California Gov. Gavin Newsom said L.A. City Councilmembers Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo should follow Nury Martinez in resigning from their positions.
. But until Sunday, the governor hadn’t publicly commented on whether the remaining two members should follow suit.against Republican opponent Brian Dahle in San Francisco. Newsom said he had wanted to give the members “space” to make the decision to resign.“I was very clear with Nury that she did the right thing, and I think the others should do the same,” he said.
among the three members and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera. The group was discussing ways to maintain Latino political power in the redrawing of the city’s new maps. During their conversation, Martinez used openly racist terms to describe her white colleague Councilmember Mike Bonin’s young Black son, referring to the child asor “like a monkey.” She also said Bonin’s son had misbehaved on a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade float and needed a “beatdown.” Martinez apologized repeatedly for the comments.
At one point in the conversation, De León seemed to compare Bonin’s handling of his son to “when Nury brings her Goyard bag or the Louis Vuitton bag.” Political leaders across the state and country called for the resignations of all four involved in the conversation, including