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Kevin Shenkman has struck again.
The liberal attorney convinced a local judge in Orange County to force the city of Huntington Beach to change its voting system — in the middle of an election cycle — to a ranked-choice system, rather than a traditional head-to-head ballot.
The apparent goal: to undermine one of the last bastions of conservatism in Southern California.
In ranked-choice voting, voters don’t choose between one candidate and another. Rather, voters rank candidates in order of preference.
The vote is counted in several rounds: first choice, second choice, and so on. The candidate with the fewest votes in each round is dropped, until only one candidate remains.
In theory, ranked-choice voting ensures voters still have an impact if their preferred candidate loses in early rounds.
In practice, ranked-choice voting allows fringe candidates to win.
Socialist anti-Israel radical Zohran Mamdani failed to win a majority on the first ballot in last year’s Democratic primary in New York City, but won in subsequent rounds.
Republicans particularly dislike ranked-choice voting, which has allowed Democrats to win in conservative states like Alaska.
Democrats like it — which is why Shenkman is glad that conservative Huntington Beach will be forced to use it.
But this is not Shenkman’s first rodeo.
For more than a decade, Shenkman has specialized in suing California cities — liberal and conservative — to force them to change their electoral systems.
Many cities had long chosen their councils through an at-large system, where each seat is voted on by the electorate as a whole.
Yet after the California Voting Rights Act of (CVRA) was passed in 2001, activists could sue cities to force them to move to a district-based system if they could show that the at-large system made it harder for minorities (usually Latinos) to win.
Crucially, the CVRA allowed plaintiffs to recover attorneys’ fees from cities if they won in court. That created a new niche industry for attorneys to make money by suing cities, or even just threatening to sue.
Because the cities have to pay significant legal costs, win or lose, they tend to capitulate. Attorneys can often force changes simply by sending cities a warning letter, plus a bill.
Liberal cities are often incredulous when accused of racism. So some chose to fight.
But they often regret it.
The courts tend to side with CVRA plaintiffs, and cities end up shelling out millions to lawyers like Shenkman.
Santa Monica put up the toughest resistance. It even convinced an appeals court that it was right, because there was no way to draw a “majority-minority” district in the city to ensure that a Latino candidate would win.
But the California Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that plaintiffs did not have to show that a minority candidate would certainly win, only that one could potentially win under an alternative electoral system.
One of the examples the court gave of an alternative system was ranked-choice voting. That is the reason the Orange County judge is imposing the hated system on Huntington Beach.
Shenkman has been a controversial figure. Some see him as a advocate for democracy and equality. Others see him as a meddler, benefiting from the business model that the CVRA created.
It is notable that Shenkman’s predominantly white home town of Malibu uses an at-large system to elect its city council.
As a self-proclaimed Democrat, Shenkman also has another agenda in Huntington Beach — one he hinted at in commenting on the court’s verdict. Not only would ranked-choice voting help Latinos win, he said, but it also “will allow voters in Huntington Beach to bring some sanity back to their city council.”
Democrats — especially Gov. Gavin Newsom — have long regarded Huntington Beach as a thorn in their side.
The beachside city has resisted Newsom’s policy forcing local governments to build “affordable” housing. It also tried to adopt voter ID over Newsom’s objections, leading the state of California to sue (and win).
During the pandemic, residents of Huntington Beach and neighboring Newport Beach flocked to local beaches on the first warm day in late April. A furious Newsom ordered the beaches closed. (He would later dine, maskless, at the French Laundry in Napa.)
So now Democrats may hope to rein in the Huntington Beach city council, using the CVRA and claims of racial discrimination to force a switch to ranked-choice voting.
It’s not enough that Democrats have total control of the state government, and have largely taken over once-Republican Orange County. They seem to feel the need to stamp out any opposition in California.
Then again, Shenkman has few qualms about suing Democrat-run governments as well.
The problem is bigger than one lawyer.
It’s a mentality that says if everyone can’t have exactly what they want, the whole system has to go.
The only people who benefit: the Democrats, and politically-savvy lawyers.
Joel Pollak is Opinion editor of the California Post.
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