When Los Angeles County lawyers wrote Measure G for the ballot, the charter reform measure was approved by voters in November 2024, eventually adding four members to the Board of Supervisors, requiring an elected county chief executive and an Ethics Commission and Ethics Compliance Office.
But what voters did not know was that the measure mistakenly blotted out Measure J, approved by voters in 2020 in response to the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. Measure J requires L.A. County to allocate 10% of its general fund each year for alternatives to incarceration, such as mental health and substance abuse treatment placements.
When a whistleblower revealed the blunder a year ago, groups fighting to close Men’s Central Jail due to excessive in-custody deaths and poor conditions were outraged that their hard-fought reform approved by voters would be removed from the county charter in 2028.
On Tuesday, July 28, in a move to fix their error, the Board of Supervisors approved a Band-Aid ballot measure — adding corrective language to the county charter. If approved by voters on Nov. 3, it will restore Measure J to county law.
The board approved the measures on consent, meaning it was not discussed at the board meeting.
“To discuss it is to acknowledge their true failures,” said Janet Asante, coalition lead for the Justice LA Coalition. “They would have had to talk about why it (corrective measure) was needed in the first place.”
The language of the Nov. 3 ballot measure does not specifically mention Measure J. Measure J was overridden by the Measure G reform by mistake, allowing the voter-approved Measure J to die out in 2028. The language of the ballot measure says:
“…to continue uninterrupted the County’s commitment to community investment and alternatives to incarceration, as specified in the charter amendment ordinance.”
Asante said having to go back to the voters to fix the county’s error for yet another vote is an insult to the 57% of voters who approved Measure J in the first place.
“It is a slap in the face,” she said. “My point is that nothing is a blunder that happens at the county level — it is a decision. They could have just passed a motion today,” she said on Tuesday.
She said the county has not fulfilled its funding for alternatives to incarceration. The group reports that over 40% of people in LA County jails suffer from mental health issues and 67% of women in LA jails have unmet mental health needs. This year, 23 people have died in L.A. County jails custody, Asante said.
John Fasana, a former Duarte City Councilmember and a member of the 13-person Measure G Governance Reform Task Force, brought the issue to light in July 2025. Fasana did not comment at the Tuesday meeting, but spoke about the future ballot measure earlier.
“I think Measure J should not have been repealed that way. I hope the measure passes,” he said on Monday evening.
Fasana had said last year that perhaps Measure G should be repealed, due to the shoddy way it was written. Apparently, attorneys used an old copy of the charter that did not contain Measure J. So when the new reforms were written in, they unknowingly overrode Measure J.
“It was an unintentional mistake. It is a terrible precedent to see something like this happen,” said Fasana, who was appointed to the Measure G committee by Fifth District Supervisor Kathryn Barger. She and Second District Supervisor Holly Mitchell had voted no to place Measure G on the ballot, saying it was being rushed.
On the vote to place the corrective measure on the ballot, yet to have a number, Mitchell did not vote because she was absent from the meeting. Barger abstained, apparently because of her belief that placing restrictions on the spending of funds on any matter within the county charter is bad governing. The motion to place it on the ballot was 3-0, with one abstention.
“My abstention reflects consistency in my original position that the County should not tie the hands of future Boards through mandated funding requirements. I believe the Board must retain the flexibility to make budget decisions based on community needs and priorities,” she wrote in a statement after the vote on Tuesday.
The rest of the ballot measures cleans up language about the new ethics process. The measure gives “greater independence and structure for the County of Los Angeles Ethics Commission, Office of Ethics Compliance, and Ethics Compliance Officer.”
Fasana agreed with that language.
“The ethics language is good,” he said. “The original language in Measure G was two paragraphs. This makes it (Ethics Commission and officer) stronger and makes it independent.”