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A jury trial could force Huntington Beach to switch to by-district elections
Huntington Beach, CA - January 16: Huntington Beach Mayor Grace Van Der Mark listens to speakers from Protect Huntington Beach during a Huntington Beach City Council meeting in Huntington Beach City Hall Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag
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A jury trial set for August could decide if the city of Huntington Beach switches to district elections.
Currently, Huntington Beach elections use the at-large method, where residents cast ballots for all City Council members. If the city is forced to switch to the by-district method, residents will only vote for a councilmember who lives within their geographic area.
In May, the nonprofit Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and Victor Valladares, a Huntington Beach resident, filed a lawsuit against the city alleging the at-large method has led to “vote dilution for Latino residents and has denied them effective political participation in elections.”
The city has argued that Latino candidates like Tito Ortiz and Gracey Van Der Mark were successfully elected to office and is refusing to switch to by-district elections.
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A spokesperson for the city did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What the lawsuit says
Kevin Shenkman, the attorney representing Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and Valladares, said the two Latinos elected to the City Council in recent years were not preferred by Latino voters in the city.
“Huntington Beach is a political mess. It's just not a well functioning city government,” he said. “It is controlled and subject to the whim of the most extreme factions and I think that's both a symptom of the at-large election system and also why the city of Huntington Beach has taken this approach so far.”
By-district elections, he added, ensures every neighborhood and community is represented, resulting in decisions that better reflect all constituents.
Valladares is the executive director of the Oak View ComUNIDAD. The neighborhood, he said, has been neglected and bypassed for years, plagued by health and environmental concerns from an open landfill.
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“It's very well documented that the city is against affordable housing,” Valladares said. “Well, we know in our community, there's people that are doubled up or tripled up living in need of access to affordable housing and these folks are not listening to constituents in the community.”
Move to by-district elections
In recent elections, Irvine and Cypress used the by-district method for the first time. And in recent years, other cities in Orange County, including Anaheim, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Tustin, Westminster, Los Alamitos and Las Palma, have made the switch to district elections under threats of lawsuits by Shenkman.
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