Hold the mimosas. Redistricting rules bar East Sacramento voters from recalling Valenzuela

Don’t pour the mimosas just yet. Apparently East Sacramento residents pushing for a recall of Sacramento City Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela aren’t allowed to vote her out of office — even if the campaign gathered enough signatures for a special election.

California has strict rules for who can vote in a city council recall election after redistricting under the Fair Maps Act and a 2020 law that cleaned up redistricting rules for local governments. Unfortunately, it gets confusing because Sacramento’s governing charter says that new district lines take effect immediately after its independent commission approves them, but not in the way some people think it does.

More on that shortly.

If Valenzuela has to face a recall this year, only voters within the boundaries of the former District 4 — the central city and Land Park — could sign the petition and cast ballots. Voters in East Sacramento, where the outrage over her handling of the homelessness crisis is boiling over, are only allowed to recall the candidate they voted for in the most recent election.

This important technicality was brought to my attention by California redistricting guru Paul Mitchell, the owner of Redistricting Partners and vice president of Political Data. In an animated tweet, Mitchell pleaded with The Bee to “stop the insanity of reporting on a fake recall that actually isn’t even a thing. East Sac can’t recall a councilmember from another district. … You’re incessantly reporting on nonsense.”

That’s fair. I should’ve looked into how recall elections work after redistricting, which happens once every 10 years following the U.S. Census. I was in college the last time political maps were redrawn.

“It really is something that only a few people think about year in and year out,” Mitchell said in an interview. “Those of us that do, we saw the article and were like, ‘Uh, that’s not how it works.’”

Apparently it’s not just the journalists that needed some help understanding this.

On Monday, I asked city officials about the ground rules for a post-redistricting recall under Sacramento’s charter. The city clerk’s office deferred to the city attorney, and the city attorney took so long to square it that their only response by deadline was a non-response.

“The city is in the process of finalizing its position on this issue and will share its determination as soon as possible,” city spokesman Tim Swanson said in a statement.

Mitchell suspected the delay was because city officials weren’t necessarily sure, and this entire saga exposed how some people in Sacramento had been misinterpreting the ways new boundaries applied to sitting council members.

According to Mitchell, Valenzuela is wed to the district she was elected in for the duration of her term — regardless of a redistricting change. That means she still represents Land Park for a few more months until Councilman Rick Jennings finalizes his uncontested reelection bid for the newly-drawn District 7. In fact, none of the council members are accountable for the new neighborhoods they were assigned until an election is completed.

Valenzuela has actually been doing more for East Sacramento than she was legally obligated to.

“A lot of people make this mistake when you say, ‘These are the new districts,’” Mitchell said.

So if East Sacramento voters are fed up with homelessness and want to recall someone over it, they have a few months to unseat Councilman Jeff Harris before the redrawn District 3 in south Natomas gets a brand new representative this fall.

Oh, the irony.

That doesn’t mean the recall notice Valenzuela received last week is invalid. Some of the names of East Sacramento residents were crossed out on the documents, Valenzuela said, including the people behind the now defunct mimosas and brunch get together for recall backers.

This episode is a reminder of where Sacramento’s energy should be focused: pushing local, state and federal leaders to do whatever it takes to triage the homelessness crisis. That means rapidly expanding shelter, housing and treatment so the unhoused population gets moved from streets and parks into somewhere stable.

East Sacramento residents foolishly trying to recall a freshman council member they’re technically not even represented by is a waste of time, especially when she is one of the few local leaders aggressively trying to address this crisis.