Judge: Palmdale's Method Of Electing City Council Members Violates Voting Rights
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Palmdale's method of electing City Council members by a citywide vote rather than through individual districts is keeping black and Hispanic candidates out of office, a judge has ruled.
The high desert city violates the California Voting Rights Act by using an election format that dilutes the influence of minority voters, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark V. Mooney wrote in his interim decision this week.
In the ruling, Mooney said he didn't consider voter turnout or the effectiveness of past campaigns, only voting patterns. He pointed out that intent to discriminate is not required to prove a violation.
"Plaintiffs' evidence established that racially polarized voting occurred in the city council elections for the City of Palmdale," he wrote.
Judge Rules On Violation Of California Voting Rights Act
The judge said if no appeals are filed he will set a hearing to discuss the implementation of remedies to the problem.
But City Attorney Matthew Ditzhazy said Friday that Palmdale planned to appeal.
Ditzhazy objected to Mooney's definition of "racially polarized" and pointed out that a majority of California cities use an at-large method of electing councilmembers similar to Palmdale's.
"If the Legislature wanted to force every city into districts, it would have done so," Ditzhazy said. "This is one of the many issues we believe are ripe for appeal."
The Voting Rights Act has been used to sue several cities since it was adopted in 2002. One was Modesto, which switched to district voting as a result.
When Palmdale put the issue to a vote in 2001, Ditzhazy said, residents favored the at-large system.
The lawsuit was filed in April 2013 by Juan Jauregui, a resident of the city about 70 miles north of Los Angeles.
Earlier this year the mayor of neighboring Lancaster, R. Rex Parris announced he had signed on as co-counsel for the suit against Palmdale, a city of about 150,000 where he grew up and has a high school named after him.
"Despite a Latino population of approximately 54.4 percent and an African-American population of 14.8 percent in the city of Palmdale, only one Latino and not a single African-American has ever been elected to Palmdale's City Council," Parris, a prominent litigation attorney, said in a January statement.
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