New LA City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson lays out his vision for the city’s future two years after the council tape scandal

In the lead up to the U.S. presidential election, Imperfect Paradise will be sitting down with four notable Californians to talk about a range of issues including gender, race and democratic values.

The series includes philosopher and gender studies scholar Judith Butler, Republican campaign strategist and author of The Latino Century: How America’s Largest Minority is Transforming Democracy Mike Madrid, and artist and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors.

This week, Imperfect Paradise host Antonia Cereijido talks with new Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson. His position makes him one of the most powerful leaders in the city. Harris-Dawson took office in September, coming in at a time of upheaval and change in L.A. He is dealing with the fallout from the City Council’s leaked tape scandal in 2022, which exposed the city’s Latino leaders making racist and derogatory remarks. Harris-Dawson also faces the huge task of preparing for the L.A. Olympics in 2028 that includes dealing with the city’s homelessness and transportation issues.

Now that he has the top job on the council, Harris-Dawson shared with Imperfect Paradise his vision for Los Angeles’s future and the challenges he faces.

Interview excerpts have been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Harris-Dawson on his biggest ambition for L.A.

Marqueece: Solve homelessness. Solve street homelessness. That's the ball game.

Antonia: That's a lot of pressure.

Marqueece: History is going to look back on this time and they're going to say, “This is one of the richest places in the world. And they had people living on the street.” We’ve got to solve that. I think we have a lot of things that work at a small scale. We need to figure out which one of those things can grow and take a serious dent out of the challenge. I mean, one of the things we showed is that if you put a priority on interim shelter, you can reduce street homelessness.

Antonia: What is interim housing?

Marqueece: Interim housing is moving people in motels, rooms that we got during COVID, and other shelters. [So] when we encounter a person on the street, we have a bed for them that night. First time I've [seen] since any year I've been on the council that homelessness actually went down was last year. And it decreased by 10 percent in the city of L.A., only 2 percent in the county. But still 10 percent in L.A. is a big deal.

Harris-Dawson addresses the fallout from the L.A. City Council tape scandal

The L.A. City Council tape scandal involved former Council President Nury Martinez, former Councilmember Gil Cedillo, Councilmember Kevin de León, and Ron Herrera, the former president of the influential L.A. County Federation of Labor. The audio was from a meeting where the four were discussing how to redraw council district boundaries in a way that would maintain their power.

Antonia: The last time we spoke, it was about the L.A. City Council tape scandal, which really laid bare this very ugly existence of a certain kind of tension in the city, and you had a front row seat to what happened. We're still dealing with the fallout of that scandal. I’m curious what you think the current impact of that scandal is on the council today.

Marqueece: The current impact is that scandal caused [a redistricting] investigation by the state attorney general [Rob Bonta]…The state attorney general now is saying something I didn't think he'd come back saying is that the part of what happened in LA is a dilution of Latino power, which is fascinating considering the process. So that’s some of the fallout that's still with us.

Harris-Dawson reacts to the outcome of California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s redistricting investigation and Bonta’s call for LA to redraw council districts 

In reaction to the tape scandal, California Attorney General Rob Bonta launched an investigation into Los Angeles’ redistricting process. After two years of investigating, Bonta expressed serious concerns about Latino voting representation in some parts of L.A., based on the current district lines.

The draft of a legal document from Bonta’s office that the Los Angeles Times obtained called for the City Council to work on a new map that the attorney general’s office would find in compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act and the state’s Fair Maps Act, which require that district boundaries be drawn to make sure that underrepresented groups, such as Black and Latino voters, can elect the candidates of their choice.”

If the City Council refuses to comply with his demand in time for the 2026 primary election, Bonta could launch a protracted legal battle against the city.

Antonia: What do you think about California Attorney General Rob Bonta's call for the city to finalize new district maps?

Marqueece: I am trying to reserve judgment because I haven't seen their data. So they basically presented a claim, but they didn't present any data to back it up. And I know the rigor that the map drawers went through, separate and apart from all the arguments we had on council and the tapes and all that.

There's another layer of people that you don't see that are experts that look at are our numbers compliant with the Voting Rights Act, with the Fair Maps Act, and all that. And they said then and say now our maps [are up to] muster. And that we would love for somebody to show us how they don’t. And so we'll see.

Harris-Dawson on Kevin de León’s reelection campaign

In the aftermath of the L.A. City Council tape scandal, Martinez resigned, and Cedillo was voted out of office in 2022. De León refused to step down despite being censured by the City Council and increasing calls for his resignation. He is the only one involved in the tape scandal who remains in office. De León is running for a second term as council member of L.A.’s 14th district, spanning from Downtown LA to Highland Park, and faces a contentious reelection battle against tenant rights attorney Ysabel Jurado.

Marqueece: I haven’t endorsed his race, so I just hope people turn out. And I hope they express their pleasure in that race. I imagine we'll have more tough conversations in the future. But I am a firm believer that there are no angels, and there are no devils. Everybody trips up or gets tripped up, or answers the call of the darkness, I like to say. And you have to kind of take that as it comes.

Harris-Dawson on preparing Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympics

Marqueece: The thing that we've got to work on in our transportation, obviously, is public safety. It's got to be safe to get on the bus and the train, and there's a lot of work to be done on that. I fully support the Metro board’s decision to create a Metro police force that really is a police force that is focused on the issues that happen on and around the Metro system. So I’m excited about that.

I think that's the first order of business. We got to finish all these rail projects we got on. We got to get those projects done in advance of the Olympics. But even FIFA, we have to be concerned about.

Antonia: In terms of this concern about criminalization of unhoused folks, you don't think a Metro police would do further criminalizing?

Marqueece: Well, if you set them up to criminalize people, that's what they will do. If you recruit and train them and say, ‘keep the train safe, and get in front of things before they happen,’ that's also what they'll do. It’s not as if the police are one trick ponies, like they do what we ask them to do. My expectation is that we'll say ‘keep our trains safe’ and ‘no, you're not going to arrest a bunch of people.’

Listen to the full interview on Imperfect Paradise here

Listen • 32:57

Listen • 32:57

LA City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson on the tape scandal fallout, homelessness, and the presidential election

Marqueece Harris-Dawson is now one of the most powerful leaders in the city, as the new Los Angeles City Council President. He stepped into the position in September, two years after the council tape scandal shocked the city and the nation. Harris-Dawson speaks with Imperfect Paradise host Antonia Cereijido about the ongoing fallout from the scandal that could affect L.A.’s redistricting process, and he gets real about his top priority for the city, the L.A. 2028 Olympics, and the U.S. presidential election.