Category Archives: Uncategorized

Yakima (WA) considers single member districts


 


Yakima Washington may move toward single member districts after some academics and groups have started to pay attention to at large elections in Yakima:

“Leading the charge is Joaquin Avila, a Seattle University law professor who heads the school’s National Voting Rights Advocacy Initiative.  Avila, who backs up rhetoric with lawsuits, said recently that Yakima is on his radar screen.


Underlying much of the debate is the belief that Latinos are embarrassingly underrepresented in elective office in Yakima. The percentage of Latinos likely will exceed 40 percent when new federal census figures are released in April.”

The article contains no discussion whether Gingles One, Two and Three can be satisfied –  or whether “embarrassing underrepresentation” is all the newspaper had available to report.

Avila is an advocate for allowing illegal aliens the right to vote in American elections.  More on that position here. It is “political Apartheid,” wrote Avila, to deny these non-citizens a vote in how their communities are run.


Perris (CA) School Board retreats on single member districts

Succumbing to threats of litigation, the Perris California School Board is likely to implement single member districts.  The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights had sought single member districts under the California version of the Voting Rights Act. 

“Several trustees agreed with Carolyn Twyman who said it felt like the district was ‘being blackmailed’ into forming election districts. Nonetheless, four trustees said to avoid a costly lawsuit, they support the change.”

Virginia Attorney General: Bailout not a priority


 


 
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli backtracks on statewide bailout talk, noting it is not a priority.  Democrats criticizing Cuccinelli apparently didn’t get the memo  – defenders of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act desperately want and need bailouts.  A full court press is on to get bailouts in place before the Supreme Court hears the next challenge to Section 5.  ELC is conducting a survey of other Virginia counties to see where others are attempting to obtain bailouts (more on that later). 

The sly fox in this game is Cuccinelli, who put the kibosh on moving toward a bailout that would help preserve the constitutionality of Section 5.  The reactionaries who went after Cuccinelli are the ones hurting their own cause, though they may not know it.

Georgia Republicans: Barrow and Bishop primary fun?

The Washington Post previews redistricting in Georgia.  It presents a scenario which could be permissible under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, or else might implicate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act: Combining John Barrow and Sanford Bishop into the same district by creating a new majority black district.  Currently Barrow and Bishop are not in majority black districts. 

Moreover, Georgia will gain an additional Congressional seat that will likely be used to create another GOP Congressional district in the suburbs north of Atlanta.  Combining Bishop and Barrow to create a new majority minority district would allow the more republican leaning portions of their old districts to be distributed to other GOP districts. 

This is an example where the midterm tsunami of 2010 has implications far beyond who won or lost the elections.

NC Voter ID – 1898 all over again?

A not-so-measured report on efforts to implement voter identification requirements in North Carolina:

“The impact of the voting restrictions was dramatic: Voting participation by African-American males, largely Republicans, plummeted across the South from 98 percent in 1885 to 10 percent in 1905, according to historian J. Morgan Kousser.

Today, voting rights advocates in North Carolina fear that history may be repeating itself. After winning control of the state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction, Republican lawmakers have made it their top legislative priority to pass new election restrictions that require voters to produce photo identification at the polls.”

The article also brings up the Georgia voter identification law, inaccurately and incompletely:

“In 2005, a federal judge halted Georgia’s new voter ID law on the grounds that it amounted to a new poll tax, because of the costs and burdens it placed on voters.”

Full stop.  The article fails to note that this was a temporary order and upon closer examination, both federal and state courts allowed Georgia’s law to take effect.  The courts rejected the arguments that voter identification laws in Georgia were discriminatory or illegal.

Two important observations about this unbalanced article, and this debate:  First, it is a shame when important public debates about voter identification attract a cottage industry of commentators who use half-truths and rhetorical diversions – such as leading readers to believe the Georgia voter identification law was struck down when it was not.  Second, this is an issue with staggering popular support.  Polls show between 75 to 85 percent of voters support voter identification laws.  It is a suicidal effort by people like the author.  The only thing that could make support for voter identification grow is if the opponents aren’t straight and true when they write about the issue.

VA Dem Chair Moran misses the mark on Voting Rights Act

Virginia Democratic Party Chair Brian Moran misses the mark wildly and jumps all over Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli over the Voting Rights Act.  Of course Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires certain, but not all, states to get federal government approval of any change whatsoever involving elections.  For example, hours an election office is open, the location of the office, the people translating ballots into Spanish, the district lines, etc, must all be approved by the feds. 

States and jurisdictions are allowed to apply for bailouts, but almost nobody has.  Of the thousands of jurisdictions eligible to seek bailout, only a dozen or so have done so.  At the same time, two jurisdictions are challenging the constitutionality of Section 5.  Whether or not bailouts are effective and being used is an issue that will affect the constitutionality of Section 5.  Simply put, defenders of Section 5 want jurisdictions to bail out.  The more jurisdictions that bailout, the more constitutional Section 5 is.

Enter Brian Moran.  He obviously didn’t get the memo that the defenders of Section 5 are desperate to find places to bailout.  If Virginia bailed out as a state, and very few would be more appropriate for a bailout than the Commonwealth, it would significantly bolster the constitutionality of Section 5. 

Because of the high temperature rhetoric of Moran, states and jurisdictions are scared to seek bailouts because of the racially driven wrath people like Moran will unleash when they do.  If the Supreme Court strikes down Section 5, which most informed observers believe is increasingly possible, there will likely be a passage in the opinion about the low number of places which obtained bailouts, and those seeking to overturn the law will be able to thank people like Brian Moran.    Perhaps he will reassess his position.