I have a question about the L.A. City Council scandal

[ripcord]

Why were these council people discussing redistricting at a union's headquarters with just them and the union's president in attendance? Is this what the California State AG investigating?

[HeartachesNhangovers]

1. A possible violation is of the "Brown Act", a CA law that prohibits officials from "local agencies"

including cities and counties, from taking official actions except at public meetings. Wikipedia has a Brown Act entry. Basically, the Brown Act prohibits closed-door meetings that involve or affect official actions.

I worked at a regional government agency in CA for 26 years. Whenever staffers, like me, met with the politicians on our board at a non-public meeting, we had to have our legal department review the agenda to ensure we weren't discussing something like a proposed rule that was required to only be debated and approved/disapproved in a public meeting.

Another possibility is illegal horse-trading, where a city council member, for example, agrees to take some official action (e.g. voting yes on a specific piece of legislation) in return for some consideration (e.g. a redistricting action that would benefit them).

[ripcord]

2. Thank you