Daily News: Departing De León leaves mixed legacy

Councilman felled by scandal first Latino in modern history to be state Senate president

By Linh Tat | ltat@scng.com

California state Assembly member. California state senator. Los Angeles City Council member.

For most of the past 18 years, Kevin de León has held one of these titles.

Once viewed as a rising political star — and a trailblazer in the Latino community — De León is leaving office as the L.A. City Council member for the 14th District following a bruising election in which he lost his bid for another term after two years of fallout from what’s widely referred to as Los Angeles City Hall’s audio leak scandal.

De León’s final meeting as a sitting member of the L.A. City Council will be today.

In the now-infamous backroom discussion that was secretly recorded and leaked to the public, De León and three other Latino leaders — then-L.A. City Council President Nury Martinez, then-Councilmember Gil Cedillo and Ron Herrera, then the head of the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor — were recorded discussing the city’s 2021 redistricting effort to redraw City Council maps.

Their conversation turned ugly when racist and derogatory or insulting comments were made about Blacks, Oaxacans, gays and other groups.

Many considered comments by Martinez to be the most offensive. She and Herrera resigned in October 2022, within days of the audio leak. Cedillo was already on his way out of office, having lost his bid for reelection in June.

De León faced intense pressure to resign from fellow council members, critics who protested outside his home, and even President Joe Biden.

But rather than step down, De León remained on the council and, a year later, announced he would seek reelection. By then, he had apologized repeatedly for not shutting down that conversation when he had the chance and for a “flippant remark” he made that he said was taken out of context.

Jaime Regalado, emeritus professor at Cal State Los Angeles who taught state and local politics, said perhaps De León could have done “a larger share of mea culpa” to win back some voters.

But he doubts that would’ve been enough to change the overall outcome of the November election, where De León, a seasoned politician, lost by 14 percentage points to political newcomer Ysabel Jurado.

“Much of the damage was already done,” Regalado said. “I don’t think any amount of mea culpa would have made him win.”

Multiple requests to interview De León for this story were made through his staff, but the council member did not respond.

In a recent statement conceding the City Council race, De León said he was proud of what he’d accomplished while on the council, from “housing more people than any other district” to creating new parks and playgrounds, to “securing historic investments” for the people of Council District 14. The district includes downtown L.A. and Eastside communities like Boyle Heights, El Sereno and Northeast L.A. Many in the district come from poor, working-class neighborhoods or communities of color, including immigrant communities.

In interviews this week, De León’s constituents offered mixed reviews about the job he did as their City Council representative.

Richard Loew is the immediate past president of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council, though he made clear that he was speaking only for himself in critiquing the council member.

Loew said when De León became the council member for L.A. Council District 14, he showed “a lot of promise” as an experienced politician

He said De León initially had “a lot of positive impact,” including bringing in “tiny home villages” to house homeless people — though he also said the program wasn’t perfect. He also credited De León for transforming Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock into a more pedestrian-friendly street by planting more trees, improving lighting and implementing traffic-calming measures.

But after the audio scandal, De León, stripped of many of his committee assignments, became ineffective as a council member, Loew said.

“He wasn’t our council member anymore. He was just the person in the office, place-holding,” Loew said. “That was unfortunate. We had just come from a situation where (former Councilmember) José Huizar had left. And here we were back again to an ineffective council member.”

Loew also described some of De Leon’s comments in the secretly recorded conversation as “despicable.” The Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council called for his resignation.

Not everyone thinks De León’s participation in that conversation was grounds for dismissal, however.

Richard Zaldivar, founder and executive director of The Wall Las Memorias, a nonprofit that provides health services to members of the LGBTQ and Latino communities affected by HIV/AIDS, works and lives in Council District 14.

Zaldivar said the conversation that was secretly recorded never should have occurred and that De León should have put an end to the conversation. But, he noted, De León has since apologized for how he handled the situation.

“I don’t vote for people based upon their conversations,” Zaldivar said. “I vote for people based upon performance of public service. If you’re elected to council or any office and you’re doing a good job, that’s what your merit should be based on.”

Zaldivar declined to say if he voted for De León for reelection but called the council member “an outstanding public servant” who provided the community with extra police patrols when needed and helped clean up the homeless situation.

On the issue of cleaning up streets and public spaces, reactions were mixed.

Aracelly Cauich, founder of the community nonprofit Hummingbird Hope L.A., praised the outgoing council member, saying he provided resources to clean the streets of Boyle Heights during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and amid many service shutdowns. Cauich, who lives in Boyle Heights, credited De León for hiring a crew with a truck to clean streets and said he helped clean up some homeless encampments.

“We work in the community. We see the difference. Look how many parks he opened,” Cauich said, adding that some in the community nicknamed De León “Robin Hood Latino.”

“I think we lost a big leader,” she said.

Others disagreed.

Veta Gashgai, founder of First Blocks of Whittier Blvd, a group that regularly participates in park cleanups, said the outgoing council member did not do enough to clean up the neighborhood. As a statement in January 2023, her group picked up trash from Hollenbeck Park and dumped it in front of Boyle Heights City Hall, where De León has an office.

Gashgai said it took three years and numerous requests before the group finally got a meeting with De León — though she acknowledges that some meeting dates had to be rescheduled due to cancellations by her group.

Gashgai said issues of dirty streets in Boyle Heights is a chronic, systemic problem that predates De León. Still, she believes he could have done more to improve the situation.

“We didn’t expect him to do miracles, but we expect leadership,” she said.

Like all politicians, De León had his fans and his critics.

Whatever their relationship or opinion of him are, there seemed to be general agreement that De León was driven.

He grew up poor in the San Diego barrio, raised by a single mother — an immigrant who worked as a housekeeper. De León was the first in his family to graduate high school. He later graduated from Pitzer College in Claremont.

Before being elected to his first political seat, De León was a community organizer and worked for the California Teachers Association.

In 2006, De León was elected to the state Assembly.

After suffering a loss in his quest to become Assembly speaker a few years later, he was elected to the California state Senate in 2010. Four years later, he was chosen among his colleagues to serve as state Senate president, becoming only the second Latino — and the first in more than 130 years — to hold that position.

To celebrate, the California Latino Legislative Caucus Foundation threw a bash for the new Senate president at Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown L.A. One news article described the event as resembling “a presidential inaugural more than the low-key affairs at the state Capitol held by past senate leaders.”

Those who have worked with De León in Sacramento describe a man who is politically savvy and ambitious.

Former state Sen. Ed Hernandez, who joined the state Legislature at the same time as De León, and who considers De León a friend, said being ambitious isn’t necessarily a bad thing and that he believes De León advocated for issues in the Senate “for all the right reasons.”

“I really believe that he really believes what he did was in the best interest” of the people, said Hernandez, who represented communities in the San Gabriel Valley while De León represented parts of Los Angeles and nearby communities.

In 2012, De León pushed to establish the nation’s first state-administered retirement savings program for private-sector workers. During his time in the Senate, he also advocated for driver licenses for undocumented immigrants and for California to become a “sanctuary state” for undocumented immigrants during Donald Trump’s first term as president.

In 2017, with his time in the state Senate winding down due to term limits, De León announced he would run for U.S. Senate, becoming the first Democratic elected official to challenge then-veteran Sen. Dianne Feinstein in over two decades. De León lost that 2018 race.

But it wouldn’t be the last time voters would hear from him.

Several months after his loss to Feinstein, De León announced a run for L.A. City Council, to replace Councilmember Jose Huizar, in the 14th District. (Huizar was later suspended from the council after being arrested, and in October he began serving 13 years in prison for accepting bribes from developers and for cheating on his taxes.)

Meanwhile, De León won his City Council race and began serving in October 2020.

From the beginning, some speculated that De León was already eyeing higher office.

Less than a year after being sworn in to the council, he launched what ultimately became an unsuccessful bid for mayor.

Then in October 2022, the audio leak scandal broke — upending not only City Hall but, many say, left De León with a black eye.

Time will tell if De León’s image will fully recover.

Regalado, the emeritus professor from Cal State L.A., said unless enough time has passed for voters to forget about the scandal, it’s more likely that if De León stays in politics he will do so through a political appointment and not an elected position.

“I know he does want to remain in the public eye,” Regalado said.

Loew, the Eagle Rock resident, said he’s not sure if De León will seek elected office again.

But, he said: “If he comes back, I hope he comes back as a different person. He’s got a lot of introspection to do.”