OP-ED: Why I Did Not Resign; Outgoing Council Member Issues Righteous Reality Check

 By Los Angeles City Councilman Gilbert Cedillo (Ret.)

 Special to Brooklyn & Boyle

Most people find the subject of redrawing political boundaries based on census data about as exciting as watching paint dry. In Los Angeles, however, a year-old, illegally recorded conversation about the subject touched off a political firestorm.

On the tape, City Council President Nury Martínez, Councilman Kevin de León, County Labor Federation head Ron Herrera, and myself—all Latinos—spoke frankly about how districts based on the 2020 census could best represent the city’s evolving ethnic balance.

At one point, the discussion turned to the jarring discrepancy that Latinos are half the city’s population but hold only four of 15 seats on the Council. That led to assessing which Council members might support expanded Latino representation and who might see that as a step back for other communities, particularly districts represented by African Americans.

Balancing Black and Latino interests has always been difficult, but that’s a skill I honed as head of the L.A. County employees union, Service Employees Local 660. Both Black and Latino voices have been historically marginalized and silenced, and the subject can easily raise the temperature in a room. Conversations can also turn raw when people think they are speaking privately—which happened that day. No one denies that the conversation crossed a line at several points, and I deeply regret not speaking up to chide my colleagues when it did.

Overlooked amidst the furor in response to their statements is that we were doing our jobs: census-based redistricting as mandated in the 14^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Ethnicity and income levels are major factors in drawing relatively balanced electoral maps, and we wanted to ensure that Latinos and all communities are represented fairly, a goal too few among the many pundits and journalists who have weighed in on the controversy seem to care about or regard as legitimate.

That mission was especially difficult this cycle because former President Donald Trump and his lackeys intentionally intimidated immigrants at every turn to discourage them from filling out their census questionnaires. My former council district “lost” untold thousands of residents, and I have yet to see the media outrage for that crime against our Latino communities.

Since our conversation, the redistricting process has played out, and new Council districts were set. Did Latinos get a fair share of representation based on their percentage of our city’s overall population? No, we didn’t! Census data reflects that Latino and Asian populations increased more than the Black population, which kept pace with L.A.’s 3% overall growth.

There were calls for a new map with six Latino districts and one Black seat (two less than before), but my colleagues and I supported maintaining the number of African American seats at a disproportionately higher level rather than a reduction based on a percentage of the City’s population. We in no way sought to eliminate historically Black council districts. And we also supported our Black colleagues over Latina opponents in the June elections for those seats, a fact that has been entirely ignored or—more likely—callously dismissed throughout all of this. We chose not to support candidates seaking to unseat Black incumbents because we optimistically foresaw opportunities for Latinos to earn additional seats in future elections, and that is a win for all of Los Angeles.

Soon after incendiary snippets of the audio were released, there were calls from across the country for all of us to step down. Martínez resigned from the Council, and Herrera stepped down at the Labor Federation. De León has two years remaining in his term and has vowed to stay.

I refused to resign before my term ended. That’s not who I am, and I did nothing that warranted it. My life’s work has been about fighting relentlessly for those who do not have a voice—regardless of their ethnic background.

My family has Tarahumara roots in the Mexican states of Durango, Chihuahua, and Sonora. My parents were born in Barstow, and my siblings and I were raised in Los Angeles’ Eastside. Postwar Boyle Heights was a special community where Latino, Black, Japanese, Chinese, Jewish, Italian, and Armenian families loved and respected each other.

I have had African American friends and mentors my entire life, from sports and school to politics. I am eternally grateful to Dr. Winston Doby at UCLA for the guidance and wisdom he so generously provided me during my years there.

During the 1970s, I was active in the Center for Autonomous Social Action (CASA), a community group founded by U.S. labor giant Bert Corona. CASA fought primarily for immigration reform and other Latino causes, but we also built community support for the three imprisoned Soledad Brothers, for Nelson Mandela, and for Jesse Jackson’s first presidential campaign.

I worked for Mayor Tom Bradley in 1980, was a Jesse Jackson delegate to the 1988 Democratic Party convention, and a Barack Obama delegate in 2008.

In the 1990s, I led the union representing 40,000 employees of Los Angeles County. Service Employees Local 660 had more African American members than any other union in L.A. When County supervisors approved the shuttering of  Martin Luther King and County General hospitals, we fought to keep the doors open so they could continue to serve the African American and Latino communities. That dual victory was a milestone for a rising labor movement and for Black-Latino unity.

I apologized publicly for not cutting off my colleagues when their comments crossed the line. But to resign for staying silent, with no serious examination of who said what in that room, while the totality of my work and history was ignored altogether, virtually erased or scrubbed from the public discourse?! That is unacceptable.

This isn’t how the media covers other racially insensitive conversations. For example, the week before news of this year-old conversation broke, then-candidate for mayor Karen Bass made some regrettable comments in a debate. Bass apologized, and the public—myself included—accepted her explanation. And lest we forget, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, also a Black woman, has a history of making outlandish remarks about Latinos and Asians. We are clearly not being held to the same standards.

The warped zealotry and loud, hate-mongering cacophony of my critics isn’t a sign of a growing movement for racial justice. It’s a glaring problem. Satirist Trevor Noah recently came to the defense of singer-songwriter Lizzo, who used the phrase “spaz out” in a song. When told that the term was offensive to disabled people, she re-recorded the song with new lyrics. Nothing, however, satisfied her critics.

“We’re living in a world,” Noah observed, “where people have gotten used to parading as the most virtuous or righteous person. They’ve gotten to the point where they make it seem like language has no nuance or context and want to imply that people have some sort of intention, even when there isn’t.”

For all my critics’ calls for me to “do the right thing,” I say unequivocally that NOT resigning was the right thing.

We hold elections to decide who shall hold office. We also have courts to decide if an official should be removed between elections, but no one believes I broke any laws. There is no question, however, that recording someone without their consent is illegal. Los Angeles Police Department investigators will conclude who the true criminals here are.

In the meantime, I will never turn my back on the communities I have represented or the people for whom I have fought. This modern version of McCarthyism is a danger to democracy, not a defense. It’s “cancel culture” at its worst, and this kid from Boyle Heights never resigned.