In 2021 our state’s bipartisan, voter-created Redistricting Fee set Washington’s present legislative and congressional boundaries.
In August, a federal decide dominated in favor of the plaintiffs in Soto Palmer v. Hobbs, who claimed the map of Central Washington’s fifteenth Legislative District violates the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA). The decide ordered the boundaries to be redrawn.
Underneath state regulation, legislators can reconvene the fee at any time ought to district boundaries want adjusting. As an alternative, special-interest teams, with the assistance of native activists, try to bypass that course of to realize a predetermined political end result.
On Dec. 1, the plaintiffs proposed 5 maps to the court docket. 4 transfer Jap Washington’s first Latina senator, Republican Nikki Torres of Pasco, out of her district into the adjoining sixteenth Legislative District. The fifth map would preserve her in her district however slash her proportion of Latino constituents — now 73% — right down to 47%.
The plaintiffs make the unfathomable declare {that a} Latina’s election proves her ethnic group was discriminated in opposition to beneath the phrases of the VRA. To the most effective of anybody’s information, the VRA has by no means been twisted in such a manner.
As a younger woman, Sen. Torres woke earlier than dawn to select fruit alongside her mother and father in Central and Jap Washington. As a single mother, she struggled to get an training and obtain her American Dream. Household, arduous work and training helped her exceed the expectations of those that informed her she would by no means quantity to a lot due to who she is and the place she got here from.
Sen. Torres must be proud. She has achieved a lot already and is doing an impressive job representing her constituents. She understands their struggles as a result of they’re her struggles.
Now, after being overwhelmingly chosen to signify her group, she is confronted with this politically motivated push to take her job and diminish her value.
Whereas 5 registered Latino voters within the 14th and fifteenth legislative districts are listed because the plaintiffs, the lawsuit is clearly a part of a nationwide motion to politicize redistricting and weaponize the VRA to elect extra Democrats from court-gerrymandered districts.
A outstanding actor behind this lawsuit and the accompanying nationwide technique is Matt Barreto, with the UCLA Voting Rights Venture.
Apart from shut ties to President Joe Biden’s political operation, Barreto claims in his on-line bio to have had a pivotal position in VRA challenges in different states, together with Texas, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
His group and comparable exterior teams, with sturdy ties to the state and nationwide Democratic events, are those working hardest — behind the native plaintiffs — to problem Washington’s bipartisan redistricting course of.
Why would particular pursuits assault a Latina senator within the identify of serving to her Latino constituents?
The plaintiffs’ proposed maps make the reply clear. They might trigger the Yakima Valley district to go from having a 1.4% Republican benefit margin to margins that vary from 10.2% to 11.1% in Democrats’ favor.
Whereas such a radical shift would give the Democratic Get together a serious benefit, these proposed maps do nothing to strengthen the voice of the Hispanic group. Two maps would develop the Latino inhabitants by solely 0.15% in comparison with the present district, which already has the state’s largest Latino inhabitants. The opposite three maps would, unbelievably, lower the proportion of Latinos.
The actual objective is clearly to have a court docket remodel what’s now a “swing” district in Central Washington — one both occasion might win — right into a solidly Democratic-leaning district that ensures the present Democratic legislative majority one other vote in Olympia.
This outrageous scheme would violate U.S. Supreme Court docket requirements, which require that substitute maps make solely the minimal modifications wanted to repair a VRA violation.
A greater answer is for the Legislature to name itself again into session instantly and reconvene the state’s Redistricting Fee. Despite the fact that the common session is scheduled to begin Jan. 8, that is an pressing matter that may be taken care of rapidly. Let the fee repair any compliance points with a bipartisan answer that’s truthful and clear.
Something much less will disenfranchise the folks of Sen. Torres’ district, hurt Jap Washington’s Latino group and put politics forward of individuals.
