Rights group threatens legal action against Lodi over elections

MALDEF says at-large city council elections dilute Mexican American vote

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) said on Thursday it sent the City of Lodi a letter warning of possible legal action over the city’s at-large system of electing city council members, claiming that the system violates the California Voting Rights Act.

The letter, addressed to Mayor Doug Kuehne, states that an investigation conducted by MALDEF found that the current election system has diluted the Latino vote in the city and resulted in an underrepresentation of Latino residents on the council.

“We are asking Lodi to convert to district-based elections to ensure that all members of the community, including the Latino community, have an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice that will fully and adequately represent the needs of their communities,” MALDEF staff attorney Tanya Cecena Pellegrini told the News-Sentinel on Tuesday. “Having fair and democratic elections will help the entire Lodi community thrive and prosper.”

Pellegrini said MALDEF began its investigation after receiving complaints from Latino voters in Lodi. The letter to the city states that if the city fails to respond to the demands within 45 days, then “we will be forced to seek judicial relief in the form of an action to obtain an order converting the election system from at-large to by-district, together with other relief provided for in the CVRA, including an award of litigation and expert witness costs, and attorneys’ fees.”

When reached by phone on Thursday, Lodi City Manager Steve Schwabauer said he was unable to comment because he has not yet received the letter.

Pellegrini said that it is possible that the letter, which was emailed to the News-Sentinel, is still in the mail and hasn’t made it to the city yet.

Lodi’s five-member city council currently consists of three white males, one Asian-American male and one white female.

According to Pellegrini, U.S. Census figures show that Latinos comprise 20.6 percent of the voting-age population of Lodi, and 36.3 percent of the city’s 62,134 residents, but no Latino has ever been elected to Lodi’s city council.

“It’s much harder to be successful in an at-large election,” Pellegrini said.

“You’ve got a bigger area that you have to campaign in, and it’s harder to get a lot of donations,” she said. “I think that the Latino community specifically feels that it’s futile because there were some pretty well known candidates that did run such as Tony Amador and Maria Elena Serna. Even they couldn’t be successful, so district elections would make it so that people who may not get the support from the entire city can get the support from their community. It makes it a more equitable system.”

Pellegrini said that having a district-based election would make it so that more Latinos would feel that they could actually succeed in running for city council and would level the playing field. District elections would also encourage Latinos to come out to vote as well, she said.

According to Pellegrini, California Elections Code Section 14027 states: “An atlarge election may not be imposed or applied in a manner that impairs the ability of a protected class to elect candidates of its choice or its ability to influence an outcome of an election.”

Pellegrini said that Latino residents in Lodi are a protected class.

“The residents of Lodi deserve a government that is inclusive of all communities,” said Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel. “The city council should act swiftly to change to a districted elections system.”

Amador, a Latino resident who has made unsuccessful bids for U.S. Congress and the Lodi City Council in the past, disagreed with MALDEF’s approach.

“I don’t like quota systems,” Amador said. “I don’t think because of your ethnicity that you naturally deserve a position on a city council where they vote citywide, and I recognize the percentage

of Latinos in Lodi. I have run not once, not twice. I have run for Congress three times. I ran against a white male all three times for Congress and beat him badly in Lodi. Lodi is a strength and support for me.”

Amador said he was able to garner so much support from the Lodi community based on what he stood for, not his ethnicity.

“I think Martin Luther King said it right. It’s not the color of my skin. I have found that I’m well supported because of the positions I hold,” Amador said.

Amador said that if he were to run for city council again that he believes he would be successful. He added that several members of the community have encouraged him to run for council, but not one of them was Latino.

He said the reason he was unsuccessful running for city council in the past was because he filed for candidacy on the very last day.

Latino resident Maria Elena Serna, who ran unsuccessfully for Lodi City Council in 1986 and 1988, said she feels she probably would have been successful if there had a been a district election system in place.

“The first time I ran, I wanted to get my name out there and everything. I had some support out there. The second time, what happened was all of a sudden there were four other candidates that got involved. It diluted the vote and therefore it lowered my chances to get elected,” she said. “If we would’ve had district voting at that time I definitely would have won a seat because I’m coming from the Eastside and I was doing a lot of community work on the Eastside.”

Serna said most of the city’s council members come from the west side of the city and the Eastside is not always represented. She also pointed out that there has been a lack of women on council as well.