Two Little Rock School District residents asked a Pulaski County circuit judge Monday to order the district to hold elections in all nine School Board election zones later this year.
Clarissa McWherter and Aaron Agnew are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed against the capital city school system in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
The 16-page lawsuit comes in advance of the Aug 3-10 candidate filing period for the November 2022 election.
The lawsuit comes in the aftermath of the Little Rock School Board's revision of school board election zone boundary lines late last year. The zone lines were altered to equalize the populations in the zones after shifts in those populations occurred between the 2010 and 2022 U.S. Census counts.
The board followed that in January with a 7-2 vote to open up for election this coming November only the two board seats that were originally scheduled to be opened for election this year and not all nine board seats.
The Arkansas School Boards Association had initially advised that all seats on a school board be opened for election when zone lines are altered. But attorneys for the Little Rock district argued that the wholesale elections were not legally required.
The plaintiffs in Monday's lawsuit are represented by attorneys Scott A. Irby and Gary D. Marts Jr., of the Wright, Lindsey & Jennings law firm.
The suit has been assigned to Pulaski County Judge Herbert Wright.
"The Little Rock School District has disenfranchised thousands of voters residing within the District's boundaries," the lawsuit states. "That disenfranchisement occurred when the District redrew the zones for its board of directors ... after the 2020 census under Arkansas Code Annotated 6-13-631.
"The rezoning pushed thousands of voters into new zones, where those voters are represented by Board members for whom those voters never had any chance to vote. Section 6-13-631 protects such voters by requiring new school board elections after census-based rezonings," the lawsuit contends.
The suit further states: "The District's refusal to let its voters cast votes for or against their Board representatives is illegal."
Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore said Monday evening that he had not yet seen the lawsuit.
"We will make comments once we get to see what has been shared," Poore said.
The plaintiff Agnew is described in the lawsuit as a registered voter who lived in the district's school board election Zone 6 in the south-central part of the district but, as the result of the boundary line revisions, now resides in Zone 7 that encompasses downtown and east Little Rock.
Similarly, McWherter lived in Zone 8 that covers the northwest section of the district before the zone lines were altered. She is now in Zone 5 that encompasses the north-central part of the district.
The statute cited in the lawsuit calls for school districts that have a 10% or greater minority population to elect board members by zones and to redraw the election zones after a federal decennial census to ensure that the populations are substantially equal. That is to be followed by the election of a new school district board of directors at the annual school election, the lawsuit quotes the statute as saying.
The Little Rock School Board voted unanimously last November to accept a revised election zone plan that has a variance among the zone populations of 1.66%. The plan created the least change among the zone lines of the options offered, and did not displace any current board member out of their election zone. But the plan did result in changes to zone lines in all nine zones, the attorneys wrote.
In response to questions from School Board members in December and January, attorneys for the school district offered assurances that the district's zone plan and the opening of elections for two board seats as originally planned met the requirements of the federal Voting Rights Act, was legally defensible and does not dilute minority voting strength in the district.
The board was advised on the matter by its attorneys from the Friday, Eldredge and Clark law firm -- Chris Heller and Khayyam Eddings -- and the district's staff attorney Eric Walker.
The School Board voted 7-2 to hold elections only in Zones 8 and 9 in November, in accordance with the staggered-term plan adopted when the Little Rock School Board was elected in November and December 2020.
The 2020 elections were the first local school board elections in the capital city district after the state's nearly six-year control of the district, during which there was no elected board.
After the 2020 election, board members drew lots for terms of up to five years. Board members Greg Adams of Zone 8 and Jeff Wood of Zone 9 drew two-year terms, opening their positions for election this year.
"Zones 5 and 6 will not have elections until 2023," the lawsuit notes. "Zones 3 and 4 will not have elections until 2024. And Zones 1, 2, and 7 will not have elections until 2025. Under the Board's arrangement, some voters will be represented for as long as four years by Board members for whom those voters have never had a chance to vote.
"For example, the rezoning moved McWherter from Zone 8 to Zone 5, where she will be represented by a Board member for whom she had no chance to vote until 2023. Similarly, Agnew was moved from Zone 6 to Zone 7, where he will be represented by a Board member for whom he had no chance to vote until 2025."
Irby and Marts argue in the lawsuit that the district's claim to be exempted from new elections "stands the statute on its head," and "No statutory provision allows a district to rezone and then not hold new board elections."
The court should enter preliminary and permanent injunctive relief ordering the District to place all nine School Board zones up for election in 2022 as required by the statute, the attorneys said.