A fascinating article appeared last week in California Watch, the news non-profit with more than a few Orange County Register alumni in it. The story focused on the California Voting Rights Act, a fascinating piece of work that essentially tells public governing entities–city councils, school district boards, and the like–that their makeup better reflect the demographics of their respective ruling areas, or else face lawsuits forcing the creation of ward elections in the idea that minority candidates will be easier to elect that way instead of at-large elections.
Talk about a subversion of democracy! California Watch said they identified 34 cities in California with all-gabacho or one-token city councils in majority-minority cities, along with a host of other disproportionately-gaba councils, but didn't name one. It's okay, as we have one city ripe for such a lawsuit in OC: my beloved Anaheim.
]
Anaheim, of course, is now majority Latino, with a hell of a lot of Arabs and Asians and making gabachos its own distinct minority in the city. Yet taken together, the Anaheim City Council, Anaheim City School District, and Anaheim Union High School District Board of Trustees look like a meeting of the Balboa Bay Club–and it'll probably only get whiter this election. There's only one Latino on three boards: Los Amigos president Jose Moreno, in the ACSD. There's one minority on the AUHSD board of trustees: Anna Piercy, an African-American. The city council is the most diverse body, with the Filipina Lorri Galloway and Indian Harry Sidhu–but both of them are termed out this year, and expected to win one seat is the über-white, über-tool Jordan Brandman, an AUHSD trustee and Curt Pringle fave who'll probably be replaced by a gabacho–and the beat goes on.
Rumblings in local progressive circles say that a coalition of groups will sue to force the city council to carve its seats into wards, to ensure minority representation–and that the school boards will follow, whether by lawsuit or by volunteering…under threat of lawsuit. But don't worry, Jordan: the lawsuits probably won't come until after this election, ensuring that legacy gabacho nepotism will push you into your next rung.
Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
