City loses appeal to change election system

Judge agrees with ruling saying at-large process is a violation of the California Voting Rights Act

SANTA CLARA >> A state appellate court has rebuffed the city’s bid to return to its traditional system of choosing city council candidates at large instead of by district.

In is ruling, the Sixth Appellate District determined that Santa Clara County Superior Court

Judge Thomas E. Kuhnle properly concluded the city’s at-large election system violated the California Voting Rights Act by diluting the votes of Asian American residents.

The appellate court also ordered the city to pay about $3.3 million in attorney fees and costs to the plaintiffs who sued the city to force the switch to district elections, including the Asian Law Alliance of Santa Clara County.

While many cities across the state have shifted from at-large to district elections after threats of being sued under the Voting Rights Act, Santa Clara was one of the few to litigate the issue, even though it made the change to district elections pending a legal ruling.

After the lengthy appeals process, the appellate court on Dec. 30 upheld Judge Kuhnle’s decision.

“We find no reversible error in the trial court’s interpretation of the governing legal principles and its application of the law to the evidence presented at trial,” Acting Presiding Justice Eugene Premo wrote on behalf of the appellate court.

The city has already spent $1.5 million on outside counsel and about $500,000 on two failed ballot measures attempting to create a new elections system. One of those, Measure C, would have cut the number of districts in half from six to three. It was defeated by a resounding 60% of the vote in March 2020.

Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor, who has championed the city’s fight against the lawsuit, declined to comment on the appellate court’s decision.

“I would not like to comment until our full council has had an opportunity to meet and discuss the facts of the decision and what our next steps will look like,” she said.

Cit y Attorney Brian Doyle said he is “obviously and understandably disappointed in the ruling.” He said the council is likely to meet next Monday in closed session to discuss the court’s decision.

“I don’t know what more to say at this point,” he said. “It’s been a long road and there’s been a lot of public comment through the ballot box. Call me old-fashioned but I believe in democracy and I think the people should decide.”

The 2002 law that civil rights advocates cited to sue the city requires local governments to change from at- large to district elections if minority groups can prove the former system results in racially polarized voting or that certain racial or ethnic groups have historically voted as a bloc to elect preferred candidates.

In 2017, a group of five Asian American plaintiffs filed a suit alleging Santa Clara’s at-large system for electing council members violates the law by diluting the votes of minorities, specifically Asian American voters. Judge Kuhnle agreed, issuing a ruling in 2018 that ordered the city to create six districts.

In November 2018, the city held district elections for the first time and voters elected Raj Chahal. He became the first Asian American person elected to the city council in 70 years, and since then three more Asian Americans have been elected to the council.

During an interview on Monday, Chahal said the court’s decision has “protected minority rights, the reasons for which the CVRA was enacted.”

He said he “cannot understand” why the city “wasted more than $5 million of our residents’ money on this lawsuit, plus staff time” at a time when it faces a budget deficit after revenue losses from the coronavirus pandemic.

“I feel bad that poor judgment calls at the city leadership level have cost our residents millions of dollars, which could have been used for providing much-needed services to our community,” he said.

Chahal was part of the the first real push to shift Santa Clara to district elections in 2011 when he joined a city charter review committee. But nothing came of it, he said. To end the yearslong court battle, Chahal said he will push for the council to implement a district system through a city ordinance, something the city could copy from others across the state.

“We could have just finalized the district elections for the city of Santa Clara by ordinance, just as more than 25 charter cities have done in California,” Chahal said. “This would have cost us nothing more than a few hours of staff time.”

Also weighing in against the city’s decision to spend taxpayer money fighting the lawsuit were the San Francisco 49ers, who have been openly feuding with the city for years over management of Levi’s Stadium.

Team spokesman Rahul Chandhok said the court’s ruling is the “regrettable — but predictable — fallout of costly litigation launched by Mayor Gillmor and City Attorney Doyle to retain political power and diminish the voting rights of minorities.”

The football team was part of a campaign to defeat Measure C and has long opposed the city’s current leadership. CEO Jed York contributed $ 330,000 of his own money to defeat the measure on top of $300,000 the team gave to a committee opposing Measure C, according to campaign contribution filings.

Those filings also show York gave about a quarter million dollars to defeat Gillmor’s council allies by supporting candidates Anthony Becker, Harbir Bhatia, Suds Jain and Kevin Park. All of them except Bhatia won their elections in November.

In a message to this news organization, Chandhok said the city was “wrong on the policy and wrong on the law.”

“The residents bear the costs of (the council’s) mistakes,” he said. “Their unfortunate actions have created both a moral and fiscal debt.”