L.A.’s Grand Word Ban: Karen Bass Presides Over the Clown Tent

Mayor Bass and the Los Angeles City Council’s latest speech stunt proves they’re more circus ringmasters than civic leaders.

🕒 4.5min read

Welcome to the Big Top, Mayor Bass

In Los Angeles, you can set up camp on any sidewalk you choose, walk out of stores with unpaid merchandise, and navigate around mountains of garbage during your daily commute—but dare to utter the wrong syllable in a city council chamber and you will find yourself ejected faster than an evil vaudeville act. Mayor Karen Bass and her collection of municipal jesters have concluded that monitoring language takes priority over maintaining law and order.

Just yesterday, the council voted to prohibit two particular words from public meetings, as though silencing specific vocabulary will somehow rescue a metropolis that appears to be free-falling into disorder. Bass continues fantasizing about hosting spotless, homeless-free Olympic Games in 2028 while her council members busy themselves with theatrical stunts and meaningless gestures. Congratulations, Madam Mayor—you have successfully transformed local government into the big show in the circus tent while the entire structure threatens to topple.

The Word Ban Fiasco

Here is what happened: a small group of troublemakers began hurling offensive language during council sessions. Rather than dismissing these disruptions or enforcing the procedures already in place to maintain decorum, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and his colleagues embraced the authoritarian handbook. According to the Los Angeles Times, speak either forbidden word once and receive a caution; repeat the offense and you face removal plus potential exclusion from future gatherings.

The council members are labeling this a “civility measure.” Everyone else recognizes it for what it truly represents: an institutional meltdown disguised as responsible governance. With homelessness ravaging the streets, criminal activity surging, and a staggering $270 million Olympic budget shortfall demanding immediate action, the city council has chosen to focus on creating a preschooler’s list of banned vocabulary. This passes for leadership in Bass’s Los Angeles—reduced governing capacity, increased playground supervision.

A City Perfecting the Art of Collapse

More than 70,000 individuals remain without shelter despite Bass’s widely publicized “10% reduction in homelessness.” Commercial enterprises abandon the city faster than performers fleeing a collapsing circus tent. Criminal behavior keeps escalating, municipal services continue deteriorating, and traffic congestion has reached such catastrophic levels that her vision of “car-free” 2028 Olympics resembles the delusions of someone running a high fever.

Still, this council believes the true scandal plaguing Los Angeles involves the language citizens use at public forums, not the devastation visible on every street corner. One has to wonder whether the International Olympic Committee is beginning to question if they selected a world-class destination or accidentally booked a comedy show featuring crumbling infrastructure (as their members go through their “daily clips” e-mail today).

First Amendment Under Siege

Prohibiting specific words—regardless of how repugnant they may be—represents a direct assault on the First Amendment, which was designed to safeguard speech that challenges authority, not merely expressions that soothe easily wounded egos.

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech.” - Benjamin Franklin

Since this nation’s inception, Americans have recognized that unrestricted speech is the public’s primary defense against governmental overreach. Yet in contemporary Los Angeles, the speech police occupy positions of power within city hall. UCLA legal scholar Eugene Volokh has indicated this prohibition likely violates constitutional principles and creates dangerous precedents for viewpoint-based discrimination. The city spent $215,000 2014 settling a lawsuit after removing a citizen for wearing a controversial shirt. Frequent council critic Wayne Spindler stands prepared to file another legal challenge under California’s Brown Act, which guarantees public access to governmental meetings—including access for voices that elected officials prefer not to hear.

So, Does It Matter?

Los Angeles residents deserve elected representatives tackling substantive problems, not performers manipulating public perception like carnival promoters. This word prohibition will not eliminate a homeless encampment, convince a single business to remain in the city, or prevent a single retail theft. It will demonstrate to politicians that they can evade responsibility by muzzling their critics.

This spectacle will not conclude without intervention. Unless voters insist on new leadership, this embarrassing performance will be the main attraction during next year’s World Cup Events and, of course, the 2028 Olympics, with Los Angeles cast as the unfortunate victim of the joke.