Back in April, I highlighted an “astounding” ruling by federal district judge David O. Carter that ordered the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles to take a broad set of actions to address the area’s homelessness crisis, including requiring the city to place one billion dollars in escrow under Carter’s supervision. In a ruling today (in LA Alliance for Human Rights v. County of Los Angeles), a unanimous panel of Ninth Circuit judges, all of whom were appointed by President Obama, has rejected Carter’s effort to appoint himself homelessness czar.
In her opinion for the panel, Judge Jacqueline Nguyen observes that Carter’s order “is premised on [his] finding that structural racism … is the driving force behind Los Angeles’s homelessness crisis.” But whether or not that is so, “none of Plaintiffs’ claims is based on racial discrimination, and the district court’s order is largely based on unpled claims and theories.” Further, the plaintiffs “failed to put forth evidence to establish standing,” and Carter “impermissibly resorted to independent research and extra-record evidence.”