Attention: California Voters!

By Nancy C. Arcuri, Editor and Publisher

Are you concerned that your voting rights are being stolen by a Texas non-partisan Latino Voter participation organization called Southwest Voter Registration Education Project?

The law firm of Shenkman & Hughes located at 28905 Wright Road in Malibu, California (310-457-0970) has been busy suing many local cities and school boards in our state that have held city or school board at-large elections.

At-large systems are those in which each member of the governing board is elected by all the voters in the jurisdiction.

This law firm has decided that it is unfair for some candidates to lose their election bid for an office based on “voter dilution”.

They are suing cities or school boards who have at-large elections and winning millions of dollars.

They are legally forcing cities or school boards to carve up voting districts in their area to protect members of a “protected class”.

(Editor’s Note: In California Protected Class: The groups protected from the employment discrimination by law. These groups include men and women on the basis of sex; any group which shares a common race, religion, color, or national origin; people over 40; and people with physical or mental handicaps. Dated Aug 15, 2016.)

Shenkman & Hughes firm send a threaten letter to the City of South Pasadena dated June 2017 stated that their at-large voting violated the California Voting Rights Act of 2001.

They noted that one candidate, Art Salinas, ran for council and lost in 2011. They claimed that Mr. Salinas received significant support from Latino voters but he fell short of securing a seat because of the city’s non-Latino electorate.

This is very unfortunate state of affairs when a candidate loses an election bid and blames it on the voters because he is a member of a “protect class”.

Maybe the voters did not vote for him because he was not the best person for the job of governing their city.

According to the California Voting Rights Act of 2001 the city councils can request voting by districts based on the demographics of the city.

This law firm is suing and demanding that we give away our voting rights based on their client’s personal agendas.

Since a large percent of Monterey Park residents are Asians but many of them are not United States citizens so they should not be voting in our elections. Our Latino residents are the second largest voting block. Our European residents are a smaller voting block. Our African Americans residents are the smallest minority-voting block.

Are the protected classes only Latino, African Americans, women and senior citizens?

I am a woman well over the age of 40 I guess it makes me a member of the protected class even though I am Irish-German heritage.

What about protecting the sacred vote of all Americans?

(Editor’s note: There are two kinds of district voting that are available for general law cities in California: persons may be elected either “by district” or “from districts.” Elections “by district” means that a person may only be elected by voters from the district in which the candidate resides.

This is different from when candidates “from” a district are elected. In this type of voting, a candidate must reside in a particular district, but voters from the city’s entire jurisdiction may vote for that candidate. This information was extracted from a Monterey Park Staff Report date December 15, 2013.)

What if a candidate runs in a district and they win by their one vote?  How does that benefit the voters of the city or school board?

Will elected officials in their district only be concerned about their district and only vote for the benefits of their supporters?

We may not get the best people for the job governing our city.

I don’t believe that was the intent of the California Voting Rights Act of 2001.

I hate to see our U S Constitution trashed by the antics of these hateful people who want to run our country and our world to suit their own political agendas.

Why do they want to destroy our United States of America?