"Racism" forces Santa Clarita to use cumulative voting for city council elections

Santa Clarita is the home of Six Flags Magic Mountain

Evil "Racism" is Everywhere

• Leftist professional "racism" attorneys attacked yet another California city for daring to allow candidates for the city council to be elected by majority vote.  Majority rule.  Oh the horror!
• Voters will now get three votes, and voters have the opportunity to vote for one candidate up to three times.

The Los Angeles County city of Santa Clarita (population 205,000) has settled a lawsuit over an alleged California Voting Rights Act violation Tuesday with a closed session vote.

The city is set to move City Council elections to even-numbered years and employ cumulative voting.

 

The decision was made in closed session before Tuesday’s City Council meeting, but it’s not going to affect the ballots that voters will have for the April 8 election, officials said to KHTS News.

“The settlement represents an opportunity for all Santa Clarita citizens to have an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice -- no longer will a bare majority be able to dominate 100 percent of the City Council,” said Kevin Shenkman, the lawyer for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Jim Soliz and Rosemarie Sanchez-Fraser. “(Soliz and Sanchez-Fraser) should be commended for their efforts to make that a reality.”

 

 

The end result will be that the two incumbents who would have been up for election in April 2016 -- Councilmen TimBen Boydston and Bob Kellar -- will be up for election November 2016.

 

Marsha McLean was the lone vote against the closed session vote.

 

"Sometimes you have to look at what's right and wrong, and you have to fight what's wrong," McLean said, adding she was not opposed to moving the elections, one of the terms of the settlement.

 

Voters will still get three votes, however, the move to cumulative voting, or weighted voting, gives voters the opportunity to vote for one candidate up to three times.

 

Both changes are expected to increase voter turnout, part of how alleged violations of the California Voting Rights Act have been remedied in the past. 

 

Cumulative voting is the predominate means of balloting used to select a board of directors in corporate America.

In dozens of communities where cumulative voting is used, it’s the result of lawsuits stemming from the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Fighting the lawsuit "would be very costly to the city," costing more than $1.5 million, according to city attorney Joe Montes in a statement read before Tuesday's City Council meeting.

The attorney's fees for the plaintiffs will be paid by Santa Clarita, which is expected to range between $400-600,000.

The settlement followed a six-hour negotiation, according to court documents.