HUNTINGTON BEACH CITY ATTORNEY MICHAEL GATES (Tribune photo).

By Jim Tortolano/Orange County Tribune

Under pressure from the California Voting Rights Act, cities and school districts across the state and Orange County have agreed to abandon the long-established practice of electing city councils and school boards at large and go to a by-district system.

In recent years, Garden Grove, Stanton and Westminster have established districts; most recently the Huntington Beach Union High School District has adopted that model.

But not the City of Huntington Beach. The city of 200,000 people has resisted legal pressure to switch its city council elections to districts and did so again this week.

In response to a letter from Malibu attorney Kevin Shenkman alleging that Huntington Beach’s system worked to disenfranchise Hispanics, City Attorney Michael Gates replied with a 16-page letter.

“The city will not convert to by-district elections and will defend itself from any threats and lawsuits,” Gates wrote. “The facts [are] show[ing] that the city’s at-large elections are not racially polarizing and Latino candidates are very successful in Huntington Beach.”

As evidence of that point, he referred to Mayor Gracey Van der Mark, a Latino. 

She added that “this is nothing more than another fight from an outsider who seeks to fundamentally change Huntington Beach.”

Gates has been aggressive in insisting not only that Sacramento has been overstepping its authority, but that – as a charter city – laws that apply to the more typical “general law” cities don’t apply to his city.

He’s won some cases, but lost some, too, but on this issue, the conservative city council majority seems likely to support his efforts to keep things as they are on election day.