NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT DON HIGGINSON,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. XAVIER BECERRA, in his official capacity as Attorney General of California; CITY OF POWAY,

Defendants-Appellees. No. 18-55455 D.C. No. 3:17-cv-02032-WQH-JLB

MEMORANDUM *

DON HIGGINSON,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. XAVIER BECERRA, in his official capacity as Attorney General of California; CITY OF POWAY,

Defendants,

v. CALIFORNIA LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS; No. 18-55506 D.C. No. 3:17-cv-02032-WQH-JLB 

# FILED
JUN 14 2018 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.JACQUELINE CONTRERAS; XAVIER

FLORES; JUDY KI; HIRAM SOTO, Proposed Defendant-Intervenors,

Movants-Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California William Q. Hayes, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Subm itted June 7, 2018 Portland, Oregon Before: GRABER and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and HELLERSTEIN, * * District Judge. Plaintiff Don Higginson tim ely appeals the district court’s dism issal of this action for lack of subject m atter jurisdiction. The district court ruled that Plaintiff does not have standing to sue either the Attorney General of California, Xavier Becerra, or the City of Poway ("the City") for allegedly violating his rights under the Equal Protection Clause when the City adopted the by-district election schem e of Map 133 to avoid litigation under the California Voting Rights Act ("CVRA"). Reviewing de novo, Arakaki v. Lingle, 477 F.3d 1048, 1056 (9th Cir. 2007), we reverse and rem and.

* * The Honorable Alvin K. Hellerstein, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation. 21. We reverse the dism issal of the City. Plaintiff has standing to sue the

City to challenge its adoption of Map 133. See Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 180–81 (2000) (laying out the requirem ents of Article III standing). Plaintiff has adequately alleged that he resides in a racially gerrym andered district and that the City’s adoption of Map 133 reduced the num ber of candidates for whom he can vote. This alleged injury is concrete and particularized, directly traceable to the City’s adoption of Map 133, and potentially redressable by an injunction requiring the City to return to its form e r system of at-large elections. Accordingly, Plaintiff can bring this asapplied challenge to the City’s actions, including his argum ent that the City violated his rights because the CVRA, with which the City sought to com ply, is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. 2. We also reverse the dism issal of the Attorney General. On rem and, the Attorney General will rem ain a defendant unless, at his request, the district court redesignates him as an intervenor. 3. Our holdings above render Proposed Intervenors’ m otion to participate in the litigation not m oot. We now grant that m otion on the m erits. See United States v. Sprint Com m c’ns, Inc., 855 F.3d 985, 995 (9th Cir. 2017) (concluding, first, that the m otion to intervene was not m oot and then deciding the m otion on the m erits).

3We review de novo the district court’s decision regarding intervention as a m atter

of right under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a)(2), and we construe that rule liberally. Arakaki v. Cayetano, 324 F.3d 1078, 1082–83 (9th Cir. 2003). We conclude that Proposed Intervenors m eet all four requirem ents for intervention as of right. REVERSED and REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this disposition.

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