Long Beach elections will likely be aligned with the statewide election schedule for at least another year, giving the city time to weigh its options going forward.
The City Council is slated to approve the resolution as part of its consent calendar Tuesday night, which are typically routine items grouped together and approved with one vote and no discussion. The resolution would move the 2022 elections to June and November.
In April, the council expressed interest in permanently aligning city elections with the state’s cycle with Mayor Robert Garcia referring to election consolidation as a “civil rights issue.”
The city was forced by a 2015 state law to align with state elections because of low voter turnout in local elections that were held off-cycle.
However, a recent court ruling freed up charter cities like Long Beach to continue hosting off-cycle elections, setting up a decision for the City Council on the future of city elections.
The city’s charter currently says that municipal elections are to be held in April with a runoff election in June.
This year also presents an additional challenge with the release of Census data being delayed. The city’s redistricting commission won’t be able to draw new council district boundaries before an April election, as they have to be submitted at least six months prior.
Permanently aligning with the state would require a charter amendment approved by voters, something that the council said it might introduce for the November 2022 ballot.
But doing so could create unequal campaign lengths for City Council seats. While next year’s election dates would be in June and November, a law adopted by the state in 2017 moved the primary in presidential election years to March with the runoff still being in November.
In that scenario, City Council races in the city’s even districts would have seven months between primary and runoff elections while the city’s odd districts would only have four months.
Members of the council expressed concern of this disparity last month and asked the city attorney to look at potential changes to campaign finance rules to address the possibility that some campaigns could be more expensive to run.
Aligning with the state has created stark differences in the turnout of Long Beach voters. The 2016 April primaries, the last year the city held an off-cycle election, brought out just 13.5% of voters while the 2020 March primaries saw over 40% of voters cast ballots.
Nearly three-quarters of Long Beach voters cast a ballot in the November 2020 election.