Judge orders council districts, new election for Palmdale

A Los Angeles County Superior court judge, who earlier this year found the city of Palmdale to be in violation of the California Voting Rights Act, has ordered the city to hold a new, by-district election for its four City Council posts.

In a ruling dated last week and received by the parties over the weekend, Judge Mark V. Mooney ordered that the special election, to replace the balloting for council seats held last month, is to be conducted June 3, the same day as the California primary.

Future elections are to be held in November of even-numbered years, to dovetail with state and federal balloting, in the expectation that such coordination will increase voter turnout.

The judge allowed the city to continue to elect its mayor from voters throughout the city.

A Palmdale official on Monday reaffirmed the city’s intention to appeal the trial court’s finding that the practice of electing council members at large deprives minorities of an opportunity to elect candidates they feel can best represent them.

“We’re still analyzing the opinion and our options,” Assistant City Atty. Noel Doran said Monday. “We’ve needed this ruling ... so we can appeal the entire matter.”

As yet unclear is what effect a pending appellate court decision on whether to certify last month’s election will have on the case.

The judge rejected the city’s proposed new districts in favor of a plan offered by the plaintiffs, which will give the city two Latino-majority districts and another with substantial black and Latino residents.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, several minority residents of Palmdale, said they were “generally pleased” with the ruling.

“I think this is going to have a huge impact on Palmdale city government,” plaintiffs’ attorney Kevin I. Shenkman said.

Shenkman said he hopes that other cities battling voting rights lawsuits “look at what has transpired in Palmdale and think better of it. It doesn’t benefit anyone to carry on this sort of fight.”

The ruling makes Palmdale the first California city to have its election system upended in court under the 12-year-old state voting rights act. Many other local government bodies with significant minority populations but few or no minority representatives and racially polarized voting patterns have switched voluntarily to elections by geographic district or have done so to settle suits before going to trial.

A handful of other cities, including Anaheim and Whittier, are facing trials after deciding to defend their practice of electing council members citywide.

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jean.merl@latimes.com

Twitter: @jeanmerl