March 02, 2017 

LAWT News Service  

The County of Los Angeles filed suit Monday against the State of California seeking to invalidate a new law that discriminates against independent voters, strips local control from local voters concerning the process of re-drawing the county’s supervisorial districts, and makes that process much more political, not less. 

The complaint, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, seeks an order declaring that the law created by State Senate Bill 958 last year is unconstitutional, and seeks a permanent injunction barring its implementation. 

The county contends that the law is patently unworkable and unconstitutional. It is being unfairly and unnecessarily forced on the residents of Los Angeles County and over the objections of their duly elected representatives. 

Specifically, the new law violates two sections of the State Constitution, one that prohibits the legislature from imposing special laws on particular counties (Article IV, Section 16); the other requires county offices to be nonpartisan (Article II, Section 6). SB 958 also contradicts the voter-approved County Charter, which assigns the job of re-districting to the Board of Supervisors. 

The new law creates a commission whose membership is based on political party registration, which discriminates against independent voters (those who register to vote with no party preference). These voters make up 25% of the registered voters in the County – more than 1 million in total. The new 14-member Citizen Redistricting Committee is to be responsible for creating County Supervisor district boundaries after each U.S. Census every 10 years. 

Based on current registration numbers, 70% of the commission members would be Democrats, 25% Republicans, and 5% would be from other, smaller political parties. Voters who registered without a party preference – the fastest-growing segment of newly registered voters – will not be given equal consideration. 

According to the suit, this new law imposes on the citizens of Los Angeles County an experimental system to select a citizen redistricting commission based on luck and chance, not proper public deliberation. County voters cannot change the law if they are dissatisfied. 

By contrast, the last apportionment, which was based on the 2010 Census, included extensive input from County voters and was never challenged in court. 

Supporters of SB 958 pushed the measure through the state Legislature in Sacramento without holding any meetings in Los Angeles County and over the objection of County Supervisors. Also opposed to the measure were the California State Association of Counties, the Urban Counties of California, the County of Riverside, Common Cause and the Los Angeles Times editorial board.

Backers of the measure say it was modeled after Prop. 11, narrowly approved by California voters in 2008, which established a statewide citizens redistricting commission for state offices. But the Los Angeles County lawsuit illustrates stark differences between Prop. 11 and SB 958 in asking the courts to invalidate the new law as discriminatory, unconstitutional and fundamentally unfair.

March 02, 2017

A human tragedy of major proportions has been growing steadily in Los Angeles County with no signs of declining, despite the slow but encouraging economic rebound from the Great Recession that hit our nation, state and local community with full force in 2009.

The heart-breaking tragedy of homelessness in our community, and the ever-rising number of men, woman, veterans and children living on streets, in storefront entryways, beneath freeway overpasses or in vehicles park in our neighborhoods demands our swift and compassionate social service response.

Measure H on the Tuesday, March 7 countywide ballot is the appropriate and caring public policy step forward to address homelessness among residents in our community and county.

The statistics on homelessness are shocking: 47,000 people are homeless on any given night in L.A. County, including 4,000 children. A stunning figure that is 6% higher than the countywide count of homeless individuals in 2015 and 19% higher than the county’s homeless population in 2013. African Americans make up 39% of L.A. County’s homeless residents. Women comprise more than 33% of L.A. County’s homeless population.

The L.A. County Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) conducted its 2017 count of homeless residents in January, aided by thousands of volunteers that canvassed every community. When the final count totals for this year’s county homeless population are revealed, no one expects those figures to show a countywide drop in homeless families.

It is time to act. We have a crisis of human proportions that L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas has called, “The moral issue of our generation.” Ridley-Thomas and his elected colleagues on the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to place Measure H on the March 7 county election ballot. The Board of Supervisors is strongly urging county voters to approve Measure H.

Measure H would generate funds to provide long term housing solutions, mental health care, job training and proven homelessness prevention programs. Prominent political, community, civic and ecumenical leaders throughout the African American community in L.A. County have endorsed the Yes on H campaign to pass Measure H.

The L.A. Watts Times joins with the impressive list of local leaders by adding our endorsement to the Yes on H effort. We urge all voters in L.A. County to cast their vote for Yes on H on Election Day on Tuesday March 7.  We ask you to vote Yes on H and to do so with a deep and abiding compassion for those residents who are less fortunate than you may be; particularly if you’re a voter in our community who has a safe, secure and warm place to call home each night.

March 02, 2017

By Brandon I. Brooks Managing Editor

and Kimberlee Buck Contributing Writer

As we approach the March 7th elections, the Los Angeles Sentinel Newspaper sat down with one of the leading voices for both Black Los Angeles and Los Angeles Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson to discuss the legalization of marijuana, Proposition HHH, Measure H, Measure S, and his plans to tackle the issue of homelessness throughout his administration.

“We are whole-heartedly in favor of Measure H, you might remember, I authored Proposition HHH on the Los Angeles City ballot where we got 76 percent of the vote to build housing for homeless people,” said Harris-Dawson. “Home­lessness is such a rough issue that Angelenos and people around the area, are willing to reach into their pockets and pay a little bit extra to see if we can take care of the problem. Measure H is an addendum or the other leg on the stool of Measure HHH, it will provide services especially in Los Angeles at permanent supportive housing sites for people who need mental health services or social work services or other kinds of services if they are disabled or if they need medical services, we can get those on site where the housing is built.”

“In addition, there will be some resources for smaller cities that maybe can’t do a Proposition HHH to be able to build housing,” said Harris-Dawson. “All of the homeless people that are in Compton don’t have to go to Inglewood, or to Gardena or to Los Angeles. The city of Compton will actually be able to work together with the County and be able to build housing there, and in Inglewood, Cerritos and wherever else. So we need to make sure everyone gets out and casts their vote for Measure H.”

Recently, Councilmember Har­ris-Dawson and other South Los Angeles community leaders gathered on the site of 150 units of affordable senior housing along the Metro-Crenshaw line taking their stand against Measure S.

“Measure S is very much connected to homelessness, said Harris-Dawson.” “I think this is one of the things we are doing to make the homelessness problem far worse in Los Angeles. What Measure S does is put a cap on virtually all developments that you might see in the city of Los Angeles for the foreseeable future. For instance, we just passed Proposition HHH, most of the sites we would build on, Measure S would knock out. We would lose almost 800 units for homeless people this is not to mention in my community, grocery stores, coffee shops, good places for young people to go, all the things we need in a community. The activity in those would be put on lock, all because a few people in Hollywood or other parts of the city have taken the position that they got their piece of the pie so they don’t want anybody else to get anything because they might have to share the roads, or they might have to share the air space or they might have to share the scenic views. We think Measure S stands for selfish.”

Harris-Dawson compares Measure S to hitting a fly on the table with a sledgehammer.

“Two things are going to happen. One, I am definitely going to destroy the table and two I am not likely to hit the fly,” said Harris-Dawson. “I think Measure S is not likely to solve the problems that people want. Measure S is not going to make traffic go away and Measure S isn’t going to make it so there won’t be developments that you don’t like in your neighborhoods.”

According to Councilmember Harris-Dawson, Measure S will destroy the relationship or system that has been built for years, where planners make decisions and neighborhood make decisions about how they want their neighborhood to look going forward.            

Currently America has been under the Trump Administration for more than 40 days and although the November presidential election is over, Councilmember Harris-Dawson encourages voters that there is no reason to hold back in their fight.

“Many people have said over the years, well if I was back in the civil rights movement or if I was back in slavery or if I was back in this era, I would have done x, I would have y. Well now we get to see what you would have done because it is here,” said Harris-Dawson. “I think Donald Trump represents what America looks like on drugs essentially completely incompetent, extremist, arrogant and dictatorial, doing everything he can to set up a dictatorship here in the United States is something I frankly don’t think the American people will tolerate, and doing it in both unethical and what appears to be unlawful way. In Los Angeles, we set up an office of immigrant affairs, we kind of said to the Trump Administration don’t come for us or our neighbors whether they have papers or not, we don’t need you, we don’t get down like that and we are going to do everything we can to prevent you from doing that.”

Councilmember Harris-Daw­son goes on to say he will continue to fight and he encourages everyday people to fight as well.

During the November 2016 election, marijuana was legalized, this year, the topic will be revisited on the March 7th ballot giving the city the tools to regulate the legalized drug. 

“The people who benefit from the legalization of marijuana ought to look at least something like the people who paid the price when it wasn’t legal,” said Harris-Dawson. “Our people have experience in it, we paid the price for it, we know the market for it, you can’t argue that anyone is more qualified.”

“In Los Angeles, we are trying to create an opportunity to do two things, said Harris-Dawson. “One to make sure that we have a regulatory system that makes sense so that we can’t have one part of the city that has all of these businesses and other parts of the city that don’t. We want to make sure that they are spread out, managed well with great opening and closing times, good security. We also want to pay attention to the county because the county will be responsible for the public health risks. So the labeling has to be right and the marketing has to be right.”

Safety is a big issue in South L.A. To help manage the issues, the city encourages residents to get to know their neighbors, participate in community coalition programs, gang intervention programs to help keep the streets of L.A. safe.

“The more everyday people are doing everyday things, the less violence and criminal activity you have,” said Harris-Dawson.

Moving forward, residents under district 8 can expect Council­member Harris-Dawson to focus on the Crenshaw line, tackling unemployment and safety.

“The Crenshaw line is going to reshape our community for generations to come and a year after all of us are long gone,” said Harris-Dawson. “There is no job generator like we will do in the public sector, I want to make sure our people are at the front of the line for the jobs that we know are coming. We also want to continue holding a high standard around public safety. We cannot live with this situation, ‘well we only had a few murders.’ We have to continue to press around gun violence, smart policing, and smart community involvement.”