E-Verify Falls Victim To Electoral Inequality – And We Told You So

I have had a few hours to cool off after Tuesday's city council meeting, hoping to chill out and reach a different conclusion about the city's decision to drop the E-Verify program.  I have chilled but my conclusion remains the same.

The city has chosen sides.  The city council in a 4 to 3 vote has sent a message that happening in more urban liberal centers all across the country.  The City choose opportunity for illegal aliens over American citizen workers.  In dropping the E-Verify system to open city contracts to companies who potentially hire illegal aliens, the council is taking away protections and opportunity for Yakima Valley citizen based local companies seeking to get city contracts..

Are the citizens of Yakima in Favor of this? Here again the problem of disproportional representation is the issue. Four council members representing for districts voted to dump E-Verify. They are Gutierrez, White, Mendez and Coffey in districts 1,2,3 and 5.  Do they represent the will of the majority of voters in Yakima?  Between them they received a combined 3,385 votes to gain office.  So that's just 33-hundred votes representing the "official" direction of a city of 93-thousand?

Here's the kicker.  The three in opposition were council members Funk, Hill and Cousens in districts 4, 6 and 7.  Between them they received 5,402 total votes to get into office...2,023 more votes than the other four combined, 60% MORE than the other four!

What we have is the "tyranny of the minority" - a situation when the voices representing the majority of people are artificially overruled by the make up of the districts as designed by the local democrats, the ACLU and a democrat appointed Federal Judge..  It is electoral inequality - where some votes count the equivalence of many times more than others and results in influence and control unearned and unsupported by the total participation of the electorate.  It is what previous council fought against when we took on the ACLU.  It is exactly what we predicted would happen.

Councilwoman Dulce Gutierrez led this effort and she has been a very outspoken proponent of more governmental transparency.  Put that to the test.  She says says that E-Verify " placed an undue administrative, economic and regulatory burden on small businesses."  Ask her to demonstrate that. Ask for examples. Ask for specific examples of that actually happening.  See what you get.  She calls the program "Red Tape".  I call it protection for Yakima's legal small business.  She claims she wants to put small businesses to work.  Killing E-Verify doesn't promote that. It provides greater competition based on cheaper bids arising from the potential use of illegal workers - it's unfair competition to legitimate Yakima small businesses.