Voting rights and small town districts ... Opinion
Districts ... Why ?
by Steve Tate • stevetate @ charter . net
I n our democracy , everyone ’ s voice needs to be heard through the ballot box . To that end , California has passed legislation on voting rights , but it goes further than it should .
The California Voting Rights Act ( CVRA ) forces county or city jurisdictions to abandon at-large elections and go to by-district elections . In our smaller cities we like the easy access we have to our elected representatives and want to be able to vote for all our representatives . But with districts , we only vote for one Council member every four years . The inability to vote for a council member every other election has impacted voter turnout negatively . That makes no sense for cities like Gilroy and Morgan Hill with populations well under 100,000 because the resulting districts all have the same common interests . We need to advocate for legislation to restrict the CVRA to jurisdictions with 100,000 or more residents .
The CVRA was passed in 2002 to prohibit a jurisdiction ’ s use of any election system “ that impairs the ability of a protected class to elect candidates of its choice or its ability to influence the outcome of an election .” A protected class is a group of people sharing a common trait , also known as a community of interest . They are legally protected from being discriminated against on the basis of that trait . Examples include ethnicity and status .
Based on the SVRA , any jurisdictions with at-large elections can be sued and many have been – including Morgan Hill . No jurisdiction that has been sued has been successful in keeping at-large elections ; all have been forced to create districts . Based on other jurisdictions ’ lack of success , Morgan Hill did not fight the suit and in 2016 broke into four districts ( the mayor is still at-large , representing all districts ).
Gilroy has not been sued so still has at-large elections , at least for now .
San Jose , with a population of one million , has 10 districts and an at-large elected mayor . They have Hispanic , Vietnamese and Japanese communities of interest as well as rental-dominant areas , so districts make sense in terms of the CVRA ‘ s goals . Each elected San Jose City Councilmember represents over 100,000 people in their district . Based on its current population of about 48,000 , Morgan Hill has four districts , each representing 12,000 people . While Morgan Hill is nearly 40 % Hispanic , there is no concentration within a single area , thus that community of interest is really spread across the entire City .
CVRA works well in achieving its goals in larger cities , say in excess of 100,000 population , but there are significant downsides to it that get magnified in smaller cities . Elected council members are responsible only to the voters in their district and don ’ t always consider what is best for the city as a whole . They concentrate only on their district and don ’ t always work collaboratively with their fellow elected members . This trend towards “ silos ” is something we are seeing in Morgan Hill , unfortunately .
Both Morgan Hill and Gilroy pride themselves on their “ small town feel ” of being friendly , family-oriented and fun with lots of services and support for their community . The “ community of interest ” in both these cities is the entire city , and every councilmember needs that perspective in order to move our cities forward in an optimal fashion .
Small cities need to have at-large representation restored . Let ’ s work together with our State representatives to effect the needed change to the CVRA .
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