City launches new District Elections webpages

Too bad.

I am interested in more information

The following were my public comments to the City Council on August 24. Instead of fighting for our values, the city council, behind closed doors, withdrew its support of an amicus brief that was submitted to the SCOTUS.

Good evening Mayor and Council. My name is CS of MV

The California Voter Rights Act, aka the CVRA, became law in 2001. It gives enforcement authority to private attorneys and apparently our own city attorney, who are making financial fortunes.

The only element a plaintiff has to establish is that a city's at-large voting system creates polarized voting against a protected class - a purely mathematical formula.

Like many other cities and jurisdictions with at-large voting systems, Mission Viejo was served a demand letter in September 2017 from attorney Kevin J. Shenkman on behalf of his Texas client, . The letter claimed that "voting within Mission Viejo is racially polarized...," which is all it takes to force a city to scrap its at-large voting system.

To bolster his Mission Viejo claim, Mr. Shenkman stated in his demand letter: "Joe Chavez, largely supported by the Latino minority, ran in 2000 and again in 2002, but was unable to secure a seat on the City Council due to the bloc voting of the non-Latino majority."

Here is the rest of the story about our Latinos’ voting success in Mission Viejo elections.

The facts are that there were two Latino candidates who ran in the 2000 and 2002 and in each election, one Latina won and one Latino (Chavez). In 2002, one Latino won re-election and one Latino (Chavez) lost.

Latina challenger Gail Reavis spent about $18,000 on her 2000 campaign, and she beat out the incumbent, who spent an outrageous amount of about $80,000.

Having won his first race in 1998, Latino JP Ledesma won his re-election in 2002.

Joe Chavez did not run a formal campaign in 2000 or 2002 and he never filed a Ballot Statement.

Often, a candidate would lose their first campaign and then run again two years later - winning on their second campaign. Both JP and Gail won their elections as first-time challengers and both served as Mayors.

Our City Attorney, took the position that the City violated the CVRA. But Mission Viejo could not draw districts that guaranteed a “Latino seat”.

But the truth is, IF IF IF, our City Council had approved district-based voting in 2018, three of those council members would have resided in the same district, competing for one seat.

Our city attorney, in doing the work on behalf of the Plaintiff's attorney, and the state legislators, has continued to bill the citizens of Mission Viejo on his quest to shoehorn cumulative voting and weighted voting onto unsuspecting voters.

So, in addition to the attorney's, - who are the real winners under the regulations of the CVRA?

The winners are Ed Sachs, Greg Raths and Wendy Bucknum who extended their terms in office by buffaloing both the judge and the voters.