“How California Is Solving Its Voting Rights Problem”

Spencer Woodman for VICE:

Similar battles over voting rights and election fairness have been taking place around California, where rapidly shifting demographics have threatened to upend traditional centers of power in recent decades. As growing minority populations fight for a place in local government, the drawing of voter districts has become a major battleground, determining who gets to have a say in important aspects of civic life. In the past few weeks alone, California’s voting rights disputes resulted in a federal voting rights suitagainst alleged districting discrimination in Kern County; a redrawing of districts in the coastal town of San Juan Capistrano, following a state voting rights suit; and legal action by Shenkman against an allegedly suppressive school district in the Los Angeles area.

“These things are happening all over the state,” said Richard Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine. “Inertia is a powerful force, and people who benefit from the status quo don’t want to change the status quo. Sometimes it takes a lawsuit to force more equitable forms of representation.”

Yet despite these districting tiffs, Hasen said, California actually represents a rare bright spot for many advocates in national elections policy. In recent years, as other states remained intent on erecting new barriers to the ballot box, California did pretty much the opposite, enacting a series of new laws that have put the state at the cutting edge of progressive voting policy.

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