New York town defies U.S. on Hispanic voting rights
Daniel Trotta
www.washingtonpost.com
Mar 14, 2007
PORT CHESTER, New York (Reuters) - A dispute over voting rights reminiscent of the U.S. civil rights era has broken out in this New York town, where the federal government has thrust itself into the debate and a judge suspended an election.
The U.S. Justice Department told the village of Port Chester to rewrite its election laws because they have denied Hispanics a seat in the local government, and the all-white board is fighting back.
At issue is whether Port Chester is violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a hallmark of the black struggle for equal rights, by insisting its board of trustees be elected by a villagewide vote.
Although they make up 46 percent of Port Chester's population, no Hispanic has been elected to the board governing the town of 28,000 people. The Justice Department sued Port Chester in December, after a complaint by Cesar Ruiz, a Hispanic who made an unsuccessful bid to be a trustee in 2001.
Unlike the turbulent 1950s and 1960s, there are no water cannons or dogs unleashed on protesters, no federal troops. The judge who halted the March 20 election called his action an "extraordinary remedy" that "should not be routinely granted."
Many of the Latino immigrants whose rights are at stake remain at the margins of the debate, whether due to a language barrier, economic hardship or fear of deportation.
The board of trustees of the New York City suburb last year refused to adopt the Justice Department's recommendation to divide the town into districts, which might give Hispanics a better chance to elect one of their own.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Robinson then suspended the March 20 election for two trustee spots, pending a trial on the merits of the Justice Department's recommendation.
Robinson found the government was likely to win at trial, but the board still declined to settle.
"We've never had a problem with our elections or anything else. Now all of a sudden we have the federal government coming here, dictating to us they want us to have districts," said Port Chester Mayor Gerald Logan.
"There's such greater issues that the federal government could be working on, like what we are doing with our borders," he said, a reference the influx of immigrants -- many of them Spanish speakers from Latin America -- into the United States.
