"For both the [General Plan] initiative and the [Butterfly Village] referendum, this is most likely the turning point to decide which way they will go," says Monterey County Counsel Charles McKee. "Unless the losing party tries to appeal to the US Supreme Court, which I suspect they will."

In Kern County, attorneys filed a lawsuit to keep a sludge initiative off the June ballot because its petitions weren't translated into Spanish. The initiative would ban sewer sludge as fertilizer on Kern County farmland. A resident told the Bakersfield Californian that the initiative was the "only line of defense" that grassroots groups had against special interests wanting to truck sludge to Kern County.

The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 in [Padilla]. Judge William C. Canby dissented. "The downside...is the chilling effect on recalls and initiatives," he wrote. "As the defendants point out, if the Voting Rights Act were to be applied to recall petitions for an office of Orange County, California, petitions would have to be presented in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese. It is not at all clear who is to bear the expense of such translation and printing; presumably it would be those who seek the recall. Even aside from the expense, the sheer burdensomeness of the effort is likely to chill petition campaigns and make their success extremely unlikely."

Federal court decisions
Petitions
Judicial reviews
Voting Rights Act