Opinion ID: 3034924
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Is There Any Controlling Precedent?

Text: Plaintiffs contend that Zaldivar v. City of Los Angeles controls our decision here. In Zaldivar, the issue was whether the district court properly imposed Rule 11 sanctions against the plaintiffs’ counsel on the ground that “their Voting Rights claims were ‘totally frivolous’ and ‘totally without merit.’ ” Zaldivar, 780 F.2d at 827. Plaintiffs argued that section 203 applied to recall petitions and claimed that the defendant violated the Voting Rights Act by not translating the petitions into the appropriate minority language. Id. at 825-26. The panel noted that it was not reviewing Plaintiffs’ complaint in the same way as it would under Rule 12(b)(6), and that “[u]nder the appropriate legal standard, we are concerned only with whether the complaint asserts a good faith argument for applying the Voting Rights Act under these circumstances, even if that legal argument may ultimately fail.” Id. at 832. [1] Nevertheless, the panel determined that the “basic question we must answer is whether the plaintiffs have an arguable claim under the Voting Rights Act.” Id. It then determined that they did. Id. at 833. In so concluding, the panel rejected the argument that a recall notice is merely a “preliminary step (III) in the case of a political subdivision that contains all or any part of an Indian reservation, more than 5 percent of the American Indian or Alaska Native citizens of voting age within the Indian reservation are members of a single language minority and are limited-English proficient; and (ii) the illiteracy rate of the citizens in the language minority as a group is higher than the national illiteracy rate. 42 U.S.C. § 1973aa-1a(b)(2)(A). PADILLA v. LEVER 15497 to voting” and not covered by section 203’s translation requirements. Id. at 833 n.11. As the panel explained, The argument that a recall notice is only a preliminary step to voting and therefore is unaffected by the bilingual provisions of the Act is without merit. The Act requires all “notices, forms, instructions, assistance, or other materials or information relating to the electoral process” to be in the minority language. The Act does not exempt information or material, compelled by statute, which is preliminary to voting, but essential if an election is to occur. The argument that a necessary step, such as the publications of a notice to recall an office holder, is within the scope of section 1973aa-1a is one which can be made in objective good faith. Id. [2] Defendants dismiss this quoted language as “dicta” and urge this court to disregard Zaldivar. What exactly constitutes “dicta,” however, is hotly contested and judges often disagree about what is or is not dicta in a particular case. See United States v. Johnson, 256 F.3d 895, 914-16 (9th Cir. 2001) (en