Santa Clara settles voting rights lawsuit after spending $6 million, four years on legal battles
After spending $6 million of taxpayer money and four years fighting a lawsuit and a court order forcing Santa Clara to switch to district elections, the city has thrown in the towel — vindicating residents who argued that at-large elections diluted the votes of Asian Americans.
As part of a settlement agreement, the council, by June 1, must call for an election to be held in which voters can choose whether to amend the city’s charter to make permanent the current six-district system, according to City Attorney Brian Doyle, who announced the settlement at a special City Council meeting this week.
The settlement comes after the city lost an appeal in December 2020 to a 2017 California Voting Rights Act lawsuit brought by five Asian Americans from Santa Clara. In 2018, a Santa Clara County Superior Court ruled that the city’s longstanding at-large elections violated the voting rights act and that the city needed to create six council districts for council elections.
No Asian American was ever elected to the City Council in Santa Clara since its city charter adoption in 1951 until the city made the switch to a six-district election system in 2018, in which candidates for each seat ran to represent a smaller area of the city, except the mayor.
Read more: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2021/04/23/santa-clara-settles-voting-rights-lawsuit-after-spending-6-million-four-years-on-legal-battles/
