Housing
11 Percent of Voters Decided the Future of Los Angeles
L.A. rejected Measure S, a moratorium on new housing construction, by big margins. But it should never have been put to voters in the first place.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti won his bid for re-election on Tuesday. And how: With 202,278 votes, Garcetti earned 10 times as many nods as his nearest competitor in the 11-person race. The incumbent took 81 percent of the vote, a dominant showing.
Yet Garcetti’s landslide represented only a fraction of L.A. voters. The Los Angeles Times reported late on Tuesday that just 11.4 percent of the electorate participated in the election, despite the fact that the mayor, half the city council, and several heavyweight ballot measures were all up for debate. In Tuesday’s election, apathy won.