Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
It’s filing week for political hopefuls here in Washington state.
And this year, candidate filing comes just days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that creating voting districts based on race is unconstitutional. That ruling came April 29 in Louisiana v. Callais, a case about creating of a black voting district.
If you didn’t know, Washington also has race-based districts created for a similar reason – carving out two Hispanic legislative districts and eliminating at-large offices to create race-based county commissioner districts. But few of our elected officials are taking action to get our counties and legislative districts into compliance with the Supreme Court ruling and the U.S. Constitution.
Instead, most are turning a blind eye.
Over the last decade, minority groups sued the state and successfully forced the creation of county commissioner district-only elections. As examples, Spokane, Yakima and Franklin counties were pushed to eliminate county-wide, at-large commissioner districts. In Yakima and Franklin counties, the change was done to established Hispanic-majority districts. In Spokane County, the change was done solely to created a district dominated by Democrats.
The changes were pushed under the guise of “equity,” a code word used by government employees and others to provide cover for race-based and other politically motivated decisions.
In addition, our legislative district map was redrawn based on race.
The 14th and 15th Districts, which primarily cover Yakima and Benton counties, were redrawn in 2023 to create Hispanic-majority voting districts. Creating those racial-outcome districts subsequently led to alterations in the rest of our legislative district boundaries.
Now that the Supreme Court has confirmed using race to create districts is a violation of the Constitution, our state leaders should move posthaste to redraw boundaries based on population disbursement, regardless of race or minority population.
Instead of returning quickly to constitutional compliance, however, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs appears to be ignoring the fact many of our districts were created to achieve an outcome based on skin color and ethnicity.
“In Washington, we have an established process for redistricting, and we will continue to follow that process,” he said in a press release after the ruling was released.
Hobbs intentionally omitted the fact the 14th and 15th Legislative Districts were gerrymandered to create Hispanic-majority districts. He knows they are unconstitutional; he was named the defendant in the Soto Palmer v. Hobbs lawsuit challenging their creation.
Unfortunately for all Eastern Washington voters, Hobbs had a liberal Western Washington appellate judge in his pocket, a judge that upheld the unconstitutional race-based gerrymandering even after a lower court found it was in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.
At least one of Eastern Washington’s county elected auditors, however, gets it.
“For too long people, convinced themselves it’s ok to be racist,” Franklin County Auditor Matt Beaton posted on his re-election social media. “To divide Americans by race to make elections fair, it never made sense or felt right. This returns some sanity.”
I agree.
I never understood how you could use race as a factor to balance previous discrimination.
Racial prejudice in any decision will not lead to a color-blind society. Instead, it gives an unofficial stamp of approval that racism is OK.
At least the Supreme Court could see through all the “felgercarb” and get to the real issue. (Yes, I grew up watching “Battlestar Galactica;” the original movie and television series had great euphemisms.)
Using race as a determining factor is discrimination, pure and simple. And discrimination is not only unconstitutional, it’s illegal.
Unfortunately, our elected officials will quickly call everyone else racist, while shirking their responsibility to end discrimination.
So, as Washingtonians we need to call on our lawmakers to redraw our elective district maps before the August primary. We need to demand an end to racism in our elections.
Should we allow illegal voting districts to remain in our counties and state, we’re just as complicit in violating the Constitution.
— Roger Harnack is the owner of Free Press Publishing. Email him at roger@cheneyfreepress.com.
Roger Harnack is the owner/publisher of Free Press Publishing. Having grown up Benton City, Roger is an award-winning journalist, photographer, editor and publisher. He's one of only two editorial/commentary writers from Washington state to ever receive the international Golden Quill. Roger is dedicated to the preservation of local media, and the voice it retains for Eastern Washington.
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