The petition circulated only in English, creating a possible
violation of the civil rights of non-English speakers
By Tony Burchyns and Serdar tumgoren
Staff Writers
Gilroy – A federal judge next week could invalidate a controversial land-use initiative slated for the November ballot based on claims that environmentalists, who circulated the petition only in English, violated the civil rights of residents who don’t speak English.
According to a lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court for Northern California, in San Jose, county officials violated the federal Voting Rights Act by certifying a petition that was not translated for signers into Spanish and several other languages, the standard practice with election pamphlets and ballots.
The suit, which seeks a fast-tracked court hearing Aug. 25, was filed by a four-person group of county residents that includes Clarence Stone, chairperson of the Santa Clara County Hillside Association and a member of the Alliance for Housing and the Environment. The latter group is made up of farmers, Realtors and hillside property owners fighting the initiative put forth by the nonprofit People for Land and Nature.
The initiative would place tighter restrictions on the development of farmland, hillsides and ranches in unincorporated areas of the county.
“We believe there’s a violation of the Voting Rights Act in this initiative,” Stone said.
He and Jay Ross, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, denied the suggestion that the lawsuit is an effort to use legal technicalities to derail the initiative.
“I don’t think this is a delay tactic at all,” Ross said. “I don’t see how looking to protect people’s voting rights is anything technical or inconsequential. President George W. Bush just recently signed a reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act and he talked about how his office would vigorously enforce this provision in court.”
Peter Drekmeier, PLAN’s campaign coordinator, called the suit “frivolous.”
“Essentially, our opponents feel they can’t beat us at the ballot box so they’re trying to derail us with a lawsuit,” he said. “We don’t think they will.”
Both sides have invoked a recent Monterey County court ruling to bolster their cases. A judge in that county ruled that petitions must be translated into Spanish, but the decision has been vacated by a higher court that is reviewing an earlier case from Orange County. A decision in the latter case is expected in coming months and could settle the matter definitively. In the meantime, both sides remain firm in their positions.
Santa Clara County Counsel Ann Ravel said the county’s argument will be straight-forward: there was no legal precedent in place when the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters certified the petition in June, two months after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Monterey County ruling.
“The county’s position is it was done appropriately,” Ravel said, “that the state of the law when this petition was passed did not require translations, and that the Voting Rights Act does not require translations of initiative petitions.”
Proponents of the initiative have retained Strumwasser and Woocher, a Santa Monica law firm specializing in election law, to intervene in the case in order to amplify arguments that the county will make and to make additional arguments, such as PLAN acted in good faith by printing copies of parts of the initiative in four different languages during the petition drive.
Bryce Gee, an attorney with Strumwasser and Woocher, said there’s an element of cynicism on the part of the plaintiffs in this case, who are landowners who have each spoken out against the initiative.
“Are you arguing that you wish more people could have read it and signed it?” he asked. “To us, it’s a perverse argument.”
In addition to infringing the rights of non-English speakers who may have supported the petition, the lawsuit contends that it violated the rights of people who, had they understood the language, may have been inspired to mount a counter-petition.
Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters Jesse Durazo said that votes toward the land use initiative, which garnered nearly twice the number of signatures needed to qualify for the Nov. 7 ballot, would not be counted if a court invalidates it before the election. The county has already approved $550,000 to place the initiative on the ballot. Durazo said a delay caused by the lawsuit could mean another half million dollars to place the initiative on the ballot for a future general election, or as much as $2 million for a “stand-alone” election.
