The completely unofficial L.A. City Council power rankings
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg giving you the latest on city and county government.
There’s no exact way to measure the effectiveness of Los Angeles City Council members.
But we analyzed three basic elements — meeting attendance, committee assignments and amount of legislation drafted — to give readers a sense of what their local electeds are up to.
Meeting attendance
As part of charter reform efforts, the City Council considered reducing the number of council meetings from three per week to just one.
The proposal failed earlier this month after receiving stiff pushback from at least one councilmember, Monica Rodriguez.
“Meeting less for a city of 4 million people I think sends the wrong message. Particularly when you have the best-paid council in the country,” said Rodriguez in an interview on Fox 11 earlier this year (each councilmember makes an annual salary of more than $244,000). “This idea that we would be meeting less I believe runs contrary to what the public is demanding form their council.”
Yet Rodriguez isn’t a stickler for showing up to meetings herself, ranking near the bottom of her colleagues for attendance. Since the start of 2025, Rodriguez has attended about 86% of meetings, missing 25 out of 177 meetings, according to a Times analysis.
Gabriel Avalos, a spokesperson for Rodriguez, implied that other work-related matters kept her from the meetings.
“There’s no distinction for absences related to city business, but she certainly wasn’t absent due to dishes and laundry,” Avalos said.
Only two other councilmembers missed more meetings than Rodriguez — mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, who missed 30 meetings, and Curren Price, who missed 34 while dealing with illnesses.
On the other end of the spectrum, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who runs the meetings, missed the fewest — just four of the 177 meetings from January 2025 until this month.
Eunisses Hernandez and Ysabel Jurado each attended 169 meetings, or about 96%.
Stella Stahl, a spokesperson for Raman, said that most of the councilmember’s absences were due to her position as the city’s representative on the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
The remaining absences, Stahl said in a statement, “were tied to a small number of previously scheduled conferences and speaking engagements relevant to her committee work and district priorities, along with occasional sick days and travel for a funeral.”
Committee assignments
Council members are appointed to committees by the council president. They can sit on additional committees if the president lets them.
These small groups of council members are responsible for reviewing the first drafts of legislation. Committee chairs have the power to move legislation forward — or stall it — by either putting it on the agenda, or not.
The busiest councilmembers are Hugo Soto-Martínez and Adrin Nazarian, who each sit on nine committees, including some temporary “ad-hoc” ones. Councilmember Tim McOsker follows with seven committee assignments.
But the number of committee assignments isn’t necessarily the clearest indication of power. Katy Yaroslavsky serves on only five committees, but she chairs the Budget and Finance Committee, which edits and approves the mayor’s proposed budget before sending it to the full council for one of its most important annual votes.
At the bottom of the list is Price again, who sits on four committees, including as chair of the Committee on Economic Development.
Legislation
Another easy marker is the amount of legislation a council member authors.
At each meeting, dozens of pieces of legislation go before the council — some high-profile, others just to keep the lights on at City Hall (literally).
Rodriguez, despite her relatively low attendance, was at the top of the legislative list over the last year and a half, drafting 199 motions.
A good chunk were motions on whether to support or oppose bills at the state and federal level. Rodriguez also had the most ceremonial street namings of any council member, with 13.
Rodriguez pointed to more significant legislation, like an ordinance banning city workers from taking on additional gigs for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as her proudest achievements.
After Rodriguez, McOsker was the second-most prolific author, with 178 pieces of legislation, followed by Traci Park with 163.
At the bottom were Price with 84 and Harris-Dawson with 90.
State of play
— HOMELESSNESS RISING: Homelessness, including those living in shelters and other temporary facilities, went up by 3.4% across the city compared with 2025. Unsheltered homelessness — those living outdoors or in their vehicles — was up 7.9% after two consecutive years of decreases, dealing a fresh blow to Mayor Karen Bass as she runs for reelection.
— DISAPPEARING ACT: Bass’ press relations office communicates through WhatsApp messages that auto-delete every 24 hours, potentially shielding the messages from public records requests, according to three sources familiar with the office.
— PLAY BALL: In 1936, Los Angeles made it a misdemeanor to play baseball, basketball, soccer or any other ball game on a street or sidewalk. Nearly a century later, when kids spend half as much time outside as their parents did, City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield wants to cut the obscure law from the books.
— THE ICE EFFECT: A new study from the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute found that businesses within half a mile of nine ICE enforcement sites had 46,000 fewer customer visits and an estimated $3.16 million in accumulated revenue losses during the two weeks after enforcement activity.
— NEW HONCHO: Los Angeles schools Supt. Andrés E. Chait made a calm official entry into his new job Tuesday, emphasizing rising test scores and “a sense of belonging” that binds school communities.
QUICK HITS
- Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program was at San Pedro Street Elementary School in Ysabel Jurado’s district, bringing 34 people indoors.
- On the docket next week: The Los Angeles City Council remains on recess next week.
Stay in touch
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