The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (LACBOS) is the governing body of Los Angeles County, California, United States.

The five-member Board was constituted in the middle of the 19th century, when the County population was just a few thousand people. The Board's structure remained largely unchanged even as the County grew to become the United States' most populous, with each supervisor responsible for a district of about 2 million constituents in the 2020s. The Board manages an annual budget of more than $50 billion, and has ultimate control over most aspects of the county's departments, including social services, public works, and the court system. The Board's combination of immense power and minimal oversight is such that the Supervisors are nicknamed the "five little kings"—or in the case of the most recent Board, the "five little queens". A total of 377 votes were cast in this election. Efforts to increase the number of supervisors on the board all failed at the ballot box in 1962, 1976, 1992, and 2000.

With the election of Holly Mitchell to the board in 2020, the Board of Supervisors was occupied entirely by women for the first time in its history. Since the "five little kings" nickname was no longer appropriate, the news media began to refer to the board as the "five little queens".

Governance

Elections

Supervisors are elected to four-year terms by a vote of Los Angeles County citizens who reside in the supervisorial district. Supervisors must reside and be voters in the district they represent. If a supervisor fills a vacancy, the unexpired term counts towards the term limit if there are more than two years (half the term) left to serve. The provisions of the measure were not retroactive, meaning that the term limit clock for supervisors who were serving at the time the measure passed would start with the next election. At the time term limits were imposed, Don Knabe, Michael D. (Mike) Antonovich, and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke’s terms were scheduled to end in 2016 (Brathwaite Burke chose to retire in 2008), while Gloria Molina and Zev Yaroslavsky served their terms until 2014.

County Chair or Mayor

The chair or “mayor” of the Board of Supervisors serves a term of one year, meaning that a supervisor who is elected for a term on the board will get a chance to serve at least one term as chair/mayor. Upon expiration of the term, the duties of the chair/mayor are rotated among the board members by order of seniority. Along with their general responsibilities as a member of the board of supervisors, the chair/mayor has several unique duties to fulfill, including presiding over board meetings and controlling the agenda of the board. Mike Antonovich, during his tenure as a supervisor, called himself "mayor", a practice that was not continued by subsequent supervisors.

CEO

Until recently, the chief executive officer was the appointed individual heading the county but had little power as supervisors retained the right to fire and hire department heads and often directly admonished department heads in public.

Based on an ordinance authored by Supervisors Knabe and Yaroslavsky that took effect in April 2007, the CEO directly oversees departments on behalf of the supervisors, although the Los Angeles County Fire Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Assessor, District Attorney, Auditor-Controller, and Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors continue to be under the direct purview of the Board of Supervisors. The change was made in response to several candidates either dropping out or declining to accept the position to replace former Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen. Antonovich was the lone supervisor to oppose the change, stating that such a move would lead to a more autocratic form of government and disenfranchise the 1.3 million who live in unincorporated areas.

However, this was rescinded in 2015 and the CEO has returned to a facilitation and coordination role between departments. Departments continue to submit recommendations and agenda items to the Board to be adopted and ratified, and the Board directly manages relations with the department heads instead of going through the CEO, as would be the case in a council-manager system prevalent in most of the county's cities. In 2016, the CEO further recommended, and the Board approved, transferring positions considered "transactional" and focusing the CEO on "strategic" initiatives and long-term, structural issues.

As noted above, the November 2024 approval of Measure G means that by 2028, the county must hold a direct election for the first time for a county executive.

  • Audit Committee
  • Business License Committee
  • City Selection Committee
  • Civilian Oversight Commission
  • Civil Service Commission
  • Commission for Children and Families
  • Commission for Women
  • Commission on HIV
  • Commission on Human Relations
  • Commission on Insurance
  • Countywide Criminal Justice Coordination Committee
  • Economy and Efficiency Commission
  • Employee Relations Commission
  • Fish and Wildlife Commission
  • Historical Landmarks and Records Commission
  • Information Systems Advisory Body
  • Los Angeles County Redistricting Commission
  • Local Government Services Commission
  • Los Angeles County Capital Asset Leasing Corporation
  • Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission
  • Los Angeles Regional Crime Laboratory Facility Authority
  • LGBTQ+ Commission
  • Prevention and Promotion Systems Governing Committee
  • Probation Oversight Commission
  • Quality and Productivity Commission
  • Redevelopment Oversight Board
  • San Fernando Valley Council of Governments
  • Sybil Brand Commission for Institutional Inspections
  • Tobacco and Securitization
  • West Carson Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District Public Financing Authority
  • Youth Climate Commission
  • Youth Commission

Board meetings

The Board meets every Tuesday at 9:30 a.m., Pacific Time, at the Board Hearing Room (381B) at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in Downtown Los Angeles. On Tuesdays following a Monday holiday, Board meetings begin after lunch, at 1:00 p.m. On November 12, 2024, LA County voters passed Measure G with 51% of the vote. When the measure becomes effective in 2028, all executive power from the County Chair will go to the new County Executive, with the expanded Board of Supervisors being elected in 2032. After 2015, the board of supervisors and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department still cooperate with federal immigration agents.

Interim public defender appointment

In 2018, the board appointed Nicole Tinkham as interim public defender, despite a letter signed by 390 public defenders who were concerned that Tinkham lacked criminal law experience and the potential for a conflict of interest, given Tinkham’s prior representation of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Prior to the appointment, the board had failed to appoint a permanent Public Defender, following the retirement of Ronald Brown. One deputy public defender testified to the board: “I feel like you are making a mockery of my life’s work … clearly somebody failed to think this through.” The American Civil Liberties Union has also criticized the appointment of Tinkham.

Racial and political gerrymandering

In 1991, a federal court ruled that the board denied Latinos a chance to be elected to the board. The court found that supervisors, all white, purposefully gerrymandered districts so that Latinos were a minority in each of them, a Voting Rights Act violation. As a result, Gloria Molina, the first Latina supervisor, was elected to the board of supervisors.

In 2010, Los Angeles created a nonpartisan commission to impartially redraw the districts for the board of supervisors.” Some argue that the new bill infringes upon the rights of political minority parties and independent voters.

Current Supervisors

Members of the Board are officially nonpartisan, and are elected by constituents of their respective districts.

{|class="wikitable sortable"

!District

!colspan=2 |Name

!Party

!Start

!Next Election

|-

|1

|75px

|, Chair

| |Democratic

|

|2026 (term-limited)

|-

|2

|75px

|, Chair pro tempore

| |Democratic

|

|2028

|-

|3

|75px

|

| |Democratic

|

|2026

|-

|4

|75px

|

| |Democratic

|

|2028 (term-limited)

|-

|5

|75px

|

| |Republican

|

|2028 (term-limited)

|}

Supervisorial districts

Los Angeles County is divided into 5 supervisorial districts (SDs), with each Supervisor representing a district of approximately 2 million people.

{|class="wikitable"

|-

!District

!Supervisor

!Population<br>(2011)

!Area

!Represented cities and unincorporated areas

|-

|

|

|1,967,029

|

|

|-

|

|

|1,977,349

|

|

|-

|

|

|1,956,453

|

|

|-

|

|

|1,971,639

|

|

|-

|

|

|1,946,135

|

|

|}

References

  • Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
  • Los Angeles County Supervisors - Past To Present