Palm Springs re-districting meeting narrows down possible maps to 5
Palm Springs narrowed down its prospective voting district maps for its inaugural district-based election. The meeting at City Hall reduced the current number of map recommendations from 20 to 5.
Tonight’s meeting included a presentation of proposed maps from the city’s California Voting Rights Act Working Group and comments from the city council, who officials say will select from the available maps to move toward cementing where the city’s new voting district boundaries will lie.
The city’s transition from at-large elections, in which city officials are elected based on votes from the entire city’s population, to district-based elections, in which various electoral districts throughout Palm Springs will elect council members through separate elections, was expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Along with the CVRA’s recommendations, the city solicited map submissions from local residents. The recommendations to go before the city council tonight have divided the proposed voting districts based on various factors, including citizen voting age, voter turnout in past election years, age, race, income and more.
The move to district elections comes after a voting rights group threatened litigation against the city earlier this year, alleging that Palm Springs is violating the California Voting Rights Act by conducting at-large elections.
A letter from the nonprofit Southwest Voter Registration Education Project claimed that at-large elections “diminished the ability of Latino residents to impact elections and has resulted in racially polarized voting.”
Though city officials denied the nonprofit’s claims, they noted that municipalities that chose to fight litigious threats of that sort often lose, citing the northern Los Angeles County city of Palmdale, which lost a court battle over the matter and was forced to make the switch, as well as pay millions of dollars in legal fees.
Similar notices were sent to Cathedral City and Indio in recent years, prompting both municipalities to switch to district-based elections.
So what does this mean for the current councilmembers? In all five maps, Mayor Robert Moon and council member Geoff Kors live in the same district which means the two would have to run against each other in the 2019 election if running for re-election and if their district is up for election.
In four of the five maps, councilmembers Lisa Middleton and J.R Roberts live in the same district. In only one scenario do councilmembers Christy Holstege and Middleton live in the same district, meaning the two would potentially run against each other come 2021.
Depending on a final map chosen, all districts could possibly be represented by 2019 or it can take until 2021.
Those who cannot attend the meeting may view the recommendations at
www.psdistricts.com.
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