Struggle for power a key theme in Pasadena voting rights trial
A trial has a way of concentrating events. A few days of testimony in a Houston federal courtroom, for example, have yielded a narrative encapsulating several years of drama that has played out at Pasadena’s City Hall.
Among the highlights: Two City Council members recalled being dragged from public meetings by police officers on Mayor Johnny Isbell’s orders. A councilman told of his shock when he saw a pistol clattering to the floor from Isbell’s belongings at a council meeting (the mayor claims it was a pellet gun). A top city official admitted under oath that he had illegally used city time, resources and staff to work on political campaigns.
I spent two days sitting in U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal’s courtroom this week, listening to testimony in the trial of a lawsuit alleging that the 2013 creation of two at-large Pasadena City Council seats unlawfully diluted Latino voting strength. The trial is scheduled to conclude on Friday, and voting-rights activists around the country will take a keen interest in the outcome.
As I flipped through my notebook, I found a number of quotations from key witnesses that illuminated central themes in the case.
“You don’t have to look at the budget to see that one side of town is clearly being treated differently than the other.” — Pasadena Councilman Cody Ray Wheeler.
The councilman, a Latino in his second term who is part of the faction that has opposed the mayor on contentious topics, was discussing the real-world consequences of the issues in the case. Residents of Pasadena’s mostly Latino north side have long complained that the quality of their streets, drainage and other essential services lags far behind conditions on the predominantly Anglo south side.
The most recently adopted council structure of six district seats and two at-large ones replaced a system of eight district positions. If, as the suit alleges, the new system makes it harder for the city’s growing Latino population to elect its preferred candidates, this under-representation is reflected in residents’ daily lives. This trial is not a
theoretical exercise.
“Yes.” — Richard Scott, Pasadena’s community relations director.
Scott uttered this word repeatedly in response to questions about whether he had used his city computer and email account and directed other employees to campaign for Isbell’s re-election and for the charter change, narrowly approved by voters in November 2013, that created the new council system.
The city official’s testimony was notable not just because he had acknowledged an unlawful act, but as an illustration of how far Isbell and his closest allies were apparently willing to go to stave off the looming threat they saw in increased Latino voting influence.
Scott, who said he and Isbell had been friends for 50 years, expressed regret for these actions and vowed not to repeat them. “Who are you to vote
against me?” — Isbell to Wheeler, according to Wheeler’s testimony.
Wheeler said the mayor posed this question after Wheeler voted against a bond package that Isbell initially supported. Isbell has not confirmed or denied having made the statement, but it’s the kind of thing a longtime public official accustomed to having his way might say to a young, ambitious politician like Wheeler.
Isbell, 78, has held elective office in Pasadena almost continuously since 1969 — 16 years before the 31-year-old Wheeler was born. A sense of entitlement can be a byproduct
of all that experience.
“The mayor was concerned he could lose his four votes.” — Councilwoman Pat Van Houte.
Ethnicity is the central legal issue in the case, but the underlying events mainly reflect a struggle for power. As they sought influence proportionate to their growing numbers, Pasadena’s Latinos just happened to threaten Isbell’s grip on city government.
The mayor, in fact, has supported certain Latino candidates for the council. But he threw everything he had into efforts to prevent Wheeler’s election, funding a political action committee that produced literature attacking Wheeler in 2013 and 2015.
Through it all, Isbell clung to his slim council majority, voting repeatedly to break 4-4 ties on key votes such as putting the charter change creating the new council system on the ballot.
But his grip was tenuous. Isbell started the process leading to the creation of the at-large districts almost immediately after a controversial 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidating a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling made the change possible without federal preapproval. “We’ve got to keep Pasadena Pasadena.”
— unidentified Anglo precinct judge to Wheeler, explaining his support for the new council system on Nov. 5, 2013 — the day voters narrowly approved it.
I think this comment speaks for itself.