Published in the June 10-23, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Mario Banuelos
Mario Banuelos
The Morgan Hill Unified School District currently uses at-large school board elections, which means all seven board members run a campaign to all constituents and all constituents cast their vote for all of the open seats at each election. That most likely will change in the next election.
The school district is in the process of creating new voter boundaries for a trustees by-district electoral system. By-trustee area, constituents would only vote on the open seat that was within their geographical boundary area.
This election change will allow the MHUSD to comply with the California Voting Rights Act of 2001. By removing requirements to prove minorities are disenfranchised in the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, the CVRA made it easier for advocacy groups to sue local government agencies to eliminate at-large elections.
The CVRA addresses the concern that at-large elections are often discriminatory because they racially polarize voting and prevent minority voters from electing minority candidates where they are not a majority within the district boundary.
Every 10 years, census data is collected to derive an official total population down to the census block level (not neighborhood blocks but slightly larger areas). Based on growth, trustee area boundaries can be re-drawn (re-districted) with the goal to achieve roughly equal total populations within each election area.
For the MHUSD, a demographer has proposed six new election area maps that divide the school district boundary into seven trustee areas with a total population of 59,911 (including San Martin and south San Jose) and about 8,500 residents within each area. The total population within each area is further disaggregated by ethnicity – Hispanic, white, black and Asian — and by voting age, citizen voting age, voter registration and voter turn-out. The demographer will present the six models to the public at the Board of Education meeting June 9.
I agree with the goals of the California Voting Rights Act to empower voters to elect candidates of their choice and to give candidates equal opportunity to participate in public service. However, I am skeptical that reducing geographical areas to accommodate greater participation by minority groups will serve this purpose.
The constitutionality of the voting rights laws are constantly challenged. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case in Texas that challenges the “one person, one vote” principle of the Fourteenth Amendment under the Equal Protection Clause. The clause requires that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction “the equal protection of the laws.” According to the Supreme Court, the principle requires that, “when members of an elected body are chosen from separate districts, each district must be established on a basis that will insure, as far as is practicable, that equal numbers of voters can vote for proportionally equal numbers of officials.”
The conservative group Protection on Fair Representation claims that large urban legislative districts with non-citizen immigrant communities mainly Hispanic are not eligible to vote even though they are included in the total population redistricting map, in essence giving non-voter communities more political power, contrary to the principle of ‘one person, one vote.’ The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the fall and decide sometime in June 2016.
In other communities that have redistricted for city council, school district, community colleges, and special district election, there has yet to be much gain in the goal of promoting more ethnic minority candidates. When a community truly values diversity, it will seek opportunities to cultivate leadership among their constituents. I am hopeful that Morgan Hill, through groups such as Leadership Morgan Hill, will continue to train local residents in local civic participation.
Voting Rights Act laws, whether to change existing boundaries with redistricting or create new district boundaries with by-district electoral systems, are controversial because sometimes the intended outcome of the law doesn’t materialize. Despite this uncertainty, the goal remains that qualified candidates will be inspired to run for the school board.
Mario Banuelos is a resident of Morgan Hill. He wrote this column for Morgan Hill Life.
