KAMALA D. HARRIS Attorney General
MANUEL M. MEDEIROS Deputy Attorney General
AGO 15-801
No. 15-801
California Attorney General Opinions
Office of the Attorney General State of California
September 1, 2016
THE
HONORABLE ROBERT M. HERZBERG, MEMBER OF THE STATE SENATE, has
requested an opinion on the following question:
Under
the weighted voting system used by the Board of Directors of
the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the
votes of some constituent public agencies are shared among
two or more representative directors who are present when a
vote is taken. If such a board member is legally disqualified
and required to recuse himself or herself from participating
in a given board vote, how does that recusal affect the
counting and determination of the member agency's vote
allocation?
CONCLUSION
If a
member of the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California is legally disqualified and
required to recuse himself or herself from participating in a
given board vote, the board member is effectively absent from
that vote. So, if that board member is part of a
multi-director delegation representing a constituent public
agency, the votes allocated to the constituent agency are to
be shared equally among the agency's other qualified
representatives who are present when the vote is taken.
ANALYSIS
The
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
(Metropolitan) is a public agency incorporated in 1928
pursuant to the Metropolitan Water District Act (MWD Act or
Act) to distribute waters from the Colorado River to the
municipalities within the district.1 Metropolitan comprises 26
constituent public agencies, including 14 cities, 11
municipal water districts, and one county water authority,
all of which provide water to more than 19 million people in
Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego,
and Ventura counties.[2]
Metropolitan
is governed by a 38-member board of directors.[3] Each
constituent agency is represented by at least one member on
the board; some agencies also have additional
representatives, based on proportional property
valuation.4 We are informed that five of
Metropolitan's constituent agencies are currently
entitled to be represented by more than one director: The
City of Los Angeles has five directors; the Municipal Water
District of Orange County and the San Diego County Water
Authority each have four; and the West Basin Municipal Water
District and Central Basin Municipal Water District each have
two.
A
constituent agency may select one or more members of its
governing board to serve on Metropolitan's board of
directors.5 Each member is entitled to one vote
"for each ten million dollars ($10,000,000), or major
fractional part thereof, of assessed valuation of property
taxable for district purposes in the member public agency
represented" by him or her.6 As of December 2015, the
total number of votes on the Board was 243,499.
When a
constituent agency has only one representative on the board,
all of the agency's votes are controlled by that
representative. For example, as of December 2015, the City of
Anaheim had 3,953 votes controlled by a single representative
director. Under section 52 of the MWD Act, however, when an
agency is represented by more than one director, then
"all such representatives present at a meeting of the
board of directors when a vote is taken shall cast, or may
abstain from casting, an equal share of the total vote to
which such member public agency is
entitled."7 For example, as of December 2015, the
City of Los Angeles Water District had 48,956 votes and five
representatives. When all five directors are present, they
each control 9,791 1/5 votes; when four are present, they
each control 12,239 votes...
