07.27.13
WhiteManistan is here, too
I see it everyday crossing the el Molino bridge. (You have to live here.)
In a new critique of how minorities are treated in the Antelope Valley, a judge has ruled that Palmdale violated state voting laws by maintaining an election system that stymied Latinos and blacks from winning office.
The judge’s findings come a month after the U.S. Justice Department accused Palmdale, Lancaster and the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department of a systematic effort to discriminate against minorities who received low-income subsidized housing.
Federal officials said deputies conducted widespread unlawful searches of homes, improper detentions and used unreasonable force that specifically targeted blacks and Latinos …
Judge Mark V. Mooney, in an opinion released this week, concluded that Palmdale’s at-large voting system for its city council violated state law because the city has “racially polarized voting??? and minority voters are unable to influence the outcome of elections.
The judge agreed with plaintiff Juan Jauregui, who argued that Palmdale had not adequately followed the California Voting Rights Act, which requires district rather than citywide elections if there is any evidence of racially polarized voting, and if it can be shown that a minority district can be drawn. Palmdale is 54.4% Latino and nearly 15% black yet has only elected one Latino city council member and never a black council member in its history, said Jauregui’s attorney, R. Rex Parris. Parris is also the mayor of Lancaster.
“The current absence of any Latinos or African Americans on the Palmdale City Council reveals a lack of access to the political process??? …
This Los Angeles Times map of how LA County voted shows the voting polarization. LA County went heavily for Obama.
But in the high desert, which is where Palmdale and the neighboring
town of Lancaster sit, the black and Hispanic voters are in roughly
two distinct areas, surrounded by red. The blue areas tend to urban and are more densely populated.
A link to the map which is zoom-able and and searchable by city
is here. Once you’ve zoomed in, you can mouse over various precincts to see the voting results.
The Republican Party works voter suppression wherever it can get it, even at the most local level.