Racial equality in voting took one giant step forward in Euclid, OH, a suburb of Cleveland, this week when U.S. District Judge Kathleen O’Malley ruled the city’s current system for electing City Council members violated the Voting Rights Act. Judge O’Malley’s ruling is the culmination of an investigation launched by the Lawyers' Committee's Voting Rights Project Director, Jon Greenbaum, while he was still at the Justice Department in 2003.
The system in question required candidates for the four at-large seats on the eight member council to declare the slot they were seeking. As a result, the African-American vote was spread out, thus diluting the power of their vote. Despite the fact Euclid’s African-American population is over 30 percent, a black resident has never won, or even come close to winning, an election to the City Council or School Board. The evidence against the city was so overwhelming in fact that Judge O’Malley stated at the hearing, “this is not a case where it was a close call.”
This is a great victory for African-American voters. Its unfortunate the administration has not brought more Section 2 – the Voting Rights Act’s national discrimination prohibition – cases on behalf of African-American voters (see Playing Politics with Voters’ Rights). In fact this is the first case of its kind brought in six years. Let’s hope the action in Euclid is a sign of things to come.
Read the WKYC-TV’s story, Judge rules Euclid racially biased, for more information.
