Murrieta and Temecula Must Stop Shenkman's Districting Absurdity

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

A year ago the City of Banning faced a difficult decision. Malibu, California-based attorney, and hardcore liberal leftist, Kevin Shenkman, sent a letter to the city much like the ones he’d sent a large number of other cities in California.  In the letter Shenkman alleged that the city’s at-large mode of voting for members of their city council violates the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) of 2001.  The other cities faced with the decision of a legal fight that comes with the expenses that go with it, or giving in so as to not risk the taxpayer’s money, gave in without even a whimper.  After all, in the modern political climate, all cities are starving for cash for their growing budgets and can’t afford to give funds away in a lawsuit that they calculate is very possible to lose.

City after city in the more conservative corners of California, and a few liberal ones, have received Shenkman’s letter, and have given in.  And after the districting, where the voters vote only for a candidate to represent their district, and not for all of the city council members who will represent them, calamity sets in because it becomes easier for corruption to creep in, and for the insertion of leftist politics the majority of citizens had been refusing to vote into office before.

What Shenkman is doing is he is creating racial division where it does not exist, and he’s making a ton of money in the process.

Shenkman’s latest victory was in Oceanside where the City Council was split, voting 3-2 to approve a proposal to move from an at-large system, where every council member is elected by the voters as a whole, to a district system, where voters are only represented directly by one member, from a particular geographic area (which is supposed to be packed with the minority population in question as demanded by Shenkman).

Shenkman claims that at large systems prevent minority groups from winning elections.  If not moved to a district system, in his letters he threatens to sue the cities who refuse to comply.

Oceanside has a history of having several Latino council members, including one who has served on the council for the last 16 years. It also recently had an African-American mayor.  But, since Linda Gonzales lost last year, Shenkman says it was due to racism, and that Oceanside’s 65.2% white majority engaged in “bloc voting” to exclude Latinos.

Gonzales opposed Shenkman’s effort, and told Breitbart News that she believes lost her election fairly. She added that Shenkman never asked her permission to use her name.

Oceanside, nonetheless, gave in.  Their city attorney advised them that no city or school board had ever successfully defended an at large election system from a challenge in court.  Palmdale fought back, and the subsequent court fight set the template for other confrontations between Shenkman and his targets. At first, the city was defiant, fighting Shenkman in court and holding elections that a judge later declared were illegal. In the end, however, after being worn down by years of litigation and appeals, Palmdale agreed to a settlement that required it to pay $4.5 million.  Therefore, to try to fight Shenkman is considered a losing battle.  Shenkman uses the Palmdale case to push other cities into immediate compliance.

And then it’s off to the next city for Shenkman & Hughes.

Shenkman and his supporters argue that districts increase the chance that minority candidates will win elections, presuming people vote as racial blocs.