Asian Americans at center of court battle of district elections vs. at-large elections

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Santa Clara City Council member Raj Chahal, right, was elected after district elections was imposed on Santa Clara.

Voting rights law being challenged after Asian American voted onto Santa Clara city council. 

The addition of Raj Chahal to the city council was made possible by the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA), that formed the basis of a lawsuit filed by  the Hindu American Foundation; the San Jose, Sequoia, and Silicon Valley chapters of the Japanese American Citizens League; the Vietnamese American Roundtable; and the Vietnamese Voluntary Foundation.

After the Santa Clara Superior Court ruled in favor of the lawsuit, the city was forced to move to move from at-large elections to district elections, thus allowing districts with large number of minority voters to wield their power by voting in someone who shares their cultural heritage to represent them.

Just as the city was making history with Chahal's Nov. 2018 election, the council majority -- still white -- decided to appeal the Superior Court decision.

“The city is appealing because the trial court decision was a mistake,” said city attorney Brian Doyle, adding that people in Santa Clara do not engage in racially polarized voting patterns.

“The CVRA worked exactly as it should in Santa Clara,” said Jonathan Stein of the Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus, “replacing an election system that had systematically and inarguably blocked the City’s Asian American community from achieving representation on City Council and replacing it with a district election system that immediately ended that ignominious history of exclusion.”

The legal advocacy nonprofit filed a friend of the court brief in August supporting the original lawsuit filed by the minority organizations.

The amicus brief filed by Advancing Justice -- Asian Law Caucus, discusses the history of Asian American exclusion and discrimination in this nation and in California, the impact that history has on Asian American civic participation today, and the specific ways in which courts should interpret the CVRA to enable Asian American communities to vindicate their voting rights.

The ruling from Superior Court Judge Kuhnle follows a trend seen in other California cities such as Palmdale, Poway and Santa Monica, which also were sued for allegedly violating the voting rights law.

The amicus brief can be found online here. It states in part:

"Asian Americans’ political opportunities in this state are still shaped by the exclusion experienced by generations of Californians through immigration prohibitions, denials of fundamental rights and privileges, and political districts that diminish the impact of our community’s voice. In light of the federal government’s continued assaults on voting rights across the country, the CVRA’s protections are crucial to ensure that Asian Americans and all other groups have an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice and to meaningfully participate in California’s political processes."

Santa Clara is 37 percent Asian, 36 percent white and 17 percent Hispanic, based on the 2010 census.

The statistical evidence presented at the trial a year ago shows racially polarized voting (RPV) — where minorities cannot elect candidates that aren’t favored by the city-wide majority — in five of 10 elections. The city doesn’t dispute this.

Plaintiffs are hoping the appellate court will uphold the Superior Court decision based on these facts:

• No minority has ever been elected to the Santa Clara City Council prior to district elections.
• Only white candidates preferred by most white voters won elections.
• The City retained its at-large by-seat system after being told repeatedly that it resulted in vote dilution.
• In 2016 the City Council appointed a white applicant to Council vacancy over two qualified Asian-American applicants.
• Precinct analysis of the 2016 election shows that even though almost 60 percent of Asian American voters cast their ballot for Chahal in his first attempt to get elected, Chahal still finished third in that election for two seats.

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Civil rights groups allowed to intervene against lawsuit challenging district elections

A FEDERAL APPEALS COURT panel ruled Thursday (June 14) that civil rights advocates can intervene in a lawsuit that seeks to overturn the City of Poway's election system and challenges the constitutionality of the California Voting Rights Act of 2001 (CVRA).

Filed by former Poway Mayor Don Higginson, the lawsuit specifically challenged the Poway City Council’s decision last year to switch to by-district rather than at-large city council elections.

A federal court ruled in February that the former mayor did not have grounds to sue and dismissed the complaint. It also ruled that because the lawsuit was dismissed, there was no need for the civil rights organizations to intervene.

However,  Thursday's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the lower court ruling allowing the lawsuit to go forward. 

With the complaint reinstated, the court granted the motion by the civil rights groups - MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund), Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles (Advancing Justice - LA), and Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus (Advancing Justice - ALC) - to intervene in the case on behalf of Poway residents, the California League Of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and residents in the Antelope Valley Community College District to defend their access to political representation as required by the CVRA.

"Given the City's decision not to defend its own voluntarily adopted district map, we are pleased that the Ninth Circuit recognized the need for our clients to take up that mantle," said MALDEF staff attorney Kip Hustace, who argued the appeal before the Ninth Circuit panel. "We will demonstrate that by-district voting and the specific districts drawn do not harm the plaintiff."

Lawyers for the residents and LULAC argued in the motion to intervene that even if the California attorney general's office may properly defend the state law, it may not have the same interest in protecting the City of Poway's changes to its election system.

Of Poway’s 50,000 people, 2 percent are black, 64.5 percent white, 11 percent Asian and 18.3 percent Latino. Years of at-large local elections have resulted in some parts of Poway being historically underrepresented on the City Council compared to the wealthier north side of town.

The former mayor's lawsuit was filed in October 2017, a month after Poway decided to switch from an at-large election system to district-based elections. In February, a federal district court judge ruled that the former mayor did not have standing to sue and dismissed the complaint.

The Ninth Circuit ruling overturning the dismissal of the lawsuit also reversed the denial of the motion to intervene. The case will be returned to District Court with the state Attorney General and the City of Poway, located in San Diego County, as defendants.

"The CVRA is essential to protecting the voting rights of minority community members in an electoral system that too often suppressed their voices," said Jonathan Stein, Voting Rights Program Manager & Staff Attorney at Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus. "It is imperative that this important civil rights law is upheld."

The CVRA has been successfully used to address concerns that at-large voting systems too often dilute the voting strength of minority groups. By contrast, district-based systems help under-represented groups elect representatives of their choice from their own communities.

"We will continue to fight to uphold the legality of the CVRA," said Deanna Kitamura, Voting Rights Project Director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles. "District elections are giving a voice to otherwise unheard minority voters."
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