Election Idea Worth Pursuing

The long-simmering issue of electing city council members by district instead of citywide balloting was recently raised again in Santa Ana and, as usual, was rejected. This time the rejection came in the form of a 4-2 City Council vote to oppose a bill pending in the Legislature that would require cities with 25,000 or more residents to hold city council elections by district.

We don’t know about every city in the state, but the idea is a good one for Santa Ana and should have been adopted by now. Other larger cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego and Long Beach elect city council members by district.

Santa Ana voters last year twice narrowly rejected a switch to district elections, but the plan was part of a package of proposed changes, not all of which we found as desirable as that of electing council members by ward.

Santa Ana is already divided into wards. All it needs to do now is have candidates elected by voters in those wards instead of the present system that requires candidates to live in the ward but be elected citywide.

Election by ward would obviously reduce the cost of campaigning. But, more important than that, it would help stimulate more minority participation in local government, give minority candidates a better opportunity to win public office and bring more ethnic and socioeconomic diversity to the City Council. In Santa Ana, which has the largest minority population of any city in Orange County, those are worthy goals to keep pursuing.