LOS ANGELES (CN) — The increasingly fractious Huntington Beach City Council voted, late Thursday night, to add three charter amendments to the March 5, 2024 primary ballot, one of which require voters to show photo identification before voting.
The controversial proposal passed 4-3, with the Council's four most conservative members voting together as a bloc.
Last week, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber sent a letter to the City Council warning them that the proposed amendment would conflict with state law.
"If the city moves forward and places it on the ballot, we stand ready to take appropriate action to ensure that voters’ rights are protected, and state election laws are enforced," the letter read, adding that voter ID laws "only serve to suppress voter participation without providing any discernible local benefit."
If passed, the charter amendment would, starting in 2026, take the authority of running local elections away from Orange County, and hand it over to the city — along with the costs of running the election.
Dozens of Huntington Beach residents showed up to the meeting to give public comment on the proposed charter amendments. The vast majority were opposed. One man said the vote would "give credence to the dangerous myth that our elections may be rigged." A woman accused the Council of "dividing our town with your culture wars." Another woman, calling herself "a fiscal conservative," said the amendment would create "a whole new bureaucracy" that would threaten the city with insolvency.
Other commenters cited research showing that voter ID laws have the effect of suppressing voter turnout in certain areas, including those dominated by minorities and those with low income.
Mayor Pro Tem Gracey Van Der Mark, perhaps the most controversial of the four conservative council members, shot back at this argument.
"I’m Hispanic," she told the crowd. "I had an ID as a teenager. We were poor. Not ignorant." She said the insinuation that minorities were incapable of carrying identification was itself racist.
Councilman Casey McKeon also defended the proposed amendment, saying, "This has nothing to do with voter fraud. This is increasing faith in our elections and increasing voter turnout."
Natalie Moser, one of the council members who voted no on the proposal, said it would "sow chaos in the elections," and cost the city many millions of dollars, not just from running the elections but "in legal costs when we get sued, and we will likely lose."
Thursday's meeting was the last of four public meetings over a slew of proposed changes to the city's charter. At an earlier meeting, the election code charter amendment was changed, with the word "shall" being changed to "may." If passed, the amendment would give the city the option of taking over its own local elections. McKeon suggested that the change gave the city flexibility to back down from the proposal if it proved too costly.
The Council also voted 4-3, along the same lines, to add a charter amendment barring the city from flying any flags other than those referring to the government, military (including the POW/MIA flag) and the Olympics. The amendment mirrors an ordinance passed earlier this year aimed at preventing the city from flying the rainbow Pride flag, associated with LGBTQ rights. Though that ordinance is already on the books, the charter amendment would cement it, requiring another voter referendum to remove it. It would allow the City Council to approve other kinds of flags, but only with a unanimous vote.
A proposed amendment by Rhonda Bolton, aimed at curbing "cronyism" on the council — which would have banned council members from appointing spouses to certain government positions — failed by a 2-3 vote, with Mayor Tony Strickland and Bolton herself abstaining from the vote.
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