Politics on the Hudson, NY
A federal judge has ruled Port Chester’s at-large voting districts for its Board of Trustees violate the federal Voting Rights Act.
Judge Stephen C. Robinson, in a decision signed Thursday but released this morning by the court, wrote that the system for electing the village’s six trustees “prevents Hispanic voters from participating equally in the political process in the village.”
The case was brought by the United States and local resident Cesar Ruiz against the village in December 2006. It led to the cancellation of the March 2007 trustee election.
Its effect on a new election scheduled for this coming March was not immediately clear.
The judge ordered all sides to present “proposed remedial plans” to the court within three weeks, and said he would set a one-day hearing on the matter after that.
Randolph McLaughlin, a Pace Law school professor representing Cesar Ruiz, who filed the lawsuit, said he would ask the judge to block the March trustee elections if the village plans to conduct the elections the way it always has....
By Daniel Trotta
NEW YORK (Reuters)
A U.S. judge ruled a New York town's election system denies equal participation for Hispanics in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the landmark law associated with the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Robinson's order, dated January 17 and released by federal officials on Tuesday, directed the Village of Port Chester to rewrite its election laws because they have denied Hispanics a seat in the local government.
Hispanics make up 46 percent of Port Chester's population but no Hispanic has been elected to the board governing the village of 28,000 people some 25 miles north of New York City.
Latin American immigrants have flocked to Port Chester in recent years, seeking work in the affluent suburbs of Westchester County
The U.S. Justice Department had sued the village but the all-white board of trustees refused to change its "at-large" system under which the board of trustees is elected by a village-wide vote rather than by districts, which would improve the chances of a Hispanic getting elected......
New York Times
By ALAN FEUER
Citing a history of official discrimination against Hispanic voters, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the way municipal elections are conducted in the village of Port Chester, N.Y., violates federal election law.
The ruling by the judge, Stephen C. Robinson of Federal District Court in White Plains, came in a 56-page order issued as the capstone to a six-day trial last spring. During the trial, the federal government argued that the village’s at-large voting system — in which all village residents can vote for all candidates on the ballot — was unfairly weighted against Hispanics. As part of his ruling, Judge Robinson ordered the village to submit a “remedial plan” to fix the at-large system within three weeks.
“This court is persuaded that there is some history of official discrimination in Port Chester that continues to touch the rights of Hispanics to participate in the political process,” Judge Robinson wrote.
The federal government sued the village in December 2006, charging that the at-large system — as opposed to a system in which separate districts elect separate candidates — violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The suit claimed that the system denied Hispanic voters the opportunity to constitute a majority in any area and thus inhibited them from electing their preferred candidates.
Lawyers from the village argued that Hispanics had been invited to participate in the election process, but had often declined. They suggested that the problem was one of voter apathy or partisan politics rather than one of racial polarization.
In his order, however, Judge Robinson took issue with those claims, as well as others.
“Defendants argued throughout this case that, given time and assuming the continued growth of the Hispanic population of the village, the Hispanic community could come to dominate the political landscape in Port Chester even under the current at-large system,” the judge wrote. “This court, however, is not charged with projecting what might happen years or decades from now; rather we are forced with the current political reality in the village.”
To that end, Judge Robinson ordered the village to draw up plans to change the at-large system. In his order, Judge Robinson seemed inclined to favor a system presented at the trial by Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociology professor and demographer at
Queens College.
Dr. Beveridge proposed redrawing the village, which is in Westchester County, into six voting districts and to have each district elect its own member to the Board of Trustees. Judge Robinson said he would wait to rule on plans until the village submitted its own proposal to the court....
PR Newswire (press release), NY
PRNewswire-USNewswire/
A federal judge has ruled that the at-large system of election used by the Village of Port Chester, NY, ...
Kansas City Star,
A suburban village has been violating the Voting Rights Act by using an election system that leaves its rapidly growing Hispanic population without representation, a federal judge said Tuesday.
The decision against Port Chester, on the Connecticut border 25 miles from New York City, is expected to force a revision of the village's at-large election system, in which all voters cast ballots for each of the six trustee positions that run the village government....
News 10NBC - New York
...The likely alternative is a district system, in which each district would elect one trustee. One district would be drawn around Hispanic neighborhoods to increase the chances that a Hispanic-backed candidate would be elected...
MLive.com, MI
...Judge Stephen Robinson, who held a trial last May when the village and the Justice Department could not settle the case, said the at-large system "prevents Hispanic voters from participating equally in the political process in the village."...
MiamiHerald.com, FL
...The government had alleged that the at-large system allowed candidates preferred by whites to win all the trustee elections because whites tended to vote in a bloc. No Hispanic has ever been elected trustee or mayor in Port Chester, although the population is almost half Hispanic. The white population votes in greater numbers....
Orlando Sentinel, FL
...Robinson gave each side until Feb. 7 to recommend solutions. The government has already suggested plans it said would accomplish a Hispanic district, but the village said the plans would devalue the votes in the non-Hispanic districts, which would have larger populations....
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, IN
...Anthony Piscionere, Port Chester's attorney, said the village was disappointed but not surprised. Piscionere said he would meet with the trustees Tuesday night "to determine the next steps." It was too early to decide whether to appeal, he said....
Worcester Telegram, MA
...Said U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia: "We hope that Port Chester will move forward and work with us to develop a district-based election system that remedies the violation."...
San Francisco Chronicle
...Robinson blocked last March's trustee elections with an injunction, and they have yet to be held. Meanwhile, a new election is scheduled for this March. It was not clear what effect Tuesday's decision would have on that election....
Biloxi Sun Herald
...Last year's mayoral election went on as scheduled, and the judge noted that it featured "a blatant racial message." He was apparently referring to an anonymous flier that included the statement, "The Hispanics are running the show already."....
Macon Telegraph, GA
...Robinson said he was troubled by the fact that such a message "emerged in the midst of the ongoing proceedings in this case."...
Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX -
...He ruled that the government had met the three principal requirements established by precedents: that the minority group is big enough and compact enough to constitute a majority in a single-member district; that it is politically cohesive and votes as a bloc; and that bloc voting by the white majority generally defeats the minority's preferred candidate....
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