Proponents of district based voting are threatening to open a second front in their legal fight with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) focused on compliance with the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA).
SMMUSD is already embroiled in a districting argument under a different legal process and while the new threat is currently just a threat, supporters of district based voting say they may file the new paperwork if they are unsuccessful in their current attempt.
Malibu lawyer Kevin Shenkman is behind both proposals.
On Dec. 25, 2023, Shenkman wrote a letter to the district on behalf of clients Maria Loya, Jennifer deNicola, Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, Pico Neighborhood Association and their respective members residing in the district, alleging that SMMUSD’s at-large system for electing school board members violates the CVRA due to voting being “racially polarized” and “resulting in minority vote dilution.”
“Given the racially polarized voting and corresponding vote dilution in SMMUSD, we urge the District to voluntarily change its at-large system of electing governing board members,” Shenkman wrote. “Otherwise, on behalf of residents within the jurisdiction, we will be forced to seek judicial relief.”
Shenkman told the Daily Press that the letter was necessary if he were to pursue CVRA litigation in the future, a decision highly reliant on a pending ruling by the Los Angeles County Office of Education Committee on School District Organization on his petition submitted in 2022.
The 2022 petition was filed under a different state law that allows County officials to implement district based voting without a public vote, court case or consent of the schools. The CVRA can also force district based voting on a municipal entity through court action but is an entirely separate process.
He noted that the county committee may have a decision, or at minimum a “strong indication” of what a decision may be, as early as this week.
He added that he will “continue to evaluate what the appropriate course of action is,” and that if the committee does not move forward with his district-based voting map, he then has the option of “simply taking the matter to the Superior Court” rather than “messing around with the [committee] further.”
“I can’t say that if that process drags on for another six months, a year, two years or whatever that we would … continue waiting, but at least for now, we’re gonna wait,” Shenkman said.
Attorneys representing SMMUSD agreed with that stance on their end, saying that “given the considerable resources” required to defend against the petition, “it would be far more efficient to allow that process to finish” since success in implementing the petition would “moot the need for any litigation under the CVRA.”
However, the District also disputed the allegations related to racially polarized voting.
The district legal representatives responded in full with a letter on Feb. 22, stating that the initial letter was “absent [of] any specific evidence of violations of the CVRA” and that the letter “does not present a compelling basis to replace SMMUSD’s proven at-large system.”
Shenkman alleges that the CVRA disfavors the use of at-large voting due to the impairment of minority groups’ ability to elect preferred candidate or influence the outcome of elections, and that SMMUSD’s at-large system specifically dilutes the ability of Latinos to elect candidates of their choice or otherwise influence the outcomes of district board elections. He pointed to the 2004 SMMUSD board candidacy of Ana Jara as an example, who he stated lost “despite receiving essentially unanimous support from the District’s Latino voters.” SMMUSD attorneys Dale Larson, Frederic Woocher and Carolina Chiappetti responded to this claim by saying Jara, the last Latino candidate to lose a SMMUSD board election, lost to two other Latino candidates in 2004.
The Malibu-based attorney also brought up Maria Loya’s losses in runs for Santa Monica City Council and the Santa Monica College governing board, saying she lost despite “near-unanimous support” from Latino voters and that this demonstrates that the dilution “holds true with the electorate of SMMUSD,” the same electorate of the Santa Monica Community College District. Loya is also at the center of another CVRA case, Pico Neighborhood Association et al. v. City of Santa Monica, with Shenkman representing the plaintiff claiming that the City’s at-large voting system discriminates against Latino voters. In August 2023, the California Supreme Court returned that case to the Court of Appeal for consideration and that court pushed the decision back to the trial court for a future hearing.
In response to Shenkman’s claims, SMMUSD attorneys stated that the district “cares deeply about the voting rights of all of its constituents and takes very seriously any allegations that the District is not doing everything it can to promote and protect those rights, particularly those of its protected class constituents.” Along with providing context to the Jara election, they noted that from 2006 to 2022, 11 Latino candidates appeared on the school board ballot, winning each of their respective elections.
“Given SMMUSD’s commitment to empowering its protected class constituents, the District is reluctant to abandon an at-large system with a consistent and proven track record of success in electing Latino candidates for a trustee-area system full of unknowns that, at best, seems designed to provide an opportunity to elect a Latino candidate to only one of the seven seats, once every four years,” the response letter stated.
The response letter also states that even if the district was agreeable to a voluntary change, it lacks the authority to unilaterally move to trustee area elections under the Santa Monica City Charter. Moreover, potential CVRA litigation would be “unlikely” to impact SMMUSD elections before a unification (or splitting) of Santa Monica and Malibu schools would be complete, as the school district “as presently configured” would cease to exist. As of the February letter, the attorneys stated that the creation of a new, independent Malibu Unified School District would “largely be completed” by the summer of 2026.