What Do City Council Members Do?

Council members are in charge of creating all laws that legislate how civilians and businesses operate, as well as overseeing and giving final approval on budgets for the City of Los Angeles. Within their own district, Councilmembers wield significant power, especially over how and which development projects are approved. 

Within the City Council, there is a Council President. The position of Council President rivals the influence of the Mayor. The presidency is an official position decided by a vote of all the Councilmembers. Paul Krekorian became Council President in 2022 after the former Council President Nury Martinez resigned in disgrace after a wide rage of people and organizations, including President Biden, called for her to step down due to her bigoted and hateful comments in a private conversation with Councilmembers Kevin De Leon and Gil Cedillo that was recorded and leaked to the press.

Like most legislative branches of government, the Council conducts its work through a system of committees. Most Councilmembers chair at least one committee and serve on many others. Committee assignments and leadership positions reflect a combination of personal interest, relevance to their district, seniority, and power. Some committees are much more powerful and desirable than others across the board. Some of this power is because of the jurisdiction the Councilmembers have over the topic area - it could be that the topic area is reliant on a City department and not the City Council, making the power of the committee less than something the City Council has most power over (such as zoning and land use).

These are the current standing committees:

• Budget & Finance

• Economic Development

• Energy, Climate Change, and Environment Justice

• Health, Education, Neighborhoods, Parks, Arts, and River

• Homelessness and Poverty

• Housing; Immigrant Affairs, Civil Rights, and Equity

• Information, Technology, and General Services

You can find a list of the standing committees, who leads them, and when they regularly meet here.

The Council may also create ad hoc committees for a specific, short-term purpose. Former Council President Nury Martinez established a Committee on COVID-19 Recovery & Neighborhood Investment. This committee — instead of the budget committee or other standing committees — has the power to decide how to spend almost all the money coming from the federal government to deal with the financial and economic consequences of the pandemic.

Who Do They Represent?

Cumulatively the City Council represents the entirety of the City of Los Angeles, which covers roughly 4 million people. Each Councilmember represents more than 270,000 people who live within their district. This makes it nearly impossible for a councilmember to know the needs of every community within their district. Councilmembers are eligible to serve a maximum of three, four-year terms.

The maximum campaign contribution limit is $800 per person or entity. Thanks to new campaign finance rules won by a large coalition of groups, the first $129 of a LA City resident’s contribution can be matched by public funds at a 6:1 rate. This can be a major help to grassroots candidates running against incumbents and establishment favorites.

City Councilmembers

• District 1 — Eunisses Hernandez

• District 2 — Paul Krekorian

• District 3 — Bob Blumenfield

• District 4 — Nithya Raman

• District 5 — Katy Yaroslavsky

• District 6 — Imelda Padilla

• District 7 — Monica Rodriguez

• District 8 — Marqueece Harris-Dawson

• District 9 — Curren D. Price, Jr.

• District 10 — Heather Hutt

• District 11 — Traci Park

• District 12 — John Lee

• District 13 — Hugo Soto-Martinez

• District 14 — Kevin De Leon   

• District 15 — Tim McCosker

Each Councilmember’s office has their own planning director and deputies that oversee their district’s zoning and project development.  This fact gives you a sense of the power each one has over their own district from individual development projects to zoning of dozens of square miles to whether a bike lane is built.

Another way we can see the power of Council overall and the power of Councilmembers as individuals in how programs of all kinds, small and large, are administered in a way that spreads resources equally to all 15 City Council districts, rather than equitably on the basis of where the needs are largest and the opportunity for greatest impact. This system leads to resources for wealthy parts of the city that aren’t actually in need of them.

Tips for Advocacy

The way that the City Council as whole operates has shifted over the years. Full City Council meetings featured passionate debates for many decades. When Eric Garcetti became Council President in 2006 he brought a consensus-building approach that sought to reach widespread support for measures before they were brought to a full council vote. When Herb Wesson took over in 2012, he doubled down on this trend with a harder-edged approach that meant that almost nothing came before the full council unless it had more than 12 of the 15 votes. 

Nury Martinez became Council President and Joe Buscaino became Council President Pro Tempore in January 2020 and with the eruption of the pandemic crisis only 10 weeks into their leadership, we witnessed more fervent disagreement on full council votes than the city had seen in a long while. For a period of time, we were seeing narrow 8-7 and 7-6 votes on major policy measures. After Martinez stepped down amid the leaked audio of her making racist and other outrageous remarks in October 2022, Paul Krekorian became Council President. Since the election of new cohort of more progressive councilmembers in November 2022, the council has remained split into three rough factions — a progressive bloc (including Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez, Nithya Raman and Katy Yaroslavsky), a conservative bloc (including Traci Park, John Lee and Monica Rodriguez) a group of swing votes which tends to include Krekorian, Blumenfield, and McCosker.

To learn more about upcoming meetings you can subscribe to Council Meeting Agendas here.