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.