Editorial: Why L.A. needs a larger City Council
Losing the U.S. Representative for the 39th District after a redistricting lawsuit forced Los Angeles to redraw his district has left us without a single member of the U.S. House. And, despite many challenges, the city of Los Angeles was able to achieve a better district for the 42nd district. In this editorial, we will take a look at the new U.S. Representative from the 41st District, Steve Glazer, and ask what we could do to improve things.
Steve Glazer represents the 41st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. The 41st district has a long history of support for the Democratic Party in Los Angeles and some of its current representatives have served and continue to serve in Congress from this district.
Most importantly, California is the second most populous state in the U.S. After California, Texas is the most populous state. It is also the most diverse with an estimated 65 percent of the population being people of color (in addition to the state’s 4.2 million Asians, for example). California and Texas are both members of the so-called Sunbelt, or the Sun City, which includes the states of Florida, South Carolina, and Texas. And, as you can see from the 41st District map below, this district is quite diverse with large urban areas, suburban areas, and some rural land-uses.
The 41st district includes the cities of Pasadena, Westwood, Santa Monica, and many other small town and rural land-uses. This district would be very difficult for a representative from a rural area to represent if they were not representing the large cities of Los Angeles and other large areas of the state. There are just over 200,000 people in the 41st District. They are not a miniscule minority.
Also, if they had difficulty representing a district that was majority minority, we could say that they were struggling to represent a district that was majority Latino. And, as we’ve seen in California, while a majority Latino vote does not always translate to a majority in the U.S. House, it