Washington State House passes Voting Rights Act (again) on a party-line vote

A revised ver­sion of the Wash­ing­ton Vot­ing Rights Act, cham­pi­oned by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Luis Moscoso (D‑1st Dis­trict: Both­ell, Kirk­land, Mill Creek), today passed out of the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives with­out a sin­gle vote to spare, thanks to Repub­li­cans’ refusal to pro­vide a sin­gle vote in sup­port. (Democ­rats cur­rent­ly have a bare major­i­ty of fifty votes in the House.)

The roll call on ESHB 1745 was as follows:

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Apple­ton, Bergquist, Blake, Clib­born, Cody, Dun­shee, Far­rell, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Good­man, Gregerson, Hansen, Hud­gins, Hunt, Hurst, Jink­ins, Kagi, Kil­duff, Kir­by, Kud­er­er, Lyt­ton, McBride, Moeller, Mor­ris, Moscoso, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Peter­son, Pet­ti­grew, Pol­let, Reyk­dal, Ric­cel­li, Robin­son, Ros­set­ti, Ryu, San­tos, Sawyer, Sells, Senn, Springer, Stan­ford, Sul­li­van, Tar­leton, Tharinger, Van De Wege, Walkin­shaw, Wylie, Speak­er Chopp

Vot­ing Nay: Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Buys, Caldier, Chan­dler, Con­dot­ta, DeBolt, Dent, Dye, Grif­fey, Haler, Har­grove, Harmsworth, Har­ris, Hawkins, Hayes, Hick­el, Holy, John­son, Klip­pert, Kochmar, Kretz, Kris­tiansen, MacEwen, Magen­danz, Man­weller, McCabe, McCaslin, Muri, Nealey, Orcutt, Park­er, Pike, Rodne, Schmick, Scott, Shea, Short, Smith, Stam­baugh, Stokes­bary, Tay­lor, Van Wer­ven, Vick, Walsh, Wilcox, Wil­son, Young, Zeiger

The Wash­ing­ton Vot­ing Rights Act is intend­ed to improve gov­ern­ment at the local lev­el by mak­ing elect­ed bod­ies more rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the com­mu­ni­ties they serve. To accom­plish this, the Act would do the fol­low­ing:

• Cre­ates a state vot­ing rights act that pro­tects the equal oppor­tu­ni­ty for minor­i­ty groups to par­tic­i­pate in local elections.
• Cre­ates a cause of action and autho­rizes courts to order appro­pri­ate reme­dies for a vio­la­tion of the act, includ­ing redis­trict­ing with­in a polit­i­cal subdivision.
• Autho­rizes local gov­ern­ments to change their elec­tion sys­tem to rem­e­dy vio­la­tions of the act.

“We applaud the State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives for pass­ing the Wash­ing­ton Vot­ing Rights Act and mak­ing a clear state­ment that all com­mu­ni­ties have a right to fair rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” said Rich Stolz, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of OneAmerica.

“This is about mak­ing our democ­ra­cy stronger. Wash­ing­ton State’s huge rep­re­sen­ta­tion gap across local gov­ern­ments results in neigh­bor­hoods being denied ade­quate atten­tion and resources, stu­dents being denied and edu­ca­tion sys­tem that meets their needs, and vot­ers being dis­af­fect­ed and unengaged.”

“The his­toric elec­tions in Yaki­ma last fall show what can be pos­si­ble when a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry elec­tion sys­tem is removed,” he concluded.

“The Wash­ing­ton Vot­ing Rights Act empow­ers local gov­ern­ments and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to col­lab­o­rate in solv­ing prob­lems of elec­toral unfair­ness, agreed Shankar Narayan, Leg­isla­tive Direc­tor for the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union of Wash­ing­ton. “It pro­vides for data and analy­sis of such prob­lems, as well as a roadmap to get to a solu­tion and help juris­dic­tions avoid litigation.

“The sig­nif­i­cant change that has come to Yaki­ma should­n’t require a fed­er­al law­suit and mil­lions of dol­lars. The WVRA makes need­ed elec­toral change much more pos­si­ble and like­ly across the state.”

NPI con­grat­u­lates House Democ­rats on the pas­sage of the 2016 Wash­ing­ton Vot­ing Rights Act, and thanks NPI Advi­so­ry Coun­cil Mem­ber Luis Moscoso for shep­herd­ing this leg­is­la­tion through the Leg­is­la­ture. Sad­ly, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans will prob­a­bly kill it off, but it’s a wor­thy idea, and hope­ful­ly one that can become law in 2017.