"What are the chances of one of us being able to run citywide?" asked Carlos Uranga, who ran twice unsuccessfully for school board. "And what are the chances of us motivating our voters to vote when they don't think we stand a chance?"
Uranga got involved in the case when his friend, Lopez, came knocking on his door. Lopez also recruited another friend, Maria Esther Rey.
Rey, a homemaker and former home care provider, said some people have called her a racist for taking part in the lawsuit. "I'm not," she said. "My family is composed of different races. . . . I don't hate anybody." But, she said, "We needed a change. . . . It was a great tool to use this voting rights law."
Deciding not to fight the ruling, the school board drew up a map in which three of the seven voting districts have Latino majorities. In a delicate exercise in gerrymandering, each of the incumbents was given a separate district.
The map also was drawn to create districts that cross Highway 99, which divides the town both geographically and economically, with the west side considerably wealthier than the east.
The map was approved by Madera County and is expected to receive final approval from the state Board of Education, leading to district elections in June.
The idea behind district-based elections, which most large urban school systems use, is that a minority candidate has a better chance of being elected in a specific area than citywide.
The argument against them is that they encourage territorial disputes and pork-barrel fights for resources.
"Our concern is that it could lead to some Balkanization, where you have one candidate who really just represents one race of people, and we think they should represent everyone," said Ralph Kasarda, a staff attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a leading legal voice against affirmative action in California. Kasarda said he wasn't familiar with the Madera case and stressed that he had no problem with a legal remedy that prevents votes "from being diluted."
Madera isn't the first proving ground for the California Voting Rights Act, which gives civil rights lawyers tools not covered by the U.S. Voting Rights Act. In the most prominent case, the Modesto City Council agreed last year to abandon at-large voting after a $3-million fight with the Lawyers' Committee.
