Clovis should embrace district elections, not fear switch from at-large system | Opinion

There was no celebration in October when the Clovis City Council voted 4-1 to adopt district elections starting in 2026 after getting a letter in August threatening a lawsuit, saying the at-large system violates the California Voting Rights Act of 2002.

In the past, Clovis residents voted for all five of the council positions. That is known as at-large voting. Now, they will only vote for the candidates who decide to run in still-to-be-drawn districts in the city of 130,000.

Clovis Mayor Lynne Ashbeck was not pleased with a letter from the Malibu-based law firm Shenkman & Hughes that said the city’s current system dilutes minority votes. The law firm successfully challenged the Clovis Unified School District’s at-large system in June 2023, leading Clovis Unified to hold district elections this year.

“The city has conducted at-large elections since its inception as far back as I could find, but the city has received a letter from a voting advocacy group claiming racially polarized voting exists in the city’s elections,” said Ashbeck during the Oct. 7 council meeting. “Despite the lack of evidence of racially polarized voting in Clovis, (adopting district elections) would avoid lengthy and costly litigation.”

The mayor called the letter “legalized bullying.”

What rankles the mayor and her council colleagues is the letter’s implication that minorities are being kept from electing one of their own to the council. José “Joe” Flores, now chief of the State Center Community College District Police Department, served on the council 22 years before he retired in 2022.

Flores is the only known Latino to have served on the council in a city where Latinos represent 30.5% of the population. In 2022, Fresno police officer Martin Salas finished seventh in a 10-candidate field with 6.87% of the votes where only the top three finishers (all with at least 20.11% of the vote) won a council seat.

Clovis should embrace district elections, not vilify a state requirement to protect the vote of often-overlooked residents. The state law states: “An at-large method of election may not be imposed or applied in a manner that impairs the ability of a protected class to elect candidates of its choice or its ability to influence the outcome of an election, as a result of the dilution or the abridgment of the rights of voters who are members of a protected class.”

More cities are going to district elections

More than 185 cities throughout the state transitioned to a district-based voting system for their councils since 2002, according to the League of California Cities. Fresno went to district elections in 1983. Eight of Fresno County’s 15 cities choose their council members by district.

The fear in Clovis, as expressed in the council’s October meeting, is that the change will lead to ward politics in which the city’s overall well-being will be overlooked by turf wars. One speaker who urged the council to fight the change said the city “will lose the Clovis way of life” should it go to district elections.

Ashbeck and three of her colleagues voted for the switch to district elections, but said it was a matter of waging a losing battle in court. Santa Monica, said Ashbeck, spent $28 million to challenge a similar letter asking for a switch from at-large voting and lost. Seven cities more populous than Clovis have switched to district elections within the last two years. Only Lancaster and Huntington Beach have retained the at-large system.

Mayor Pro Tem Vong Mouanoutoua cast the lone no vote, saying it is “an insult to me as a minority” to suggest minority votes are diluted in Clovis through at-large voting.

Now that Clovis has joined the 21st century in electing city representatives, it can focus on governance of a fast-growing city. Ashbeck told The Fresno Bee Editorial Board that Clovis remains a well-run city.

“People’s voices are heard, and people are satisfied living here,” said Ashbeck, who thinks cities with district elections don’t function as well. “If you look at communities around us where they operated in districts, I would say the evidence is quite clear that it becomes this tribal, ‘I want it in my neighborhood’ kind of thing.”

Ashbeck thinks the entire council should look out for the overall good of the city, and not focus on a specific neighborhood. “We have to serve the whole community to keep Clovis the way it is,” she said.

A map showing where current Clovis council members live shows three residences in the north and two more on the southern section of the 25-square-mile city. A swath of the city’s midsection and southeastern part are empty, although that doesn’t mean those areas are not represented. Under the current at-large system, all five council members could live on the same block and still represent the entire city.

Clovis should embrace district elections. Five council members can represent their neighborhoods and still look out for the best interests of the city.