San Francisco denies Black voting rights

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Willie Ratcliff

Aug. 9, 2004 (415) 671-0789







San Francisco denies Black voting rights



On Friday, the 39th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, San Francisco’s director of elections, John Arntz, confirmed that not only is he denying District 10 the right to elect a new supervisor on the Nov. 2 general election ballot, he is denying District 10 the right to elect a new supervisor at all this year. Instead, he says, if the recall of the current supervisor is successful, the mayor will appoint a new supervisor.



Thirty-nine years to the day after the blood of Black martyrs purchased our right to vote, San Francisco – yes, proud, progressive San Francisco, the city whose new mayor made world headlines proclaiming, “Discrimination is wrong!” – intends to deny District 10, home to the City’s Black heartland, boasting the largest Black population of any district by far, where Blacks and Asian-Pacific Islanders are the largest racial groups and people of color altogether are 78 percent of the total district population, the right to elect a supervisor of our choice.



John Arntz and the City whose elections he directs are wrong on all counts. Even former Mayor Willie Brown is taking our new Mayor Newsom to task for usurping the power of the people. In an interview on KALW Thursday, Brown was heard to say it is up to the people and not the mayor to choose a replacement supervisor.



District 10 does have the power to elect a new supervisor on Nov. 2 of this year – both by right and by law. Here are a few of the reasons why. Each reason by itself should be enough to stop the City’s attempted theft of the people’s power.



Reasons why District 10 has the power to elect a new supervisor Nov. 2



Reason No. 1: The Voting Rights Act, which specifically applies its most stringent requirements to San Francisco, along with the Deep South, because of the City’s past infringement of voting rights, prohibits any practice that dilutes the voting strength of people of color or that gives them an unfair chance to elect candidates of their choice.



The City’s intent to call a special election in December instead of putting the recall on the ballot for the Nov. 2 general election, predicted to draw the biggest turnout of any election in decades, is an intent to dilute the voting strength of people of color. And the City’s intent to let the mayor rather than the people of District 10 choose our new supervisor denies people of color, along with all the people of District 10, the chance to elect the candidate of our choice.



Reason No. 2: The recall petition, signed by many thousands more District 10 residents than the 3,900 registered voters required, states in its first sentence that the signers seek the recall of the current supervisor and, in its second sentence, states, “We demand an election of a successor to that office.”



The petition, signed by some 15,000 District 10 residents, explicitly opposes mayoral appointments that deny district self-determination. Among the “grounds for the recall” it lists, the petition criticizes the current supervisor for “promoting creation of a Mayor-appointed development authority” for the Hunters Point Shipyard.



Clearly, petition signers expect that District 10 voters, not the mayor, will choose a new supervisor at the same time they choose whether or not to recall the current supervisor – in exactly the same way that California voters last year chose a new governor at the same time they chose to recall the then current governor.



San Francisco Director of Elections John Arntz approved the legality of the wording of the petition before it was circulated and must have understood the plain meaning of those words: “We demand an election of a successor.” Yet now he interprets the law to require mayoral appointment, not voter election, of a successor supervisor.



Reason No. 3: John Arntz’ Department of Elections, in its conduct relating to the District 10 recall, has raised the specter of gross negligence, if not fraud. Because District 10 is home to San Francisco’s Black heartland and because 78 percent of its residents are people of color, that conduct could be evidence of intent to disenfranchise voters of color. Consider these two examples:



A) After the hard-working signature gatherers pushed themselves relentlessly to reach their goal in only a few days more than two months, the Elections Department, three weeks after we submitted the signatures, still had not performed even a random sampling to see if they are sufficient. Because we had checked the signatures against the City’s Master Voter File before submitting them, we believe that a random sampling will show that they are sufficient under the law to put the recall on the ballot.



B) The Master Voter File we were given by the Elections Department when we began gathering signatures in mid-May was dated March 23, 2004. We pointed out to the staff that such an old file denied us knowledge of recent registrations, yet the staff refused our repeated requests for an up-to-date file until June 29.



The March 23 file was not only out of date, it was wrong. One team of signature gatherers, who had printed out the entire file so they would know exactly which District 10 residents were already registered to vote, were shocked to find that the March 23 file disenfranchised many Black voters. In some solidly Black sections of Hunters Point, they found that the file showed the correct first names and addresses of registered voters, but the last names were wrong.



One elderly Black woman, for example, who said she had voted regularly for decades, was given a Chinese last name on the Elections Department’s March 23 Master Voter File. In another family, well known for its political activism, all of the several registered voters in the household were given the wrong last name. Because all these signatures did not agree with the Master Voter File, they had to be disqualified. All these voters were therefore disenfranchised.



What are the City’s legal arguments for denying Black voting rights – and how do we know they’re wrong?



To reach his conclusions, John Arntz is interpreting the City Charter in ways that I believe make a mockery of the voters’ intent when they approved the Charter and its amendments. While the City Attorney and other lawyers are examining the issues, let me lay out the arguments for you to decide.



In a handout called “Procedures for the Recall of Local Officials” with his name in big letters at the top, Arntz says, “Except where specifically provided in the San Francisco Charter, recalls are governed by the California Elections Code.” Arntz’ handout contains sections from the City Charter. A companion handout, “Procedure for Recalling State and Local Officials,” prepared by the Secretary of State’s office, contains sections of state law.



On the issue of whether the recall should be placed on the Nov. 2 general election ballot or a special election called, the Charter says, “Upon certifying the sufficiency of the recall petition’s signatures, the Director of Elections shall immediately call a special municipal election on the recall, to be held not less than 105 nor more than 120 days from the date of its calling unless it is within 105 days of a general municipal or statewide election, in which event the recall shall be submitted at such general municipal or statewide election.”



When voters approved that wording, I think they believed it means what it plainly says, that a recall is decided in a general election, rather than a special election, if a general election is coming up within 105 days. The Nov. 2 general election is coming up within 105 days. And besides, it makes sense to avoid a special election whenever possible; a special election is said to cost nearly a million dollars.



Also, putting the recall on the Nov. 2 general election ballot gives the Elections Department the 30 days they’re entitled to for “certifying the sufficiency of the recall petition’s signatures” before the ballot is finalized. The 30 days are up next week, the same week as the filing deadline for District 5 candidates. The Nov. 2 ballot can’t be finalized until next week, so the Elections Department has no reason not to include the recall on that ballot.



On the issue of whether a new supervisor should be chosen by the mayor or District 10 voters if the recall is successful, John Arntz points to a section in a different article of the City Charter than the sections covering recall. The section he points to is entitled “Vacancies.” It says: “If the office of … Member of the Board of Supervisors … becomes vacant because of death, resignation, recall, permanent disability, or the inability of the respective officer to otherwise carry out the responsibilities of the office, the Mayor shall appoint an individual qualified to fill the vacancy under this Charter and state laws.”



But the only way a recall could create a vacancy is if no one runs to replace the recalled official. Because the City Charter does not specify how a recall election should be conducted, state law applies. State law says, in section 11320 of the California Constitution, which applies to both state and local office-holders: “At the election, voters will decide whether or not to recall the officer and, if there is a candidate, will also choose a successor if the recall is successful.”



Californians are very familiar with that law, having used it less than a year ago to elect a new governor at the same time they recalled the old governor. In District 10, all the thousands of residents who signed the recall petition invoked that law when they signed the petition’s statement saying, “We demand an election of a successor to that office.”



In all the media coverage of the recall, it’s clear from the speculation about who will run that everyone expects the simultaneous election of a successor. More importantly, the people of District 10 were reluctant to sign the petition – citing their fear that a recall would leave the Board of Supervisors with no Black member – until they were sure that a strong Black candidate would be on the ballot to succeed the current supervisor.



Apparently, no one but John Arntz – and, perhaps, the mayor – dreamed that a recalled supervisor would be replaced by the mayor and not by the people. And Arntz waited until the 39th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act to drop that bombshell on recall proponents.



San Francisco needs the Voting Rights Act – needs to apply its legal mandate and to remember its history, the heroic sacrifices made just 39 years ago to forevermore prevent Black disenfranchisement. The U.S. Department of Justice, in its “Introduction to Federal Voting Rights Laws,” reports it took the “murder of voting-rights activists …, other acts of violence and terrorism … (and) the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965, by state troopers on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama,” to persuade the president and Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act.



The Department of Justice goes on to say that “only one-third of all African Americans of voting age were on the registration rolls in the specially covered states” when the Voting Rights Act was signed. That’s about the same proportion we found were registered in District 10. San Francisco needs the Voting Rights Act.



The Department of Justice goes on to say that the Voting Rights Act is “a vehicle for challenging discriminatory election methods such as at-large elections.” On Friday, the 39th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, Rachel Gordon wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle, “Mayor Gavin Newsom took another swipe this week at the city’s system of electing supervisors by district rather than citywide.” San Francisco needs the Voting Rights Act.



I am calling on all people of good will to urge Mayor Newsom and Elections Director Arntz to prevent the disenfranchisement of all District 10 voters and specifically Blacks and other people of color, who are protected under the Voting Rights Act. You can leave a message for the mayor at (415) 554-6141 and for the elections director at (415) 554-4375.



Also, the recall is on the agenda for the next Elections Commission meeting, and I urge everyone to attend. The meeting will be held Wednesday, Aug. 18, 7 p.m., in Room 408 on the fourth floor of City Hall.



As I’ve said many times before and as everyone in District 10 knows, our problems can’t wait. They are problems of life and death, and they need the attention of a strong, effective District 10 supervisor. Just as the martyrs of 39 years ago persuaded the president and Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act, let us persuade San Francisco’s mayor and elections director to put the District 10 recall and the simultaneous election of a successor on the Nov. 2 ballot.