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Second, the Court of Appeal determined that because San Francisco is a charter city, it <br /> did not need to wait for the California Legislature to authorize noncitizen voting to expand the <br /> electorate. Id. at 12, 28. Voters in San Francisco instead had the power to enact noncitizen <br /> voting on their own through an amendment to the city charter. <br /> Because the San Francisco amendment applied to school board elections, and public <br /> education has been determined to be a statewide concern for some purposes, see id. at 20-21, <br /> the Court of Appeal spent a fair amount of time in the Lacy decision discussing what it called <br /> the Constitution's Charter City School Board Provision, Article XI, section 16, and specifically <br /> the part of that provision bestowing upon charter cities the power to determine the "manner in <br /> which" school board members shall be elected or appointed. See id. at 21-22. Charter cities' <br /> authority to determine who may participate in elections for municipal officers is even clearer. <br /> In fact, the Constitution describes charter cities' power over the "manner in which" municipal <br /> officers shall be elected or appointed as "plenary." See id. at 22-23. The Court of Appeal <br /> ultimately found that charter cities had no less authority to determine who may vote in school <br /> board elections than municipal officer elections, but the authority to determine who may vote <br /> in municipal officer elections was never in question; it was treated as a given by all parties. See <br /> id. at 25. <br /> Santa Ana can also rely on the Lacy decision even though it is not both a city and a <br /> county like San Francisco. Throughout the decision, the Court of Appeal refers to the power of <br /> charter cities. See, e.g., id. at 17 (describing the rationale behind"confer[ring] on charter cities <br /> the authority to expand the electorate where, as here, the city's voters determine that doing so <br /> would better serve local needs"). The decision makes barely any mention of San Francisco's <br /> additional status as a county. <br /> The proposal by Councilmembers Hernandez and Vazquez would allow the City <br /> Council to consider whether voters of Santa Ana should be given the choice to follow in the <br /> footsteps of San Francisco and other cities. There remains little question that Santa Ana can <br /> take this step. It will ultimately be up to the voters to determine if expanding the electorate <br /> would better serve local needs of the City. <br /> Thank you very much for your time and consideration. <br /> Sincerely, <br /> Annie Lai, Director <br /> Jenna Narahara, Law Student <br /> Amy Al Salek, Law Student <br /> Immigrant Rights Clinic <br /> UC Irvine School of Law <br />