You might be wondering why LA County needs a ballot measure like Measure E. It is actually pretty simple: Measure E would preserve the vital community investment voters required through Measure J , and put real independence and enforcement power behind the Ethics Commission voters called for through Measure G.
For more than six years, Measure J has fended off lawsuits from police “unions” who prefer cages over care, overall bureaucratic inflexibility and, frankly, an extraordinary amount of County dysfunction.
Measure J, approved by 2.1 million (57%) voters in 2020, requires Los Angeles County to make a minimum annual investment in housing, health care, youth development, jobs, and alternatives to incarceration. Measure G, passed in 2024, began restructuring County government and promised an independent Ethics Commission.
Then came the problem. The County has publicly acknowledged that, because of what it calls an “inadvertent administrative error,” Measure J was never properly incorporated into the written Charter prior to Measure G’s certification. As a result, the County says Measure G could potentially repeal Measure J in 2028, which was never disclosed to voters. Implementation of Measure G also exposed gaps in the independence of the Ethics Commission voters had been promised. Measure E addresses both issues.
While some people may call the combination of both in one ballot measure awkward, I think the connection is straightforward: both are questions of government responsibility. One establishes independent oversight over people exercising enormous governmental power. The other requires the County to honor where the vast majority of voters directed public dollars through Measure J. Both fixes became necessary because of problems the County itself created.
Measure G was not perfect. But Los Angeles County does need reform and stronger guardrails. The Ethics Commission created under Measure E to provide those has real teeth: independence from the Board and County Executive, authority to investigate, audit and subpoena, and public databases showing campaign finance and lobbying. Those are concrete tools for keeping special interests in check and stopping bad actors from picking the pockets of our communities.
Measure J: The Vision Behind a Permanent Commitment
Measure E also protects what communities have already built under Measure J.
When a trial court blocked Measure J in 2021, the Board—to its absolute credit—used its own budget authority to continue the work through Care First Community Investment, or CFCI. Since then, nearly 400 community organizations have received millions in Care Grants. But there is a critical difference: CFCI exists through Board policy. Measure J actually changes the Charter, which is kind of like amending the County's constitution. A future Board can change the CFCI parameters at will; changing the Charter requires a voter mandate.
These distinctions matter when we talk about another of the County’s broken promises: closing the deadly and decaying Men’s Central Jail.
The Board voted to close MCJ in 2020. Six years later, it is still open. As of September 21, LASD's own records identified 15 people who died in custody in 2026 whose injury or illness began at MCJ. On September 9, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil-rights investigation into whether conditions at MCJ violate the Constitution and federal law, separate from the federal government’s 2015 jail settlement.
CFCI funds the housing, treatment, diversion, youth programs and violence prevention infrastructure necessary to reduce incarceration and make jail closure possible. For many of us who organized Measure J, that was central to the point: closing the jail will be made more possible by investing in the community infrastructure that keeps people out of it.
Critics sometimes dismiss Measure J as “ballot-box budgeting” and warn that, in an emergency, the County could be trapped into funding community programs it cannot afford.
But that is simply not how Measure J works. It was never a new tax and relies on a small percentage set-aside from Net County revenue. Measure J already allows the Board to reduce the allocation when a fiscal emergency threatens legally mandated services. It just requires a four-fifths vote. The emergency valve is already there.
The harder question is why housing, youth development, violence prevention and community treatment should always be first on the chopping block when money gets tight, even in hypotheticals. These programs require year-over-year commitments—staff, leases, partnerships, trust and continuity. You cannot dismantle that infrastructure during every budget crisis and magically recreate it afterward.
Meanwhile, the County’s 2026–27 Recommended Budget allocated roughly $4.1 billion to LASD and $1.1 billion to Probation, more than $5.1 billion combined. In fiscal year 2024–25 alone, Los Angeles County spent $112 million on litigation and legal costs involving LASD, nearly half of all County legal spending. And the County is now financing roughly $4.8 billion in AB 218 sexual-abuse settlements, much of it arising from allegations involving County juvenile detention facilities and foster-care settings.
That imbalance is precisely why a durable floor for community investment matters. Without one, the services people depend on remain negotiable while the billions spent on violent police, criminal misconduct, and institutional failure are repeatedly treated as fixed or unavoidable.
The Need for E
Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) sued Los Angeles County on March 30, asking a court to declare that Measure J remains valid because of the County’s documented mistakes. Measure E would resolve the central Charter question that forced that litigation in the first place. Communities should not have to spend endless time and resources fighting to preserve something voters already approved.
At a moment when federal cuts are already threatening essential County services, the underlying question is what kind of accountability Los Angeles County builds into its new government: accountability over political power, and accountability for the public dollars communities were promised.
This election, vote YES on Measure E to protect community investment, secure truly independent oversight, and hold Los Angeles County to the promises it already made to voters.
Brian Kaneda, Los Angeles Coordinator, Californians United for a Responsible Budget
Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) is a Black-led statewide coalition of more than 80 grassroots organizations in California working to reduce incarceration and close state prisons
Learn more at curbprisonspending.org/