Editorial: Another Disappointment in Anaheim
Council members postponed to 2018 the election at a mayority Latino district
Anaheim City Hall. Crédito: "Anaheimcityhall" by (Buchanan-Hermit) - Own work | Licensed under Attribution via Commons -
The Anaheim City Council is extremely reluctant to allow the presence of one Latino representative in a city where Hispanics are a majority. Efforts to postpone the inevitable range from ridiculous to offensive, as we have seen this week.
Anaheim accepted this year to change its electoral system from an at-large system to a district election, after several lawsuits by Latino organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union. The five Anglo Council members approved some months ago a map with six districts, two of them with a Latino plurality – where Latinos have the most people eligible to vote but represent less than 50% of the district- and one with a Latino majority – where Latinos of voting age exceed 50%. Of the six districts, four will elect their representative in 2016, and the other two in 2018.
It would be natural to believe that, if the change on the electoral system is due to a lack of representation of the Latino majority, the election of a Hispanic official would be a priority, but that is not the case. The City Council, against all recommendations, voted 3-2 in favor of putting off for 2018 the election on the district with a Latino majority. This is an affront to the efforts to introduce a bit of political representativeness in this city.
The absurdity is that the Council members who voted to postpone the election cited that Councilman James Vanderbilt has Latino blood, and from there they determined that the Latino majority district already has a representative because he lives in that area. So there is no rush, then. Vanderbilt was not pleased; he complained that he does not represent any specific district, and that if he runs as a candidate in the new electoral map, possibly it would not be for the Latino majority district.
The Anaheim City Council’s attitude is shameful, as it is trying to maintain an unacceptable position in which five white Council members are governing over a Latino majority. The arguments put forward are disrespectful since it’s hard to take them seriously. And that’s how, through arrogance and spite, the access of Latinos to representative power keeps being blocked.
