Mission Viejo taxpayers could have to pay $715,000 in attorneys’ fees stemming from a pair of lawsuits filed after the city council extended the terms of its entire city council in 2020 without an election.
That’s the most recent tally stemming from Orange County Superior Court Judge Walter Schwarm’s order in one of the cases late last week.
Schwarm previously found last year that former councilmembers Ed Sachs and Greg Raths, and current Councilmember Wendy Bucknum, had overstayed their terms in office by more than two years. Schwarm also ordered the city to put the two other council members, Brian Goodell and Trish Kelley, whose terms were up in 2022, on last year’s ballot.
The city is still fighting the case against Sachs, Raths and Bucknum. Goodell and Kelley were both reelected by voters in November. An appeals court is expected to issue a ruling in mid-December.
It started over voting rights
In 2018, the city of Mission Viejo was studying the possibility of switching from at-large to by-district elections in order to stave off a legal threat under the California Voting Rights Act. The law was intended to help remedy the lack of political power among Latinos and other groups in California whose votes have historically been diluted in local elections.
Adopting by-district elections, where residents elect a representative from their geographic section of the city, is the standard remedy for challenges under the state voting right act. But Mission Viejo decided instead to adopt cumulative voting, where voters cast as many votes as there are seats, and they can cast multiple votes for one candidate.
The California Secretary of State
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