Redistricting Action
At The Legislature
End Prison Gerrymandering (Senate Bill 5583)
Prison gerrymandering dilutes the electoral power of communities already suffering from mass incarceration, voter disenfranchisement, and systemic racism. Incarcerated people are predominantly poor, Black and Brown men from BIPOC working class communities. Yet, prisons are in predominantly rural, white communities, where a handful of business interests like large farms control their politics. By counting incarcerated peoples in communities where they’re incarcerated, you decrease the people power of BIPOC communities in redistricting and artificially inflate the representation of rural white communities. While federal and state redistricting did stop doing this after 2019, it still doesn’t apply to counties and cities. It should.
Lawsuit
A memo from a redistricting commissioner staffer laid out in plain language that 2021 redistricting was hyper-partisan warfare between the parties, where all they cared about was their own partisan advantage.
The Redistricting Commission missed the November 15, 11:59pm deadline, so their proposed maps subsequently went to the Supreme Court. But the judges punted map-making decisions back to the Commission rather than making them, as law would suggest . That said, the Justices ruled only on whether the Commission met the deadline, not on the content of the submitted map itself. The maps tardily created by the Commission likely violate the voting rights of Latinos in Central Washington by dividing communities of color in the Yakima County into 2 legislative districts, diluting their political power. This likely violates Section 2 of the Federal Voting Rights Act, which mandates a district in Central Washington where Latinos can elect a candidate of their choice. So Redistricting Justice for Washington (RJW) as well as organizations and community leaders will wait on the legislature’s likely approval of the plan, then sue the state, forcing the court to take up our voting rights case.
Why these maps?
Redistricting Justice for Washington developed congressional and legislative district map proposals alongside dozens of organizations and individual Washingtonians, especially communities of color.
We went through an extensive, months-long community input process—including public community mapping sessions, discussions with community leaders, internal analysis, and consultation with experts—to select our final map proposals. These are the same maps that RJW will present to the Washington State Redistricting Commission.
These maps reflect our core priorities:
Protect and represent the interests of people and residents, not partisan interests
Keep communities of color and tribes together*
Be accountable to community input from across the state
We also took into account the following criteria:
Avoid splitting political subdivisions (city and county)
Create compact and contiguous districts
Stay in compliance with the Washington and federal Voting Rights Acts
Avoid overtly favoring or discriminating against a political party or incumbent
*A key requirement for just redistricting, as laid out in state and federal law, is keeping communities of interest together. We have seen clearly that in many places across Washington, tribes and communities of color plainly constitute communities of interest, in terms of shared priorities and voting patterns.
Yakima: 14th & 15th Legislative Districts
Our priorities for the Yakima area are to honor the tribal boundaries of the Yakama Nation reservation, and to keep communities of color in the city of Yakima and Yakima Valley together.
Today, the Yakama reservation (seen below in red), and the city of Yakima (which has a large Latino population, and is seen below in green), are divided between the 14th and 15th Legislative Districts. At RJW, we know that splitting up tribes and communities of color waters down the power of our vote. Our proposed districts are majority people of color (POC) citizens-voting-age population, and enables voters of color to choose who they want to represent them, and are in compliance with the federal Voting Right Act. These maps were selected by dozens of community members in the Yakima Valley POC community because they maximize POC population in the district.
To explore this map proposal more, you can view an interactive map.
To help us make this map proposals a reality, sign here to support our Yakima LD proposal.
Note: population data gathered from 2020 Census results.
Current 14th & 15th Legislative Districts
RJW Proposal: Version 1
RJW Proposal: Version 2
About Our Yakima Proposals
Both of our Yakima map proposals were developed with community input. They are both compliant with the federal Voting Rights Act, which requires the creation of a legislative district in Yakima that is majority-minority by Citizen Voting-Age Population (CVAP).
Our first proposal creates a district that is majority-majority Latino and Native by CVAP. It is 47% Latino CVAP and 56% POC CVAP.
Our second proposal creates a district that is majority-Latino by CVAP, and includes Pasco. It is 52% Latino CVAP, 63% POC CVAP.