Panel OKs Retooled Proposal for Charter

Los Angeles’ elected charter reform commission approved a complicated package Monday aimed at reaching as much consensus as possible with the appointed commission on a plan to rewrite the city constitution.

The package by no means assures that consensus. It includes conditions that are likely to rankle the appointed commission, and even some supporters of the deal acknowledged that it still could unravel.

The proposal now moves to the appointed group, which will consider it Wednesday. If the appointed commission does not support that approach, voters might still be asked to choose between two different charters, one written by each commission.

If that panel does agree to it and the City Council also leaves that agreement intact, voters would probably have the chance in June to consider one largely agreed upon charter as well as separate ballot measures to increase the size of the City Council, to grant the mayor unfettered firing authority over department heads, and to create elected neighborhood councils.

“The charter that the appointed commission approved unanimously last week is the unified charter,” said George Kieffer, chairman of the appointed panel. “The elected commission is adopting something else. . . . This risks opening up the whole process.”

Monday’s vote came less than a week after the elected commission rejected a compromise with its appointed counterpart. But as is the habit of the elected commission, the key vote came only after confusion and what passes for drama in the charter reform debate.

First was a spirited discussion about one alternative, a measure backed so enthusiastically by Commissioner Bennett Kayser that he yelled out his motion without waiting to be recognized. When that proposal failed to win a majority, the commission moved to another alternative, only to then entertain a last-minute suggestion that the panel stop tinkering with its drafts and simply approve the compromise package adopted last week by the appointed panel.

Mayor Richard Riordan had fought hard to avoid that scenario, but one of his strongest commission supporters, Rob Glushon, shocked Riordan allies when he allowed it to come to a vote, apparently believing he would prevail. It failed by a single vote.

Once it had lost, the commissioners finally found a solution they could live with. By a 12-1 vote, the panel supported a deal crafted largely by Glushon.

“It’s always been characteristic of this commission that we always do things the hard way,” Chairman Erwin Chemerinsky said after the vote.

Under the proposal, the elected commission agreed to most of the compromise charter hammered out by leaders of the two commissions and adopted by the appointed panel. But in order to sign on with that deal, a majority of the elected commissioners demanded that voters be given the chance to approve separate measures on creating elected neighborhood councils and on allowing the city’s mayor to dismiss department heads without City Council intervention.

In addition, the elected commissioners insisted on two amendments to the main body of the compromise charter. One would weaken the council’s power to overturn decisions by city commissions, and the other would let the mayor fire members of all commissions at will.

Backers of that package approved it to pave the way for a largely unified deal, but they may not succeed. The appointed commission has considered those ideas and rejected them, and some members of the appointed commission resent their counterparts’ attempts to dictate terms for a continued discussion.

The conditions that the elected commission attached to its support for the unified charter may be particularly irritating to their appointed counterparts in the areas of mayoral power over commissioners and council power to review commission actions. One elected commissioner, Jackie Dupont-Walker, characterized those as “poison pills.”

The appointed commission’s executive director, Raphael Sonenshein, was in the audience for the vote, but declined afterward to predict how his panel would react to the conditions attached Monday.

Still, it was evident from the elected commission’s discussion that a majority of that panel was not prepared to support the unified charter as written. As a result, some advocates of a compromise package, including Chemerinsky, urged adoption of the proposals Monday as the only real chance for a show of unity.

When it came time for him to speak, Chemerinsky managed both to lambaste the proposal and urge its passage--an approach that would seem strange anywhere else but conformed with the Alice in Wonderland logic that sometimes carries the day on divisive charter issues.

“I want to strongly urge my fellow commissioners to adopt this proposal,” Chemerinsky said. “I don’t like many aspects of it. I don’t like it strategically. I don’t like it substantively.”

But Chemerinsky added that he would support the measure because without it, all chances of compromise with the appointed commission would be gone.