Ex-LA Councilman (Finally) Has Something To Say After Racist Call Leak

Council member Gil Cedillo speaks in support of the motion for the appointment of Heather Hutt as an interim council member for the 10th District. Motion failed to receive the 10 votes required for a public hearing at City Hall on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2022 in Los Angeles, CA.

Way back in 2021, a few Los Angeles City Council members came under fire for a leaked conversation with racist jokes and schemes to maintain Latino political power in redistricting. One of the callers was former Councilman Gil Cedillo. After over a year, he finally spoke out.

In an interview with Telemundo Noticias, Cedillo insisted that he didn’t participate in any racist banter on the phone call ,which included former council president Nury Martinez, colleague Kevin de León and head of Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Ron Herrera.

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Read from LA Time’s transcript of the call:

In another piece of the conversation, Herrera said if 50 percent of voters are Mexican, he’d be confident in beating a Black candidate. Cedillo buds in and says, “Twenty-five are for Black and the 25 Blacks are shouting,” to which de León says they “shout like they’re 250.”

“If there are people who have been offended, I want to say I’m sorry. But really, these conversations were like every conversation that exists daily between people. I’m not the police to cut off every conversation that’s not right,” Cedillo told Telemundo.

Isn’t that the issue? Cedillo may not have been throwing slurs and nasty language like the others. Though, the problem is that he was part of a racist conversation and appeared compliant with their exchange. That’s probably why he lost his reelection bid in 2022.

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