Yakima City Council Drops Appeal Of ACLU Lawsuit

The Yakima City Council Tuesday dropped the appeal of the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, voting rights lawsuit that changed city elections last year. The move by the city council puts to rest a case that's been around for years. On a unanimous vote the Yakima City Council took the action at Tuesday's council meeting. As a result Yakima now owes the ACLU more than $1.8 million in legal fees and costs as ordered by a federal judge.
In 2012 the ACLU sued the city of Yakima saying their at-large and geographically defined districts were unconstitutional because it put Latino voters at a disadvantage. In 2014 a federal judge ordered the city to create a district-based election system, that gave the city seven single-member districts, with districts one and two as Latino majority districts. The first elections under the new system were held last November, and voters elected the first three Latino council members in Yakima's history.