SOUTH PASADENA – The South Pasadena School District Board has voted to change a district policy from at-large to district-based trustee elections by 2022.
The district made the change after it received a letter from the Shenkman & Hughes PC law firm, which alleged that the current system disenfranchises African-American and Latino constituents. The board passed the measure in a 5-0 decision at a Jan. 14 meeting.
The Malibu firm has also been pressuring other local government agencies to make changes to their voting system, including the Pasadena City Council.
“Just in the last five years, there have been hundreds of school districts who have made that change – most of them actually not in response to a threat of litigation, at least not a direct threat of litigation – but rather seeing that that is the direction that California’s going; that it is the direction that California Legislation wants political subdivisions to go,” attorney Kevin Shenkman said in an interview.
“The California Legislature passed a law [California Voting Rights Act (CVRA)] and sort of struck a balance," Shenkman said. "On the one hand, the statute requires that any prospective plaintiff thinking about suing for violations has to send by certified mail [the complaint]…then upon receipt of that letter the political subdivision has 45 days to pass a resolution indicating its intent to switch its elections, and then 90 days after that to draw the districts and adopt the ordinance.
“On the other side of things, that amendment of the law also provides up to $30,000 for the work of the demand letter.”
The CVRA “prohibits the use of an at-large election if it would impair the ability of a [minority group] to elect candidates of its choice.”
District Superintendent Geoff Yantz told The South Pasadena Review that money was a factor in voting for the change.
"It was an order to avoid litigation, which is very costly and you lose,” Yantz told the newspaper. “No one has prevailed, and those who have tried to fight it – as an example, the city of Santa Monica – have lost millions and millions in trying to fight it.”