A federal appeals court reaffirmed Tucson’s hybrid city election process Friday, rejecting Republican claims that it violates the one-person, one-vote principle.
The full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the system for municipal elections – in which council members are first nominated by party in ward races and then run at-large – is allowed under the federal system that “permits ‘innovation and experimentation’” that can “vary greatly across the country.”
“Tucson’s hybrid system represents a careful, longstanding choice, twice affirmed by voters, as to how best to achieve a city council with members who represent Tucson as a whole but reflect and understand all of the city’s wards,” Judge Marsha Berzon wrote in the court’s unanimous opinion.
The decision reverses a November 2015 ruling by a divided three-judge panel of the circuit court that had agreed with a lawsuit by the Public Integrity Alliance, representing local Republicans, that claimed the system violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.