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California is only partially subject to the preclearance requirement of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Two counties, Monterey and Yuba, became subject to preclearance following the adoption of the 1970 amendments to the legislation. This first extension of the original Voting Rights Act introduced a second trigger which covered two California counties because they had a test or device as a prerequisite to voting and fewer than half of the voting age citizens had either registered or turned out to vote in the 1968 presidential election.

The 1975 extension of the Voting Rights Act included a third trigger mechanism and this caught three California counties, one of which, Yuba, was already subject as a result of the 1970 extension of the legislation. The 1975 standards broadened the definition of a test or device as a prerequisite to voting to include the availability of election materials in languages other than English. Kings, Merced and Yuba counties came under the provisions of the 1975 act because more than five percent of their voting-age citizens belonged to a single language minority group as of November 1, 1972.

Minority success at the polls has grown steadily since 1972. The four covered counties are represented by four state senate and five state assembly districts. Yuba County is wholly contained in state Senate District 2 (12 percent Hispanic population) and Assembly District 3 (8.4 percent Hispanic population, 4.7 percent Hispanic registration) neither of which elects Hispanic legislators.  Merced County is wholly in Senate District 12 (49 percent Hispanic--the district also takes in part of Monterey County) and Assembly district 17 (39.4 percent Hispanic population, 27.11 percent Hispanic registration); neither of which elect Latino representatives. Kings County is entirely within Senate District 16 (63.2 percent Hispanic) represented by Dean Florez, and Assembly District 30 (55.7 percent Hispanic population, 39.9 percent Hispanic registration) which elects Nicole Parra. Monterey County is divided between two Senate districts: 12, noted above, and 15, which is 24.4 percent Hispanic by population and elects a Latino Republican, Abel Maldonado. Monterey is also part of two Assembly districts. Assembly District 27 (15.6 percent Hispanic population, 8.4 percent Hispanic registration) elects an Anglo while District 28 (54.1 percent Hispanic population, 37.7 percent Hispanic registration) elects Simon Salinas. Two of four Section 5 counties are currently in districts that send Latinos to the state Senate and Assembly.

Edward Blum is a visiting fellow at AEI.