SEATTLE, Wash. (February 18, 2015) - Perkins Coie attorneys Kevin Hamilton, Abha Khanna and Ben Stafford, working on a pro bono basis with the ACLU, successfully brought about a court order requiring Yakima, Washington to implement a plan for seven single-member districts for City Council elections. The action followed a 2014 ruling that the city’s at-large election system unlawfully diluted the votes of Yakima’s Latino residents.

The lawsuit (Montes v. City of Yakima) was filed in 2012 on behalf of Yakima residents Mateo Arteaga, a university administrator and Rogelio Montes, a student at Yakima Valley Community College. Plaintiffs contended that the city’s at-large voting system deprives Latinos of the right to elect representatives of their choice to the Yakima City Council.

After Plaintiffs won on summary judgment in August 2014, Plaintiffs and the City of Yakima submitted plans to remedy the voting rights violation. In the ruling adopting Plaintiffs’ proposal, the district court noted that Plaintiffs’ remedial plan avoided “concentrating the Latino population into a single geographic district” and corrected the voting rights violation. The district court also agreed with Plaintiffs that all seven city council seats should be up for election under the new map in 2015.

The lawsuit was brought by the ACLU of Washington challenging Yakima’s system as a violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. Perkins Coie attorneys assisted the ACLU of Washington Foundation along with the ACLU Voting Rights Project and Joaquin Avila of the Law Firm of Joaquin Avila.

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