At-large election talk brings legal action warning in Millbrae

Papan, alongside Vice Mayor Maurice Goodman, requested that the City Council discuss the topic, according to a staff report.

Malibu-based attorney Kevin Shenkman, who sent the letter, said that suggestions by councilmembers that a recent California Supreme Court ruling in a California Voters Rights Act case could open the door for cities to move back to at-large elections were misguided.

“In this case, there is no legal authority for a city council to revert to at large elections. In fact, there is no mechanism now for the electorate to do it through a ballot measure, either,” he said. “The California legislature has been pretty clear that it favors district based elections, and so over the past decade or so, it has facilitated the transition from at-large to district elections.”

The Supreme Court case upheld elements of a previously-reversed ruling that the city of Santa Monica should be required to switch back to district-based elections based on the CVRA, but sent the case back to an appeals court for further consideration.

It also found that violations of the CVRA — a 2001 law that makes it easier for minority groups to prove their votes are being diluted in at-large voting systems — must prove both vote dilution and racially polarized voting.

“The Supreme court provided a more nuanced test when they sent it back to the lower court,” Papan said. “The California League of Cities urged the Supreme Court that cities could evaluate their elections system without fear of unjustified litigation.”

Papan said that Millbrae, as a small jurisdiction, was entitled to look at how district-based elections had impacted minority groups — including Millbrae’s primary minority group, the Asian population — since their tumultuous 2022 inception in the city.

“Mr. Shenkman is throwing everybody into one basket. One thing that came out of the Supreme Court throwing it back is, you have to look more specifically at the jurisdictions,” she said.

Shenkman said that voting rights issues were not dependent on the size of the jurisdiction and that he expected the discussion to be a “waste of time.”

The City Council is also set to discuss the possibility of electing an at-large mayor rather than using a rotating system and will set a date for two upcoming recall elections at its March 26 meeting.