A 2014 Yakima case sparked a push in WA for voting rights reform

Voting math

Morales of the Southcentral Coalition of People of Color for Redistricting said it’s clear that local organizations face an ongoing challenge of gaining enough resources to energize and mobilize Latino voters.

A robust organizing effort happened in 2015, but resources and organizing activity has waned since, he said — a negative turn considering the already formidable voter-turnout challenge.

According to statistics from the Yakima County Auditor’s Office, the turnout among Yakima County residents with a Spanish surname was 56%, 28 percentage points lower than those with non-Spanish surnames — whose turnout rate was 84% — in 2020, a presidential election year when more Latinos voted.

Norouzi of OneAmerica wants more efforts in leadership development, to identify and develop Latino and Latina candidates who are qualified and motivated to run for office.

Norouzi believes the early success following Montes, such as the election of the three Latina City Council members in 2015, did spawn interest. She notes that numerous Latina candidates are running for 14th Legislative District state House and Senate seats following the creation of the Latino-majority district. 

She believes that Maria Beltran, a Latina running for state Senate in the 14th District, provides a model for others. She’s had strong backing locally and from the state Democratic party, but she’s also garnered experience fostered relationships working for the party over the past few years. That’s led to strong fundraising that has enabled her to reach more potential voters.

Susan Soto Palmer, the plaintiff in Palmer vs. Hobbs, is also looking to make history by being the first Latina elected to the Board of Yakima County Commissioners. Dulce Gutiérrez ran as a Democrat for the same seat in 2022, but lost to Republican Kyle Curtis. 

But Norouzi believes that more work is needed to sustain progress, so the onus isn’t on a few candidates to carry the entire Latino community. “It’s a long game,” she said. “We have to do more work and be intentional of the opportunities and how we’re investing in people, not just this year or next year but in the future.”

Despite the challenges, Gutiérrez says what matters is that there is always an opportunity for Latinos and Latinas in Yakima to take action and elect representatives who can advocate for their communities’ needs.

Some may see the constant turnover as indicative of a district still seeking and failing to achieve sufficient representation, but Gutiérrez isn’t discouraged.

“I expect we’ll continue to see turnover in Council members until we find people who won the hearts and minds of the [Latino] community and have the stamina and longevity to stick with it,” she said.

Ongoing reform

Baker maintains that the impact of the Montes ruling has expanded beyond Yakima,  showing what is possible when citizens address disparities in their own communities.  

“It spurred long-overdue work around creating fair election systems where communities of color can elect candidates of their choice to governing bodies,” she said.

Two years after the Montes decision, the ACLU of Washington was successful in another case that brought district-based voting to Pasco, in Franklin County, about 85 miles southeast of Yakima. Like Yakima, Pasco now has Latino-majority districts.

More importantly, the case was influential in the 2018 passage of the Washington State Voting Rights Act, or WVRA. Under that law, there is a path outside the courts for citizens to request a change to local election systems that violate the Act — generally to switch from at-large to district-based elections. The idea is to provide a way for municipalities to address violations without an expensive legal process.

“There are so many jurisdictions that have the same flawed structure — at-large systems that are diluting the votes of communities of color,” Baker said.

So far, Yakima and Franklin counties have switched to district-based elections for their county commissions to settle separate lawsuits under the WVRA brought by voters. The voters were aided by OneAmerica in Yakima County and League of United Latin American Citizens in Franklin County. 

The Wenatchee School District switched to district-based elections, starting in 2023, for its school board. More recently, Empowering Latina Leaders & Action and the Sunnyside School District reached a settlement in which the district will implement a district-based voting system in 2025.

Baker hopes that municipalities will ultimately be able to identify and address violations in their voting systems without being pushed by legal action. This new approach is likely going to be less expensive and more collaborative.

In 2022, the Yakima City Council completed a redistricting plan that included a third Latino-majority district. The district was drawn based on feedback from voters and advocacy organizations, including the ACLU of Washington and the South Central Coalition of People of Color for Redistricting. The seat in the new Latino-majority district will be up for election in 2025.

“It makes me hopeful that people and city leadership have come to recognize the importance of ensuring that no part of their community is silenced,” Baker said.