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It was a case that some said threatened to erode California’s voting rights law. But after a ruling by the state’s Supreme Court on Thursday, some of its protections are reaffirmed, for now.
The case, filed by the Pico Neighborhood Association and others in 2016, alleged that Santa Monica’s at-large voting system for city council violates the California Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of the Latino community, which at the time made up 14% of its voting-age population. Instead of council members being elected citywide, the plaintiffs want the city divided into districts, and voters in each one to pick their representative.
In February 2019, a trial court ruled in the association’s favor and ordered the city to switch to district-based voting. But in July 2020, a state appeals court reversed that decision.
On Thursday, California’s high court unanimously ruled that was a mistake — that the appeals court had “misconstrued” the California Voting Rights Act. Justice Kelli Evans, writing for the six other justices, said that plaintiffs only have to prove racially polarized voting in an at-large system — not that minority voters would make up a majority or near-majority of a hypothetical district.
