Just waiting on the lawsuit at this point.
Pasadena City Council
There have been other elections in Pasadena with closer results, but not many.
After all of the votes were counted in Tuesday’s (November 5) Charter Amendment election, Proposition One: “Shall the City Charter be amended to replace the current Council election system, which consists of a Mayor and eight Councilmembers elected from single-member Districts, with a Council with a Mayor, six Councilmembers elected from single-member Districts, and two Councilmembers elected at-large,” passed.
The tally: For 3,290 (51 percent) to Against 3,203 (49 percent), just an 87 vote difference.
“I figured it would win but it was definitely closer than I thought,” said Councilmember Steve Cote.
The Texas Organizing Project (TOP), joined by Congressman Gene Green, State Senator Sylvia Garcia and four current Pasadena councilmembers, came out against Proposition One.
Shortly after the votes were totaled, TOP released a statement indicating that a lawsuit may be in the works.
“The Texas Organizing Project is committed to continuing to fight Proposition 1 and, barring a change in these close totals during official canvass of votes, we fully intend to pursue legal action against the City on behalf of the minority citizens who will lose their voice in the political process.
“In a city that is more than 60 percent Latino, it defies all sense of right and wrong that there would be no council members who are the candidates of choice of the Latino community,” the statement said.
[…]
The new (two districts fewer than before) maps will have to be drawn and finalized. Before the election, Mayor Johnny Isbell told The Pasadena Citizen he thought that could be done in 60 to 90 days and the first election they will be in effect is for councilmembers’ elections in May 2015.
I couldn’t find any statement on the TOP homepage or Facebook page, so I have no more information on the future lawsuit than what we see here. As I previously noted, the other three items on the Pasadena ballot passed by wide margins. I don’t think this will be settled any time soon, and there sure won’t be any “healing” till there’s justice. See this Chris Hayes segment on MSNBC for more.
TOP had a press release that was in the Citizen last Wednesday I believe. The MSNBC piece was good, and paints Pasadena in a light I would love to see it come out from under.