City loses to sex predators in voting rights dispute

SACRAMENTO -- The city of Coalinga lost twice to a group of sexually violent predators on Wednesday -- first in the state Legislature, then in court.

In the morning, the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee rejected a bill that would have prevented sex crime violators held at the state hospital in Coalinga from voting in local elections.

Then a Fresno County judge dismissed the city's lawsuit seeking to invalidate inmates' votes in last year's election. Vosburg v. County of Fresno, 17CECG04294 (Fresno Super. Ct., filed Dec. 14, 2017).

Both the bill and the lawsuit were a reaction to the inmates providing the margin to defeat a one-cent sales tax measure. The inmate who organized the opposition to Measure C has since been granted unconditional released and provided key testimony to the committee.

"There is an important principle at stake here: What AB 2839 is attempting to do is to ensure the city of Coalinga can tax the civil detainees at the state hospital while allowing them no say in who will determine how those monies are spent," sex offender Robert Turner told the committee. "This is taxation without representation."

Turner spent six years at the state hospital. He negotiated with the city over the proposed tax as the liaison for the group called Detainee-Americans for Civic Equality.

At issue are 950 inmates who are eligible to vote because they aren't under criminal supervision. But because they are deemed too dangerous to release, they remain under civil confinement. AB 2839 would have required them to vote in the jurisdiction where they lived before they were incarcerated.

Coalinga Mayor Nathan Vosburg, the name plaintiff in the lawsuit, told the committee the city negotiated with the inmates. He said demands like a shuttle service and visitor center for inmates' families were unreasonable.

"The SVPs[sexually violent predators] who voted against the ballot measure have absolutely no ties to Coalinga, and no understanding of what the community needs," testified the bill's author, Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula, D-Fresno.

But Committee Chairman Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, and two others abstained, denying a majority. He said the bill could create other unforeseen consequences by tinkering with "voting rights."

"It's a district issue that strikes at a fundamental principle," Berman said.

Fresno County Superior Court Judge Mark W. Snauffer also wasn't convinced by Coalinga's arguments. In a decision released Wednesday, he said the city's claim that current elections law prevents inmates from voting in Coalinga ignored the two-part test for establishing one's voting domicile.

"Here, both factors are satisfied: The voters at issue have been removed from their old domicile (albeit involuntarily), and demonstrated the required intent by completing the voter registration application stating under penalty of perjury that they reside at CSH or Coalinga," Snauffer wrote.

Coalinga annexed Pleasant Valley State Prison in 1998, years before the state hospital portion of the facility was built. The non-contiguous annexation -- the prison is four miles from city limits -- needed special legislative approval. An analysis of that bill, SB 2227, estimated the annexation would bring Coalinga $200,000 a year in additional state funds because of its enlarged population.

In 2014, plaintiffs challenging the disenfranchisement of inmates who have been released but remain under supervision won a major court victory. Scott v. Bowen, RG14712570 (Alameda Super. Ct., filed Feb. 4, 2014). A subsequent 2016 law, AB 2466, clarified these voting rights.

While they were not the main focus of that lawsuit and bill, one result was to restore voting rights to the Coalinga inmates held in civil confinement.

The next year, 304 inmates registered, and 177 voted in the fall election. Most opposed Measure C, narrowly defeating the measure. The city was then forced to cut 23 jobs, including a quarter of the police force.

But Janice M. Bellucci, an attorney for Detainee-Americans for Civic Equality and the leader of the Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws, testified that many if not most of the hospital inmates will never be released to their old communities. She also filed a motion to intervene in the Fresno case, but Snauffer dismissed the suit before ruling on that issue.

"Today the patients at Coalinga won two significant victories -- one in court and the other in the state Legislature," Bellucci said by email. "In both places, justice was upheld when the patients' voting rights were upheld."