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Latino voters, ACLU sue Yakima over council system. Brown stain takeover attempt in progress.
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Weekend Mexican
Aug 25, 2012, 12:34:24 PM8/25/12
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Mateo Arteaga has closely watched the demographics change in
Yakima since he moved here in 1988. A longtime educator, Arteaga
visits kindergarten classes where smiling Hispanic faces
dominate the room.
Hispanics now make up more than a third of Yakima's population,
as farm workers travel to central Washington's fruit bowl to
work in agriculture and those who have come before them settle
here to raise families.
But Arteaga says those same faces grow up to find they have no
voice in the community and a lack of representation: Parks and
libraries aren't built on the city's east side, which is
predominantly Hispanic, and educational opportunities are fewer.
Arteaga joined Rogelio Montes, a student at Yakima Valley
Community College, and the American Civil Liberties Union in
filing suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court to change the
city's system for City Council elections in hopes of improving
the odds for minority-supported candidates.
"Our kids need a place to be playing and to be a part of the
community," said Arteaga, a Central Washington University
administrator who oversees an outreach program for disadvantaged
students. "It's about giving everybody an opportunity to have
their voices be heard and their votes count."
A city representative did not immediately return a telephone
call seeking comment Wednesday.
The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 invites court challenges
to an election system that prevents protected minorities from
meaningfully influencing election outcomes.
The case marks the first of its kind in Washington state, but
the ACLU has successfully challenged at-large voting systems in
other communities.
Forty-one percent of Yakima's more than 91,000 residents are
Hispanic, but the city has never elected a Hispanic member to
its at-large city council.
Yakima has four council members who represent districts and
three at-large members, but the district candidates are only
selected in the primary election. Every resident casts votes for
each council seat in the general election.
Civil rights advocates contend the method dilutes the Latino
vote and blocks minority representation, and the ACLU has been
pushing the city to change its system since 2010.
Last year, council members refused to put an initiative on a
special ballot requiring that all seven members represent a
specific district, and Yakima voters defeated an initiative to
change the system in last year's primary.
"The concerns of the Latino community are not being effectively
represented in the City Council," said La Rond Baker, an ACLU
attorney. "We realized the City Council wasn't going to come to
the table in any meaningful way, so we filed today."
Baker also said the lawsuit isn't about getting minority
candidates onto the council, but about ensuring the candidates
that minorities support have a fair shot in an election.
Yakima isn't the first community in Eastern Washington, where
the Hispanic community has grown significantly in recent years,
to have its voting system come under review.
In 2008, after the Justice Department intervened, the city of
Sunnyside changed its entirely at-large City Council elections
to a partially districted system that is similar to the system
in Yakima.
"I would hope that every City Council would want to have a
system that complied with the Voting Rights Act," Baker said.
"When we win, it may require some of them to make alterations to
their own systems."
Earlier this year, an annual survey of Eastern Washington's
Latino population by Whitman College students recommended that
the state pass a Voting Rights Act to facilitate minority
representation in local communities.
The study found that Latinos comprised nearly 22 percent of the
population in 10 Eastern Washington counties between 1983 and
2011, but have been elected to only 2.7 percent of their city
council and school district seats during that time.
A legislative bill that would have made it easier for minorities
to get elected in local communities passed out of committee but
failed to come up for a vote on the House floor in the last
session.
Modeled on the decade-old California Voting Rights Act, it would
have encouraged court challenges to cities, counties and school
districts to push them to switch from at-large to district
elections in areas where large minority groups are present.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018971972_apwav
otingrights4thldwritethru.html
Yakima since he moved here in 1988. A longtime educator, Arteaga
visits kindergarten classes where smiling Hispanic faces
dominate the room.
Hispanics now make up more than a third of Yakima's population,
as farm workers travel to central Washington's fruit bowl to
work in agriculture and those who have come before them settle
here to raise families.
But Arteaga says those same faces grow up to find they have no
voice in the community and a lack of representation: Parks and
libraries aren't built on the city's east side, which is
predominantly Hispanic, and educational opportunities are fewer.
Arteaga joined Rogelio Montes, a student at Yakima Valley
Community College, and the American Civil Liberties Union in
filing suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court to change the
city's system for City Council elections in hopes of improving
the odds for minority-supported candidates.
"Our kids need a place to be playing and to be a part of the
community," said Arteaga, a Central Washington University
administrator who oversees an outreach program for disadvantaged
students. "It's about giving everybody an opportunity to have
their voices be heard and their votes count."
A city representative did not immediately return a telephone
call seeking comment Wednesday.
The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 invites court challenges
to an election system that prevents protected minorities from
meaningfully influencing election outcomes.
The case marks the first of its kind in Washington state, but
the ACLU has successfully challenged at-large voting systems in
other communities.
Forty-one percent of Yakima's more than 91,000 residents are
Hispanic, but the city has never elected a Hispanic member to
its at-large city council.
Yakima has four council members who represent districts and
three at-large members, but the district candidates are only
selected in the primary election. Every resident casts votes for
each council seat in the general election.
Civil rights advocates contend the method dilutes the Latino
vote and blocks minority representation, and the ACLU has been
pushing the city to change its system since 2010.
Last year, council members refused to put an initiative on a
special ballot requiring that all seven members represent a
specific district, and Yakima voters defeated an initiative to
change the system in last year's primary.
"The concerns of the Latino community are not being effectively
represented in the City Council," said La Rond Baker, an ACLU
attorney. "We realized the City Council wasn't going to come to
the table in any meaningful way, so we filed today."
Baker also said the lawsuit isn't about getting minority
candidates onto the council, but about ensuring the candidates
that minorities support have a fair shot in an election.
Yakima isn't the first community in Eastern Washington, where
the Hispanic community has grown significantly in recent years,
to have its voting system come under review.
In 2008, after the Justice Department intervened, the city of
Sunnyside changed its entirely at-large City Council elections
to a partially districted system that is similar to the system
in Yakima.
"I would hope that every City Council would want to have a
system that complied with the Voting Rights Act," Baker said.
"When we win, it may require some of them to make alterations to
their own systems."
Earlier this year, an annual survey of Eastern Washington's
Latino population by Whitman College students recommended that
the state pass a Voting Rights Act to facilitate minority
representation in local communities.
The study found that Latinos comprised nearly 22 percent of the
population in 10 Eastern Washington counties between 1983 and
2011, but have been elected to only 2.7 percent of their city
council and school district seats during that time.
A legislative bill that would have made it easier for minorities
to get elected in local communities passed out of committee but
failed to come up for a vote on the House floor in the last
session.
Modeled on the decade-old California Voting Rights Act, it would
have encouraged court challenges to cities, counties and school
districts to push them to switch from at-large to district
elections in areas where large minority groups are present.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018971972_apwav
otingrights4thldwritethru.html
Hisler
Aug 25, 2012, 2:42:12 PM8/25/12
to
support the demographic warfare being waged by Mexico and La Raza to
turn the United States into a Spanish speaking extension of failed Latin
American nations to the south of the U.S.A.. Too bad the House
UnAmerican Activities Committee isn't around to thwart the efforts by
the ACLU to turn our nation into a Hispanic failed state.
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