State Supreme Court Returns Redistricting Issue Back to Legislators
An analysis by UCLA’s Voting Rights Project found that each of the four draft maps proposed earlier this year by members of the bipartisan commission would risk violating the federal Voting Rights Act by failing to adequately represent Latina and Latino voters in the Yakima Valley. RJW had proposed that the commission both create a majority-Latino/a district and combine areas of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Nation in order to increase representation.
“I think the whole process is disappointing and has failed communities across Washington, and especially Communities of Color,” said Andrew Hong, the group’s co-director.
Nearer to Puget Sound, RJW proposed changes to the Ninth Congressional District boundaries to include much or all of White Center, Burien, Auburn, east Kent, and other “rapidly diversifying parts of the county and working class communities,” Hong said. Maps approved by the commission did not include those changes.
Margot Spindola, another RJW co-director and an organizer of the Latino Community Fund, criticized the lack of transparency around the process.
“First, the commissioners told us they voted on a ‘framework,’ then they said it was a ‘redistricting plan,’ and then we learned that the chair of the commission didn’t see any maps until they were uploaded to their website a day past the deadline, according to her sworn declaration,” Spindola said in a statement. “But here’s what we do know: These maps are illegitimate, the process violated the spirit of the Open Public Meetings Act, and independent analysis demonstrates they will violate the voting rights of Latinos in the Yakima Valley.”
The Northwest Progressive Institute said Friday that the court’s order to greenlight the commission’s plan may in fact condemn it to further legal challenges.
