether to approve Measure G, an amendment that would change the composition of the Board of Supervisors by nearly doubling its five seats to nine, a move that advocates say will better provide residents with adequate representation.
The Los Angeles County Charter, adopted in 1912, established the five-member Board of Supervisors at a time when the county’s population hovered around 500,000.
With nearly 10 million residents living in the same area, each supervisor currently represents approximately two million people, a tough task for supervisors looking to meet the needs of their constituents when it comes to local laws.
Measure G, officially called the “Los Angeles County Government Structure, Ethics and Accountability Charter Amendment,” was proposed in 2023 by Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn. advanced by Horvath, Hahn and supervisor Hilda Solis in Junewith board members Holly Mitchell and Kathryn Barger abstaining.
Supporters believe the measure would not only allow supervisors to provide deeper representation to residents of their sprawling districts, but say it would also give voters better access to their elected officials.
In addition to increasing the number of supervisors, Measure G also aims to replace a county-appointed chief executive with a voter-approved representative and would create a new ethics commission for the conduct of police officers.
LA County voters have rejected the idea of expanding the Board of Supervisors eight times since 1926, most recently in 2000.
Opponents, including Barger and Holly Mitchell, question whether the changes would actually come at no cost to taxpayers and county funds.
“I just think it’s too much risk for us to take a bite of the apple, which is not absolutely ideal,” Mitchell said in June.
Horvath said the proposed changes would not impose any tax increases on voters and would be implemented at no additional cost to the public.
“We will use our existing budget and reallocate resources to implement the measure,” she said at a meeting in June.
