City May Put Sanctions on Activist Who Filed Lawsuit : Oxnard: The council might try to recover the $100,000 that it spent to fight John Soria’s voting rights legal challenge.

The Oxnard City Council will consider today whether to seek monetary sanctions against a Latino activist who has decided to drop a voting rights lawsuit against the city that failed to draw any financial backing from Latino civil rights groups.

Several city officials said, however, that they probably will not seek sanctions against the lead plaintiff in the suit, John Soria, because they believe that he does not have the money to pay for the city’s legal costs.

“I think we should leave well enough alone,” Councilman Manuel Lopez said. “I mean, you can’t get blood from a turnip.”

Soria filed the suit in September in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to force Oxnard to pick council members by district instead of in citywide elections. His lawsuit contends that the at-large election system dilutes minority voting strength.

A trial date before U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real was scheduled for June 18.

While city officials have insisted that the suit was without merit, they have spent more than $100,000 for lawyers and other experts to defend against the suit. That includes the fees of John E. McDermott, a Los Angeles voting rights attorney hired to defend the city.

City Atty. Gary Gillig said the council will meet behind closed doors today to decide whether to try to force Soria to pay for the city’s expenses in fighting the suit.

But based on previous discussions with council members, Gillig said he believes that the council will not ask for expenses from Soria.

“At this point of the case, now that he’s withdrawn it and indicates in good faith not to pursue it, I’m probably inclined not to seek recovery of expenses,” Mayor Nao Takasugi said.

Even if Oxnard officials do not ask for sanctions, Real, the judge presiding over the case, can still impose sanctions against Soria and his attorneys if he decides that the lawsuit was filed frivolously without any intention to actually continue it through the trial stage.

Soria said he is not worried about sanctions.

“They can do anything they want to me,” he said. “But the fact is we didn’t have the bucks to continue the case.”

Although the case was never heard in court, Soria said the lawsuit was valuable because it forced Oxnard officials and residents to talk about the issue of redistricting and fair representation for Latinos.

“I have no regrets,” he said. “We’ve learned a hell of a lot.”

Soria, a semi-retired administrator who unsuccessfully ran for mayor last year, said he has spent about $45,000 of his own money to pursue the suit. He said he had planned to organize fund-raising events to pay for his legal costs. But Soria said time ran out, and he became pressed by court-imposed deadlines to provide evidence and data that he could not afford to get.

McDermott and Gillig disagreed, saying the suit was dropped not because Soria ran out of money, but because Soria did not have a valid case.

“Frankly, I had my suspicions from day one that this was not a case like the city of Watsonville or a Los Angeles County,” Gillig said, referring to two major voting rights lawsuits that Latino activists have won in the past two years.

McDermott said Soria’s attorney indicated late Friday that the suit would be dropped. He said Soria filed a motion in federal court to have the case dismissed, adding that additional documents are expected to be filed today to officially end the case.

While several Latino activists had voiced support for Soria’s cause when he filed the suit last year, they now say Soria may have underestimated the time and cost required to successfully pursue a voting rights lawsuit.

Soria’s lawsuit received no financial backing from Latino organizations.

Carmen Ramirez, director of the Channel Counties Legal Services Assn. in Oxnard, said Soria never asked her for support. But even if he had, she said her organization probably would have rejected his request.

“Even if he had asked, our resources are limited,” she said. “You have to line up your support before. You can’t ask for help afterward.”

Ramirez said her association is focusing on getting fair housing, jobs and health benefits for its clients.

She said Soria may have picked the wrong defendant when he filed against the city of Oxnard. The case against Oxnard was weak because the Oxnard City Council includes minorities, she said. She cited Lopez, who is a Mexican-American, and Takasugi, who is of Japanese descent.

“To force an entity to change you’d better have the best case possible,” she said. “The city of Oxnard might not have been the best case.”

Soria said he asked for support from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). But he said MALDEF attorneys told him that they were preoccupied with redistricting efforts statewide and could only promise support “sometime within the next year.”

MALDEF representatives could not be reached for comment.

Marcos Vargas, director of El Concilio del Condado de Ventura, an immigrants rights organization in Oxnard, said Soria never asked him for support. But he said he would probably also reject a request for assistance.

“As a nonprofit organization we are not in a position to fund such costly cases,” he said.

If Soria’s lawsuit had gone to trial and lost, Vargas said it could have set a bad legal precedent for other potential lawsuits by Latino activist groups.