The city of Modesto, California, is trying to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate a California election law that will force Modesto to elect its city councilmembers by district. The California law is somewhat like the federal voting rights act, only it is stronger. Modesto will be forced to use districts to elect its city council because under the at-large system, virtually no Hispanics have ever been elected. Here is the brief of the organization opposed to the city. The case is City of Modesto v Sanchez, no. 07-88.
Blogged about this here and here.
I find it interesting / outrageous that the CA voting rights act only applies to local governments that use at-large methods for filling seats and that single winner districts seems to be the preferred remedy. It’s like people have never heard of proportional representation systems.