Who Votes Is Still Unclear in Antelope Valley Election

A federal appeals court has cast a cloud of uncertainty over a March 2 special election for a state Senate district in the Antelope Valley by agreeing to hear a challenge by Latinos over who should be eligible to vote.

In a ruling late Thursday, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided to consider an argument over who should vote in the 16th District election: the largely Democratic voters of the district created by reapportionment, or the predominately Republican voters within the previous district boundaries.

The election is to fill the 16th District seat left open when state Sen. Don Rogers (R-Bakersfield) chose to run for reelection to the Senate in the more heavily Republican 17th District created after the 1990 U.S. census.

If the appeal is rejected, many Antelope Valley and Kern County voters who already picked Rogers for the new 17th District also will get to help select a second state senator because they were part of the old 16th District.

In contrast, many San Joaquin Valley voters who became part of the new 16th District when it was shifted northward by reapportionment would not get to vote for the state senator who will represent them for the next two years, the remainder of Rogers’ old term.

If the appeal is granted, the March 2 contest almost certainly would have to be postponed because the two versions of the district are so drastically different, an election official said.

“There’s not much we can do at this point” to change current plans for the election, said Hugh Denton, the chief deputy registrar of voters in Kern County. Barring a court decision to the contrary, state election officials have said the law requires them to hold the election among voters within the old district boundaries.

The issue is pivotal to residents in the Los Angeles County portion of the eastern Antelope Valley. They are now slated to vote because they were part of the old 16th District. But they are not part of the new district.

The old 16th District included all of Kern and Kings counties, but also parts of the Antelope Valley, Altadena, Pasadena and San Bernardino County. Reapportionment shifted the district north to include parts of Fresno and Madera counties, and made the political makeup of its voters 61% Democratic and 32% Latino.

Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, Democratic Secretary of State March Fong Eu and others maintain that the election should be held in the old district, since those voters chose Rogers for a four-year term in 1990.

But three San Joaquin Valley-area Latinos who reside in areas brought into the 16th District by reapportionment filed a lawsuit Dec. 29 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles challenging the election. They argued that they ought to be allowed to vote for the state senator who will represent them for the coming two years.

U.S. District Judge John Davies rejected their request for a preliminary injunction in an order issued Wednesday, leaving Republican activists confident. But attorneys for the Latinos immediately appealed to the 9th Circuit, which agreed to hear the case in the next two weeks.

Beverly Hills attorney Allan Browne, who represents the Latinos, argued that the federal Voting Rights Act, intended to protect the voting rights of minorities, requires that the new district boundaries be used as early as possible, in this case for the special election.

Most of the 11 candidates who are qualified to run from the old 16th District, including former Republican Assemblyman Phil Wyman of Tehachapi, would be excluded if they kept their current addresses and new district boundaries are used. But Democratic Assemblyman Jim Costa of Hanford would be eligible either way.

Wyman called the lawsuit a political power-play by Democrats seeking to win the state Senate seat, and said the decision by the court to hear the appeal “makes me wonder if their head is screwed on straight.”

Costa could not be reached for comment Friday.

Denton, the Kern County deputy registrar, said the election probably would have to be postponed until at least July if the court were to grant the appeal. Qualifying a slate of candidates for the election would probably have to start over, he said.

The other Republicans in the race are businessman Chris Binning, economic analyst Leonard Tekaat, City Councilman Kevin McDermott, all of Bakersfield, author Donald Heath of Bodfish, and businessman Michael McCloskey of Tehachapi.

The other Democrats are maintenance mechanic Darrell Beller, school board member Irma Carson, and businessman Dennis Wilson, all of Bakersfield, and businessman Jay Hanson of Ridgecrest.

If the election is held March 2 and no candidates receive a majority, a runoff would be held April 27.