By Robert Greene

2026–27 John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation Fellow

May 14, 2026

 

A proposal for a new seven-member Los Angeles County Ethics Commission comes before the Board of Supervisors for discussion and a possible vote on May 19. If adopted, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s motion would require two steps: setting up a commission later this year, and putting a measure on the Nov. 3 ballot to lock in features giving the new body significant independence from the elected officials they will be scrutinizing.

Independence is a key component and has been a major sticking point for the Governance Reform Task Force that wrote and sent the board the plan that lays out how Ethics Commission members, staff and attorneys are to be funded, selected, supervised and removed.

Much of that plan would violate the current county charter, which requires the Board of Supervisors to make all commission appointments, the chief executive officer (and beginning in December 2028, the elected executive) to hire all staff, and the county counsel to hire all attorneys. The November charter amendment would make exceptions to those appointment rules. The commission would be able to hire and fire its own chief ethics compliance officer, who would hire and supervise the rest of the staff. The compliance officer would also be able to hire an independent attorney.

Without the amendment, the Ethics Commission would not meet the Measure G “independent” requirement, according to the Task Force. If it is not put on the November ballot, or if it does not pass, it will not meet the Measure G “by 2026” deadline.

There will be additional costs. Measure G cost the county $5,723,910 in printing, distribution and tabulation, according to the Registrar-Recorder/Clerk’s office. Measure J, a 2020 charter amendment that sets a spending floor to address racial injustice and provide alternatives to incarceration, cost $3,826,301. Costs for the November amendment would likely fall in a similar range.

Costs do not include drafting, which is done by the County Counsel’s Office.

The Task Force’s impatience with county lawyers, county support staff and county procedures has steadily increased over the months the panel has been hammering out the details of various Measure G reforms. In fact, in an imperfect parallel with its proposed Ethics Commission, Task Force members asked for their own independent lawyer to advise them in their work.

What they got instead was a lawyer (selected by the County Counsel’s Office) who is a partner in the firm that represented a majority of the supervisors in their most recent campaigns.

Gary Winuk and his firm, Kaufman Legal Group, are among the state’s foremost experts in campaign finance laws. Supervisors Hilda Solis, Kathryn Barger and Janice Hahn used the firm in their reelection campaigns, as shown in their expenditure disclosures. The firm also lists them as clients on its website (Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Holly Mitchell used different campaign lawyers.)

“This counsel is independent – how?” Task Force member Derek Hsieh asked at the panel’s April 22 session.

But Winuk’s firm is also Hsieh’s lawyer, in Hsieh’s capacity as executive director of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, the largest labor union for county law enforcement officers.

Winuk also represents the county in numerous campaign matters, including a complaint that the Los Angeles County Fire Department unlawfully spent $1.18 million in public funds to urge voters to adopt a 2020 parcel tax.

County supervisors on several occasions have called for the Task Force to work independently, but it is not independent. It is advisory only and reports to the board. It wants its own independent lawyer but can’t actually have one. Winuk may advise the Task Force, but probably not in public – because his client is the county, and the board holds the attorney-client confidentiality privilege.

The inability to get timely, independent and public legal advice has made many Task Force members wary of a similar situation playing out at the still-to-be-formed Ethics Commission.

How would the Ethics Commission be independent if it is represented by the County Counsel’s Office, or someone that office assigns to the commission in the same way it assigned Winuk to the Task Force? County counsel and its contracted attorneys are the same lawyers who represent the Board of Supervisors and other county officials – the very people whom the commission would be scrutinizing.

The Task Force wants to be sure that as the Board of Supervisors considers the Nov. 3 charter amendment, it is advised (by Winuk, if not the County Counsel’s Office) that the measure can and should provide for truly independent Ethics Commission counsel, unlike the Task Force’s counsel.

Horvath’s motion directs county departments to identify positions and funding that could be reassigned to the Ethics Commission. And it requires drafting two ordinances, including one to place the charter amendment on the ballot.

Drafting of the ordinances and the ballot measure would be done by the County Counsel’s Office.