After 3 days of pressure, LA council member who made racist remarks resigns
After three days of state and national pressure, Los Angeles City Council Member Nury Martinez resigned on Wednesday.
Martinez was caught saying racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-Armenian comments in a leaked audio recording about redistricting with City Council Members Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera.
Herrera stepped down on Monday. Cedillo and de León have yet to say if they would do the same.
After California Attorney General Rob Bonta said that his office launched an investigation into Los Angeles’ redistricting process, the once-a-decade task of rejiggering legislative boundaries, Martinez sent a lengthy statement announcing her resignation.
“It is with a broken heart that I resign my seat for Council District 6, the community I grew up in and my home,” she began.
Her resignation comes after the Los Angeles Times wrote Sunday about the leaked audio from an October 2021 meeting.
In the recording, Martinez and de León use racist and homophobic terms to talk about a fellow councilman and his son. Martinez demeans the Oaxacan community that lives in Los Angeles’ Koreatown; she made anti-Semitic and anti-Armenian comments while discussing how to preserve political power through redistricting with the other people in the conversation.
After the Los Angeles Times’ published its report, the four people on the recording apologized. Martinez, who was the president of the city council, resigned from that role on Monday. On Tuesday, she said she was taking a leave of absence.
The chorus of calls for their resignations had grown — from other city council members to California officials to President Joe Biden on Tuesday.
Protestors flooded city council meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, calling for resignations and causing Wednesday’s to be canceled altogether.
Gov. Gavin Newsom denounced the council members’ comments on Monday but did not call for resignations before Martinez announced her resignation. After, he wrote in a post on Twitter, “This is the right move.”
The recording
Their redistricting conversation centered around getting the Latino council members re-elected and preserving assets in Latino-heavy districts. All four of them are Latino. The council members are three of the 14 Democrats on the governing body, which also has one Independent in its 15-person ranks.
Martinez said that fellow Councilman Mike Bonin uses his Black, adopted son as an “accessory” and described the child in Spanish as “parece changuito,” or “like a monkey.” Martinez also called Bonin, who is gay, a “little bitch.”
Council member de León said that Bonin handles his child like a designer handbag. He said that Bonin, who is white, was like the “fourth Black member” of the city council.
Bonin tearfully denounced his colleagues’ words and behavior at a city council meeting on Tuesday, said they should resign and asserted that it was not his prerogative to forgive them.
“It’s the prerogative of a boy who is too young to really understand what’s going on,” he said, adding that he would never be able to comprehend the amount of racism his son would face.
Also in the recording, Martinez said of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, “F— that guy … He’s with the Blacks,” in relation to lending him their support. Gascón condemned the comments on Twitter Monday.
Martinez continued in their conversation about political power by using a racist stereotype to describe members of the Oaxacan community as “little short dark people” who live in Koreatown.
She said this while the council members and Herrera were talking about putting Koreatown in the district represented by Council Member Nithya Raman, who also called for the council members’ resignation. Martinez said this was an issue because that “solidifies her renters’ district,” which would presumably favor a more progressive candidate.
In the audio, Martinez said the “judíos,” referring to Jewish people, “cut their deal with South L.A.” The statement was in response to Herrera’s prompts that former Assemblyman Richard Katz, who represented that area from 1980-1996, “and his crew have an agenda.”
Martinez talked about how Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian, who is of Armenian descent and represents a district in the central-southern San Fernando Valley, and fellow Councilman Paul Krekorian, who is the first Armenian American to be elected to public office in Los Angeles, would want an Armenian-heavy Assembly district in the Valley.
“Not an Armenian district in the Valley, ‘cause that doesn’t exist,” she said. “But they want as many Armenians in that district as possible to be able to play.”
She said that Nazarian likely could not win a “pretty white” district.
When Martinez asked what the Assemblyman’s last name was, de León said, “It ends in i-a-n, I bet you.”
The recording had circulated on Reddit earlier this month before the person who posted it was suspended. It is not clear who recorded the conversation, who the person on Reddit is or if there were any others present during the conversation.
This story was originally published October 12, 2022 at 3:30 PM with the headline "After 3 days of pressure, LA council member who made racist remarks resigns."
