U. S. Sues Santa Paula Over Voting System

After a two-year investigation, the federal government Thursday sued this city, alleging that its at-large voting system has perpetuated racial discrimination by preventing Latino candidates from being elected to the City Council.

Only one of the city’s five council members is Latino and, in the city’s history, no more than two Latinos have served on the council simultaneously, although Latinos make up two-thirds of the city’s population.

“We feel today’s lawsuit will help bring down the barriers preventing Santa Paula’s Hispanic citizens from having an equal opportunity to elect representatives to their city government,” said Bill Lann Lee, acting assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Latino activists hailed Thursday’s announcement, saying they hope that it will herald a wave of similar litigation throughout the state.

The League of United Latin American Citizens said it will join the suit.

If a judge agrees with federal lawyers, the 4.5-square-mile city of 27,000 in north-central Ventura County could be required to carve itself into five districts, two of which would comprise Latino majorities. Voters from each district would elect one council member.

John McDermott, a Los Angeles voting rights attorney hired by Santa Paula’s City Council to defend its system, said the government is pushing quotas and a policy of “racial maximization” that fly in the face of recent U. S. Supreme Court rulings.

McDermott said it also marks the first voting rights case brought by the U. S. Department of Justice in California since it sued Los Angeles County in the late 1980s. That successful lawsuit resulted in Gloria Molina’s election as the county’s first Latino supervisor. McDermott said the Latino district created because of that case had about the same proportion of Latino voters that already exists citywide in Santa Paula.

Further, he contends, this is the first time that the Justice Department has pursued litigation against a city in which the minority it sought to protect comprises a majority of the city’s eligible voters.

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Although the figures are in dispute, McDermott says more than 50% of those eligible to vote are Latino.

“All the political science research says once you reach that point, there’s no benefit to district elections versus at-large elections,” he said. “What very well might occur is that instead of increasing the number of Hispanics that will be elected, there might be fewer in the future.”

The Justice Department’s lawsuit doesn’t deal with eligible voters, but with registered voters with Spanish surnames, who represented 45% of registered voters in 1998.

Several white officials also criticized the suit.

“I think they’re dead wrong,” said City Councilman Don Johnson, who owns the local newspaper and is one of four white council members who oppose changing the system.

Councilman Jim Garfield said he was sorry to see the city spend money on a court case “when we have so much need in the community. We have crumbling alleys and streets; we need more police officers.

“But I’m adamantly opposed to district voting in a town of our size. I don’t like to see us fragment the community into districts.”

Laura Flores Espinosa, the fifth council member and sole Latino, said she supports the Justice Department’s action and believes that it “is acting in the best interests of the city.”

She urged her colleagues to settle the case rather than continue to fight.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, argues that the city’s system--which in concept allows five candidates who live on the same street to represent an entire city--violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Furthermore, the suit charges that plans recently approved to triple the city’s size by building luxury homes in nearby canyons would further dilute Latino voting power by increasing the proportion of whites living in the city.

Justice officials would not say whether the vote in February that paved the way for the expansion triggered the litigation, but acknowledged that they had been monitoring the expansion effort closely.

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McDermott said canyon development is at least 10 years away and should have no bearing on the litigation.

Justice officials also would not say whether the lawsuit serves as a warning to Ventura County’s other nine cities, all of which have at-large representation, or to California as a whole.

“We look throughout the country,” spokeswoman Kara Peterman said.

The Justice Department opened the Santa Paula investigation two years ago about the time Latino activists mounted a campaign against the city’s expansion plan. Last summer, the department urged the city to voluntarily change its elections process or face litigation.

Led by the white majority on the council, the city refused and hired McDermott to negotiate in hopes of persuading the federal government not to sue.

Talks continued in recent months, but failed to resolve the disagreement. The next step calls for the city to file an answer with the federal court. After that, a judge will set a trial date.

The federal law that serves as the basis for the case guarantees nonwhites equal access to the elections process. Used heavily in the South to empower black voters, Voting Rights Act litigation has been applied more sporadically throughout California to empower Latinos.

A Times analysis last year found at least nine other cities in California--including Santa Paula’s neighbor, Fillmore--have proportionately larger Latino populations than Santa Paula and either one or no Latino council members.

Fillmore Mayor Evaristo Barajas, the only Latino council member there, said he hoped that his city--with about half of Santa Paula’s population--would not face litigation.

“It would be very difficult just to represent little segments of the city,” he said. “A lot of things wouldn’t get done because you’d be sticking to your own little area.”

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Santa Paula Mayor Richard Cook said his city is being “singled out by a group or by people who want to get even with the city for personal reasons.

“From everything I know about the history of Santa Paula, everything is equal and fair,” Cook said. “I’d suggest challenging it. But we’re this small city that’s broke and we’re dealing with the federal government that has deep pockets.”

The city has only about $1 million in reserves, he said.

“Every time we get sued, we either have to give in even if we think it’s wrong, or fight it and spend the money we could have spent on capital improvements or whatever else,” he added.

Jesse Ornelas, an activist who builds low-income housing in the area, said the lawsuit was “long overdue.” He added that while the litigation may bring a better future for Latinos down the road, it could spur political gamesmanship in the meantime.

Ornelas predicted that some white city leaders will urge Latino residents who don’t represent the city’s working class to run in this year’s council races to thwart the lawsuit.

“We need to guard against bogus Latino candidates,” he said.