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State Senator Cervantes (D-Riverside (D-Riverside) has introduced SB 1164 that would effectively completely gut and revise California’s long-standing California Voting Rights Act of 2001. The Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee has set a hearing on this bill for Tuesday, April 21, 2026 and certainly the exact wording and structure of SB 1164 could change before any final passage. Nonetheless, SB 1164 has a very wide-ranging effect on elections not just for cities, but for water districts, school districts, and any other public entity that holds elections for its governing body.
What is the precipitant for this proposed entirely new California Voting Rights Act bill? It is a possible major judicial change to the federal Voting Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court has heard arguments on the constitutional validity of a congressional district using racial grounds in Louisiana. The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on that case, Louisiana v. Callais No. 24-109, but many see it as a “blockbuster” case that could hold that specially designed Congressional districts based on racial considerations violate the Equal Protection clause.
Now, Senator Sabrina Cervantes has sponsored a major set of amendments to the CVRA designed in part to insulate California’s law from federal voting rights act provisions. Senator Cervantes announced the new bill on March 26, 2026 in the form of two bills, collectively entitled the “California Voting Rights Act of 2026.” Those two bills are now pending in the California Senate as SB 1164 and as SB 1360. SB 1164 constitutes a wholesale revision of the prior law, the California Voting Rights Act of 2021.
Key Provisions of SB 1164 Affecting Cities and other Elective Districts
Among the key provisions of SB 1164 that will affect every City and other school, water districts and other special districts which may face a challenge to its existing voting system are:
* Section 2: Amends the existing Election Code Section 14026 to add a new and capacious definition of an “election policy or practice” to include “any qualification to be a voter, prerequisite to voting, method of election or any other law, statute, ordinance, resolution, charter or code provision with respect to voting.”
*Section 2: Deletes any reference to the federal Voting Rights Act definition of a “protected class” as contained in the existing Election Code, presumably as a further effort to insulate this new law from any adverse federal court ruling. It also deletes references to the federal Voting Rights Act in defining “racially polarized voting”.
*Section 3: Deletes the current Elections Code provision that states that an at-large election system may not impair the ability of a protected class to elect its preferred candidate or influence the outcome of an election. The implication of the existing version of the Elections Code is that at-large election systems are otherwise acceptable. This inference is now deleted in SB 1164.
*Section 5: Creates a wholly new definition of a violation of the CVRA by adding a new category of “voter suppression”, which includes broad standards such as a violation based on “the totality of circumstances, the equal opportunity or ability of protected class members to nominate or elect candidates of their choice is impaired.”
*Section 7: Creates a new “liberal construction” provision instructing courts to liberally construe all provision of the act.
*Section 9: Creates a new expanded definition of standing to include an “entity aggrieved by a violation of this chapter.”
*Section 10: Creates an entirely new “Pre-Approval” set of standards to be enforced by the California Attorney General against any city that either stipulated to liability in a prior lawsuit or a city which was found by “any court” to have violated either the CVRA or the federal VRA or the federal Civil Rights Act “within the previous 10 years.” SB 1164’s new proposed Section 10 (i) makes it clear that the Attorney General’s pre-approval review cannot be used defensively in court against a civil litigant who brings claims against the “covered [election] practice”.
*Section 11: Contains a declaration that the Legislature determines that local elections are a matter of state-wide interest, and therefore this new legislation controls even charter cities.
We note that SB 1164 is just beginning its formal legislative review process, with the first hearing by a Senate Committee on Elections and Constitutional Amendments set for April 21, 2026.
It is impossible to cover all of the expansive provisions contained in SB 1146 in this client alert. A&W’s CVRA litigators Anthony Taylor, Norm Dupont, and Cody Parker are available to discuss your further questions about this new bill.
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