Latino group lawsuit challenges Stanislaus County election map. County responds
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- MALDEF filed a lawsuit alleging Stanislaus County's map dilutes Latino votes.
- The county defends its process citing public input and legal compliance in 2021.
- The group alleges the county diluted Latino voting strength by splitting communities.
Stanislaus County officials worked through a redrawing of supervisorial district boundaries four years ago, using data from the 2020 national census.
But a civil rights group is suing to nullify the county’s redistricting map that’s intended to guide elections until 2030.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of California in April, claiming the county’s adopted redistricting map served to dilute the Latino vote after that population grew substantially between 2010 and 2020.
Prior to 2021, the county was mostly expected to give each supervisorial district an equal population when voting districts were redrawn. But the most recent process placed more emphasis on a county’s racial diversity.
“Too many redistricting line-drawers act to preserve their own political power, rather than to ensure that the voices of growing voter communities are well-reflected as the jurisdiction moves forward,” Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF said in an April 23 news release. “Giving in to self-preservation over representation is a fundamentally anti-democratic act.”
In a statement, the county said Monday that it’s taking a serious view of the concerns raised in the court complaint and is reviewing the allegations with the help of legal counsel. But the county defended the redistricting effort.
“We stand by the work that went into the redistricting process,” the county statement said. “In 2021, the county adopted a thoughtful and transparent approach, involving extensive public engagement, thorough legal review, and board deliberation. We’re proud of the outcome, which resulted in a public process to represent the diverse communities of Stanislaus County fairly.”
Federal, state and county governments must redraw election districts based on results of the U.S. Census every 10 years. California’s Fair Maps Act in 2019 rewrote the state rules for county redistricting so that the 2021 process placed a priority on identifying “communities of interest” and prohibited dilution of the voting rights of racial minority communities.
The final district map approved by the county Board of Supervisors in December 2021 included one voting district with a Latino majority — Supervisor Channce Condit’s District 5 including Ceres, Empire, Keyes, Patterson and Newman. But MALDEF’s lawsuit contends the board failed to draw a second Latino-majority voting district, in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.
The 2020 Census revealed that Latinos made up 48% of the county population of 552,878, growing from 41.9% in 2010. Latinos represented 39% of the county’s voting-age population in 2023, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, which was a substantial increase from 27.2% in 2010, the lawsuit points out.
Attorneys for MALDEF argue that Stanislaus County’s adopted map denies Latino voters the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. Except for Channce Condit, whose mother is Latino, the Board of Supervisors lacks Latino representation.
The county statement countered that an 11-member citizens advisory commission, composed of two randomly selected appointees from the five supervisor districts and one at large, was formed for the 2021 map-drawing process. The commission held a dozen meetings to review census data, develop feedback and recommend new boundaries for supervisorial districts.
In addition, the Board of Supervisors held four public hearings and a workshop to gather additional community input. “This structure ensured a broad, fair and transparent approach,” the county said.
Two plaintiffs were on advisory commission
The county’s statement noted that two of the plaintiffs in the MALDEF lawsuit, Miguel Donoso and John Mataka, were appointed members of the advisory commission and expressed support for the final district map at a board hearing.
County supervisors ultimately approved a map that was recommended by the commission, the county said.
MALDEF alleges that county supervisors, who gave final approval for the district boundaries, broke a “large, geographically compact” Latino community into three separate districts. Supervisors legally should have created a second Latino-majority district, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit notes that six elections for Board of Supervisors seats since 2012 included Latino candidates, but they lost five of those elections. With his 2020 election victory, Channce Condit became the board’s only supervisor with Latino heritage.
MALDEF also mentions a history of housing segregation and restrictive real estate covenants that prevented Latinos, along with Asian and Black residents, from living in white neighborhoods in Modesto.
“This history demonstrates the effects of discrimination that hinder Latino voters’ ability to participate effectively in the political process in Stanislaus County,” MALDEF says in the lawsuit.
County Board of Education also a defendant
The plaintiffs are asking for a court injunction to prevent the county from using the redistricting map in future elections. Supervisors Mani Grewal and Terry Withrow are up for reelection in 2026. The lawsuit also names as defendants the county Board of Education, which has the same voting district boundaries.
Luis Molina, a former trustee elected to the county Board of Education in 2005, is the only Latino to win election to that board since 2002, despite the county’s large population of Latino schoolchildren, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit seeks a court order adopting a redistricting plan that complies with the Voting Rights Act and other statutes. In addition, the group is seeking costs of the suit.
The 11-member advisory commission, working within time constraints, brought six proposed maps to the Board of Supervisors. The final map approved in December 2021 drew criticism from the late Rebecca Harrington, a south Modesto community leader who died in January. She criticized the plan for dividing predominantly Latino south Modesto and the South Ninth Street corridor between districts represented by Channce Condit and Supervisor Mani Grewal.
Beside Donoso and Mataka, Vivian Amador Lopez and Juan Telles are the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The county’s advisory commission included Angelica Garcia, Perfecto Munoz, Cecelia Hudelson, Anokeen Varani, Christine Schweininger, Carmen Morad, Dinoso, Mark Looker, Kimberly Ochoa, Mataka and April Henderson Potter, plus five alternates.
