Hobbs Responds to Civil Rights Lawsuit Against Elk Grove, Seeks Plaintiff's District Analysis

March 15, 2018 |  

In the follow-up to a letter sent to the City of Elk Grove regarding allegations of violations of the California Voter Rights Act of 2001, the city attorney's office has crafted a response.

The so-called demand letter sent from attorney Kevin Shenkman, which was received by the City of Elk Grove on February 20, seeks to have the city change how city council member are elected. Currently, council members are elected on a from-district, or at-large basis, which Shenkman contends is discriminatory and disadvantages minority groups, in this case, Latinos in Elk Grove.

In the letter, Shenkman said if the city did not take action on the demands by April 5, a lawsuit on behalf of his client, the Southwest Voter Education Project. At their Wednesday, March 14 meeting, the Elk Grove City Council did not take any action during closed session, and four of Mayor Steve Ly's colleagues would not agree to place a discussion of a possible change on a future city council agenda.

In his letter to Shenkman, city attorney Jonathan Hobbs referenced Jauregui v. City of Palmdale [California] and asked Shenkman if they had developed a regression analysis for Elk Grove. Additionally, Hobbs asked, "have you developed an analysis of geographic compactness of a minority group within the City of Elk Grove and, if so, may we review that analysis?"

Responding to Hobbs, Shenkman noted his familiarity Jauregui v. The City of Palmdale saying "Of course, I am very familiar with that case, as I was the lead attorney on both the litigation in the trial court as well as the appeals in that case." 

Shenkman noted, "we have conducted the sort of investigation in this matter that makes me comfortable that our potential claim is a strong one in the case of Elk Grove." He also stated they had conducted a regression analysis and that even a rudimentary analysis of precinct results would show those Elk Grove "elections are racially polarized."

Regarding Hobbs request to share the regression analysis, Shenkman said they had reports prepared by their experts, and "as a general matter share the material prepared by our expert consultants lest we need to litigate issue relating to the expert analysis at some later date." 

Both letters can be viewed below.