Non-District CVRA Remedies: Comment on April 16 Council Meeting Item 8
Retrieved May 6, 2024 at 12:15 a.m.
I offer belated comments regarding item 8, LB 24-011, resolution of intention to adopt city council districts, adopted at the April 16, 2024 council meeting.
The council has acted appropriately by beginning a process to diligently consider district elections as a California Voting Rights
Act (CVRA) remedy, with community input. Because Hayward is not a highly segregated city, I expect that this remedy will prove unsatisfactory to both the City and the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Mr. Rafferty, claimed on March 10 that “it is possible to
create at least one district that is majority Asian”, but he has not substantiated this by releasing a proposed map to the public. Mr. Rafferty claimed on March 21 that Hayward has forfeited its “safe harbor” option to adopt districts, in which case there is no reason to favor this remedy, or rush the process.
In 2023, the California Supreme Court clarified that several options other than districts are available to address under-representation of protected groups (Pico Neighborhood Association v. City of Santa Monica, case S263972). The court established a more specific test for vote dilution, so the current bar for plaintiffs to prove CVRA violations is not low, as the city’s attorney, Mr. Vigilia, claimed in his presentation. I urge the city and plaintiffs to work together to carefully consider all available remedies.
As a CVRA remedy, districts have drawbacks:
- The remedy can only work when a city has strong geographic segregation.
- It offers no benefits to protected group members outside of their designated districts, and could hurt them if they are isolated by district lines. This could invalidate a district remedy, according to Pico.
- If a district has two strong candidates that would both be chosen in an at-large election, no more than one can win.
- Voters have fewer choices than in at-large elections.
- Voters in a district who dislike the winner have no path to satisfactory representation
- Drawing district lines splits groups of voters who wish to act together, sometimes leading to bitter disputes, as occurred recently in San Francisco’s supervisorial redistricting.
- Districts do not always improve representation of protected groups.
Proportional ranked-choice voting (PRCV), first used in Alameda County
by Albany in 2022 to resolve a CVRA claim, is an option cited by the
California Supreme Court that avoids these flaws:
- PRCV retains the at-large representation that Hayward currently enjoys.
- In practice, nearly every voter helps elect a winner.
- Candidates appealing to protected groups can live anywhere
in the city. - All voters enjoy a diverse list of candidates.
- Multiple candidates appealing to protected groups can be elected if popular enough. Mr. Rafferty states that 34% of Hayward
voters are Asian-American. If they were to all vote for Asian-American candidates in an at-large PRCV election without
staggered terms, they could elect not just one but two council members representing the whole city. - Protected groups (and women) increased their representation in many cases where this method was adopted in the United States and elsewhere.
- Through a court settlement, PRCV could be implemented in time for the 2024 election.
In light of the Pico decision, the San Francisco school and city college boards are working with Mr. Rafferty to consider PRCV. Burbank and Santa Monica are considering cumulative voting, a semi-proportional method that is a common federal Voting Rights Act remedy. I encourage careful consideration of non-district alternatives in cooperation with the plaintiffs. This will ensure that Hayward invests in an election method with the strongest likelihood of improving representation of protected groups without imposing undue constraints on voters and candidates. Finally, I ask that the city acknowledge that non-district CVRA remedies exist on the maphayward.org website.