Communities of Color Push Back on WA Voting Map
RJW is raising concerns over how the 14th and 15th Districts were split in Yakima County. Andrew Hong, statewide coordinator for the group, said the line splits the Yakama reservation from the 15th District, where the majority of Yakima County’s Latino population is located.
“There’s been overwhelming community testimony throughout this process explicitly naming that the Yakama Nation should be kept intact with the Yakima Valley, given their long history of shared organizing, interests, political priorities, economy, agriculture,” Hong explained…
“We wanted to maximize the number of districts where people of color are the majority of eligible voters; so majority minority by citizen voting-age population districts,” Hong stated. “And we were happy to see that the commission did use that figure.”
But Hong noted district lines in the Yakima region remain a thorny subject. He pointed out Redistricting Justice for Washington could take legal action based on the Voting Rights Act to challenge the legislative map.
“The Legislature has the authority to alter the commission’s maps by up to 2% before approving them,” Hong emphasized. “We want to see how that plays out…”
