Disgraced LA Council Leader Resigns Amid Swelling Anger Over Racist Remarks

Former Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez on Wednesday announced she was resigning her seat amid recently revealed racist remarks she made last year during a closed-door meeting.

In the leaked recording, which surfaced online this weekend, Martinez crudely disparaged the Black son of a white council member, among a slew of other racist snipes.

Her resignation statement did not mention those remarks, though in words directed at her daughter, she said: “I know I have fallen short recently of the expectations we have for our family. I vow to you that I will strive to be a better woman to make you proud.”

Martinez’s press release follows three days of angry protests at LA City Hall, with a growing number of local and national leaders, including President Biden, calling for her and the two other Democratic council members involved in the conversation to step down.

The resignation also comes just hours after California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he would investigate Los Angeles’ redistricting process that Martinez was discussing with fellow Councilmembers Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo, in which they schemed to protect Latino political strength in council districts. Bonta said the investigation could lead to civil liability or criminal charges, depending on what is found.

“It’s clear an investigation is sorely needed to help restore confidence in the redistricting process for the people of LA,” Bonta said.

Martinez, the first Latina to lead the Council, had stepped down as president on Monday while still holding onto her seat. At the time, she said she was ashamed of her racist language, but stopped short of resigning.

In the recorded conversation, Martinez said that Councilmember Mike Bonin, who is white, handled his young Black son as if he were an “accessory” and said “parece changuito,” or “he’s like a monkey,” The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. She also referred to Bonin as a “little bitch.”

At another point on the hour-long recording, Martinez called Indigenous immigrants from the Mexican state of Oaxaca ugly, and made crass remarks about Jews and Armenians.

The council reconvened Wednesday, possibly to censure the three members, but it was unable to do business because a crowd of about 50 protesters drowned out the acting president, chanting slogans like, “No meeting without resignation.”

A minimum of 10 out of 15 members necessary for a quorum had assembled, but the meeting was adjourned after one left. None of the three embattled council members showed up.

The Council cannot expel its own members. But acting Council President Mitch O’Farrell said that with no sign of anger subsiding, he didn’t think the body could resume its work until all three members stepped down.

“For Los Angeles to heal, and for its City Council to govern, there must be accountability,” he said in a statement. “I repeat my call on Councilmembers De León and Cedillo to also resign. There is no other way forward.”

The scene at City Hall was similarly raucous on Tuesday, when a large group of mostly African American and Latino protesters packed the Council chamber, chanting, “Resign, resign, resign,” and carrying signs with messages like “Take out the Trash” and “Shame on You!”

“These council members have to go! Their career needs to end,” said LA resident William Gude, one of the first to arrive that day.

He was joined by fellow resident Orma Mendez, who said, “We don’t need racists! We have to stand up and fight for our rights.”

During the session, Councilmember Bonin fought back tears when describing his reaction to the recording, and the emotional toll it had taken on his family and the city as a whole.

“I’m a dad who loves his son in ways that words cannot capture,” he said. “And I take a lot of hits and, hell, I know I invite a bunch of them. But my son? Man, that makes my soul bleed and it makes my temper burn. And I know I’m not alone because Los Angeles has spoken and it feels the same way.”

Martinez made history in 2019 when she became the first Latina elected to the Council presidency and described herself as “a glass-ceiling shattering leader who brings profound life experience as the proud daughter of working-class immigrants” on her website. She is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley.

The scandal and its aftermath have inevitably resurfaced a larger conversation in Los Angeles about race, politics and power. The nation’s second largest city has a long history of political alliances built on racial, religious and geographic tensions and rivalries that often spill over into housing, education, jobs and prisons.

There have already been discussions about expanding the city’s 15-member City Council. At its current size, each Council member represents well over a quarter of a million people. A bigger Council, like those in New York or Chicago, some argue, would make it easier for elected officials to represent LA’s kaleidoscope of communities. Some reform advocates have also pushed to reexamine how the current City Council districts were drawn up, and to consider adopting new ones.

“One thing is we want to evaluate the redistricting process and ensure that redistricting isn’t used for City Council members to keep their seats safe but rather to ensure that everybody’s voices are heard,” said LA resident Shekinah Deocares, who attended Tuesday’s Council meeting. “We also want to create a system of accountability to make sure things like this don’t happen again.”

In a statement Tuesday, Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said, “It should be clear to everyone by now that leaving the power to draw their own district lines in the hands of the politicians who stand to benefit from how those lines are drawn is a massive conflict of interest and an invitation to the sort of backroom dealing this outrageous conversation revealed.”

This story includes reporting from KQED’s Saul Gonzalez and The Associated Press.