When a director of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California recuses for a conflict, do the rest of that constituent agency's votes still get cast, or does the recusal kill those votes?

Plain-English summary

Senator Robert Hertzberg asked the AG how recusal works on the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California's (MWD) unusual weighted-voting board. MWD is the public agency that brings Colorado River water to roughly 19 million people across six Southern California counties. Its 38-member board represents 26 constituent agencies: 14 cities, 11 municipal water districts, and one county water authority. Each agency gets at least one director, but bigger agencies (by property valuation) get more. The City of Los Angeles has five directors; Orange County's Municipal Water District and the San Diego County Water Authority each have four; West Basin and Central Basin Municipal Water Districts each have two.

Each director controls a share of the constituent agency's vote total. Section 52(a) of the MWD Act provides that when an agency has multiple representatives, "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." For LA, with 48,956 votes and five directors: when all five are physically present, each casts 9,791 1/5 votes; when only two are present, each casts 24,478 votes; if only one is present, that one director controls all of LA's votes.

Hertzberg's question: when a director is legally disqualified (typically under the Political Reform Act for a personal financial interest, or under § 56 of the MWD Act for a contract between MWD and his constituent agency), is he "present" for purposes of dividing the agency's votes? If yes, his disqualified share evaporates and the agency loses voting power. If no, his share devolves to the qualified, present directors.

AG Kamala Harris (through Deputy AG Manuel Medeiros) concluded the disqualified director is "effectively not present" for that vote. The disqualified share devolves to the other qualified, present representatives. The opinion built on 94 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 100 (2011), which had distinguished compulsory abstention from voluntary abstention and concluded that a disqualified member is "legally speaking, not 'present' for the body's deliberation on the disqualifying matter." For PRA-based recusals specifically, Government Code § 87105(a)(3) requires the disqualified official to "leave the room" during discussion and vote unless the matter is on the consent calendar; that makes the director not physically present at all, an even stronger fit for § 52(a).

The AG also rejected a broader argument: that one delegation member's PRA disqualification should disqualify the whole delegation, because the disqualified member could influence the others. The AG said no. PRA § 87100 disqualifies only the official who has the prohibited financial interest; the AG could not rewrite the statute to disqualify others. The FPPC (the agency that enforces the PRA) has consistently said the same thing: disqualification is personal. Disenfranchising a whole constituent agency without statutory basis would be an unjustified consequence.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2016. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Common questions

Q: What is MWD's quorum rule, and does it interact with recusals?
A: MWD's Administrative Code requires directors capable of voting a majority of the total votes to be present to establish a quorum. Some matters require a two-thirds majority. The opinion does not address how recusal-redistributed votes count toward quorum thresholds.

Q: Could a constituent agency with only one director on the MWD board lose all its votes when that director is recused?
A: Yes. The opinion expressly noted this is a direct consequence of the express statutory language. A single representative who is disqualified disenfranchises the agency on that vote. The remedy is to send a different representative or for the agency to send multiple representatives.

Q: What is the practical procedure when a PRA recusal happens?
A: Under § 87105(a)(2), the official "recuses" publicly, identifies the disqualifying financial interest, leaves the room (unless on consent calendar), and does not participate in the discussion or vote.

Q: Does the same redistribution rule apply if a director simply abstains for non-disqualifying reasons?
A: No. Section 52(a) treats voluntary abstention differently. A director who voluntarily abstains is still "present" and chooses not to cast his share of the votes. His share does not redistribute; it simply is not cast.

Background and statutory framework

The Metropolitan Water District Act is at California Water Code App. ch. 109. Section 52(a) sets the weighted-voting rule. Section 55 ties votes to assessed valuation ($10 million in valuation = one vote). Section 56 lets a constituent agency send multiple representatives but caps them at less than a majority of the agency's governing board.

The Political Reform Act of 1974 is at Government Code § 81000 et seq. Section 87100 is the financial-interest disqualification. Section 87200 lists "public officials who manage public investments," who must follow § 87105's leave-the-room rule. The MWD board members qualify under that category because MWD has taxing authority and bonding authority, and the board must approve MWD's annual Statement of Investment Policy.

The 2011 opinion (94 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 100) is the leading AG analysis of the legal-presence question in disqualification scenarios. Several FPPC advice letters (Munoz, McHugh, Benjamin, Feinstein, Klein) confirm that PRA disqualification does not extend beyond the disqualified individual.

Citations

• Cal. Water Code App. ch. 109, § 52(a) (weighted voting; equal share among present reps)
• Cal. Water Code App. ch. 109, § 55 (one vote per $10 million valuation)
• Cal. Water Code App. ch. 109, § 56 (multi-rep delegations)
• Cal. Gov't Code § 87100 (PRA financial interest disqualification)
• Cal. Gov't Code § 87105(a)(2), (a)(3) (leave-the-room requirement)
• 94 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 100 (2011) (disqualified member not "present")

Source

• Landing page: https://oag.ca.gov/opinions/yearly-index
• Original PDF: https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/opinions/pdfs/15-801_0.pdf

Original opinion text

TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
State of California
KAMALA D. HARRIS
Attorney General

OPINION of KAMALA D. HARRIS, Attorney General
MANUEL M. MEDEIROS, Deputy Attorney General

No. 15-801
September 1, 2016

THE HONORABLE ROBERT M. HERTZBERG, 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. 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.

Metropolitan is governed by a 38-member board of directors. Each constituent agency is represented by at least one member on the board; some agencies also have additional representatives, based on proportional property valuation. 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. 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. 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." 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; when three are present, 16,318 2/3 votes; and when two are present, 24,478 votes. When only one representative is present, he or she controls all of the City's votes.

Like most public officials, a Metropolitan board member may on occasion be disqualified from voting on a particular matter because he or she has a financial interest in the relevant decision. Directors may also be disqualified from voting on contracts between Metropolitan and their constituent agencies. Only those agency representatives who also serve on the governing board of the constituent agency are disqualified from voting on the contract.

We are asked how disqualifications affect voting when a disqualified director is one of a multi-member delegation. The answer to this question depends on the construction of subdivision (a) of section 52 of the MWD Act (section 52(a)). Section 52(a) directs that, for a constituent public agency with multiple representatives, "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."

Section 52(a) expressly contemplates that a member who is physically "present" at a meeting may have a choice about whether to cast his or her share of an agency's votes or to abstain from casting those votes. In construing the provision, we seek to give effect to the intent of the statute. While we generally give primacy to the plain language of a statute, we may eschew an artificially literal reading if it would lead to absurd consequences, or to consequences that the Legislature did not intend. Applying these principles, we read section 52(a) as allocating a constituent agency's votes among those members of a multi-member delegation who are not only physically "present," but also legally "present" in the sense that they are permitted to vote on the relevant matter.

We have previously concluded that legal disqualification is a basis for finding a lack of "presence" when a vote is taken. In 94 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 100 (2011), we concluded that the compulsory abstention of a disqualified member of a deliberative body is distinguishable from voluntary abstention. We reasoned that a disqualified member is, "legally speaking, not 'present' for the body's deliberation on the disqualifying matter," and that the member's "non-vote [is] required by law, and reflects no exercise of discretion whatsoever."

Similarly, we conclude here that a legally disqualified Metropolitan board member is effectively not "present" for purposes of the relevant voting. As a consequence, the member does not share in the agency's votes in respect to the relevant matter, even if he or she happens to be physically present when voting is conducted. The disqualified member's share accordingly devolves to the control of the remaining, legally-qualified representatives who are present.

Our conclusion is the same whether disqualification results from a personal financial interest or from holding dual offices in connection with a contract between Metropolitan and a constituent agency. In cases of personal financial interest, our conclusion finds additional support in the language of the Political Reform Act of 1974 (PRA) and its implementing regulations. The PRA requires any financially interested "public official[] who manage[s] public investments" to "[r]ecuse himself or herself from discussing and voting on the matter" and to "[l]eave the room until after the discussion, vote, and any other disposition of the matter is concluded, unless the matter has been placed on the portion of the agenda reserved for uncontested matters."

We readily conclude that the members of Metropolitan's board are "public officials who manage public investments" within the meaning of the PRA: Metropolitan has the power to levy taxes; the board has broad powers to sell construction and revenue bonds in order to carry out Metropolitan's purposes; and the board must approve Metropolitan's annual Statement of Investment Policy. Accordingly, unless a matter has been placed on the consent calendar, a member who has a personal financial interest in a particular matter is required by the PRA to "leave the room" during discussion and vote on the relevant matter. Under the plain language of section 52(a), then, such a member would not even be physically present during the vote from which he or she was disqualified, and therefore his or her votes would devolve to the delegation members who remained.

Before leaving the subject, we address the suggestion that a member's disqualification under the PRA should also disqualify the whole multi-member delegation, on the theory that a disqualified member could influence the other members of the delegation on how they should cast their votes. While we acknowledge the sentiment underlying this theory, we nonetheless disagree. The PRA prohibits a disqualified board member from "in any way attempt[ing] to use his official position to influence a governmental decision in which he knows or has to reason to know he has a financial interest." In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we must assume that public officials observe this proscription. Moreover, the PRA itself disqualifies only those officers who have a prohibited financial interest. It is not for us to rewrite the statute so as to disqualify an otherwise eligible official based on another person's financial interest. We specifically decline to do so here, where disqualification of the entire delegation would have the effect of disfranchising the whole constituent public agency without justification in the language of the statute.

We conclude that, if a member of a multi-director delegation of a constituent agency of Metropolitan is legally disqualified and required to recuse himself or herself from participating in a particular vote, then the votes allocated to that constituent agency are to be shared equally among the agency's other qualified representatives who are present when the vote is taken.