Attorney demands City of Clovis form city council districts

CLOVIS, Calif. ( KSEE/KGPE ) – A Southern California attorney is demanding the City of Clovis change its City Council election process.

Kevin Shenkman with Shenkman & Hughes in Malibu claims they are violating the California Voting Rights Act.

He sent them a letter demanding change.

"You see just a lack of representation of that minority community in the decisions being made that affect them," Shenkman said.

The City of Clovis has five council members, and they use an at-large voting system rather than dividing into districts.

"In the case of Clovis, the non-Hispanic white voters and the Latino voters have differing voting behavior. What ends up happening is that the majority group ends up dominating in an at-large election system, where that's the case," Shenkman said.

Shenkman says the City has been aware of the concerns for years.

The May 9, 2022 city council agenda references an agreement to analyze the potential of racially polarized voting.

"When a city council wants to publicly display that they're doing the right thing, but don't actually want something to happen, they may direct staff to do one thing and then right afterward, go tell staff, 'Hey, don't actually do that,'" Shenkman said.

The City of Clovis shared the following statement Friday:

Shenkman says the City has 45 days from the time they received his letter to respond, and he hopes they can settle the conversation without further legal action.