Judge rules Orange City Council member termed out, ineligible to serve

Orange City Council member Mike Alvarez may lose his seat due to the city’s two consecutive-term limit policy, a process sparked by two lawsuits immediately after his third-term reelection. DANIEL PEARSON, Staff Photographer

The shock set in when he heard the ruling.

Orange City Council member Mike Alvarez knew there’d be a chance he could lose his District 3 seat when he ran for a third consecutive term — an action prohibited by the City’s 1996 two council terms limit law, which his own biography references. But that didn’t stop his “disappointment,” when an Orange County judge ruled that he was ineligible to run in the first place. 

That ruling came Feb. 4 courtesy of Orange County Superior Court Judge Nathan Scott, who cemented that Alvarez was ineligible to have run for a third consecutive term for his City Council seat in November 2020. The term limit policy restricts Orange City Council members to serving only two consecutive terms and enforces a two-year hiatus before the individual can run for office again.

“I was quite shocked since the City had qualified me (before the election),” Alvarez told The Panther. “It was weird that (the judge) didn’t take into consideration what the City had done. I was pretty disappointed … I was certainly in the gray area.”

Alvarez was first elected to the Council in 1996 and reelected in 2000. He was termed out in 2004 and eight years later, he won a seat on the Council in 2012 before again being reelected in 2016. Alvarez argued that — since Orange City Council seats were transitioned to oversee districts prior to the 2020 election — his then-seat no longer existed and he was no longer subject to the two-term limit. As such, Alvarez ran for reelection in 2020 and won with 50.8% of the vote.

“Mike Alvarez thinks that since we switched to a by-district election system that that inherently invalidates the term limit ordinance, and it doesn't,” said John Russo, one of Alvarez’s two political opponents in the 2020 general election for the District 3 seat. “The judge has ruled that Mike Alvarez is illegally holding office and is violating the term limit ordinance.”

Russo, an Orange Unified School District employee and the runner-up in the District 3 election, secured 26.8% of the vote. Russo filed the challenge against the election results after Alvarez was declared the victor Nov. 3. Another Orange County resident, Michael Macisaac, filed an additional election contest calling for Alvarez’s removal from office, with the judge giving a simultaneous, identical ruling for both cases.

In order to file a challenge prior to the actual election, the contestant must file before the end of August. Russo said the timing of filing his election challenge didn’t make the August 2020 deadline, so he waited until after the election to challenge Alvarez’s eligibility.

Alvarez told The Panther of similar situations in local cities like Placentia, Mission Viejo, Palmdale and Santa Monica — that went differently. 

For example, Palmdale violated the California Voting Rights Act in 2013, and shifted from an at-large city council to a district-based council — the same thing that happened to Orange in 2020. The lawsuits claim that at-large city council elections impede upon opportunities for members of minority communities to be involved in government and, in turn, accurately represented. Under the Palmdale case, the judge ordered a special election for the city council members, claiming previous votes utilizing the at-large voting system no longer counted. New city council members elected with a district-based election later took office.

Based on this precedent, Alvarez’s attorney Mark Rosen told The Panther that since at-large elections violate the California Voting Rights Act, his past terms and their subsequent term restrictions shouldn’t penalize him moving forward.

“We are in a transition period, and there’s plenty of case laws for other cities that have done the same thing where they allowed it,” Alvarez told The Panther. “I was under the impression when I filed with the City that I was well within my right to do so, and they must have agreed, because they acknowledged it and accepted my nomination papers.”

California’s Election Code states that the challenger can file an election contest within 30 days of the election results, and both Russo and Macisaac followed that regulation. The election challenge period ended in August, and since the city of Orange allowed Alvarez’s nomination, Rosen said it would be a disservice to Alvarez’s voters in District 3 to remove him from his seat. 

A status conference is slated for Feb. 24, since the judge’s Feb. 4 ruling is not yet finalized until further paperwork is completed. Russo said he hoped replacing Alvarez on the Council moving forward would save money that would be spent holding a special election, but Rosen argued that won’t happen since Russo never won the District 3 seat.

Orange has three options to replace Alvarez, if needed: they could appoint Russo, hold a special election or defer the responsibility of appointing a replacement to the Orange City Council, which would likely occur in the next election cycle.

“The voters of Orange are being cheated by this lawsuit,” Rosen said. “The people were happy with (Alvarez). He crushed John Russo. This goes against what the voters really wanted.”

Rosen and Alvarez both claimed they will be appealing the case. It is not immediately clear whether or not Alvarez will have to vacate his seat, or how he might be replaced, if needed.

“This sends a message to our City Council and sets a precedent that the residents of Orange are not going to let them get away with not doing the right thing,” Russo said. “We are going to hold them accountable to ensure that the right thing is done for the best interest of our city. I’m excited to see what the next step holds.”