Business owner Vianney Castro poses with a sign from the Hazleton mayoral race he lost last year at his tire store in Hazleton , Pa., on Thursday, May 16, 2024. About two-thirds of district students are Latino, and a federal lawsuit argues that the way representatives are elected to the Hazleton Area School Board is unfairly shutting Latino voters out of power. A bilingual sign outside the administration offices of the Hazleton Area School District in Hazleton , Pa., on Thursday, May 16, 2024.
The district’s 78,000 residents are about 55% white, 40% Hispanic and 5% Black, Asian or multi-racial, according to the lawsuit, with Hispanics concentrated around Hazleton. Hazleton is among several smaller cities in eastern Pennsylvania where Latino populations have grown large enough to have significant impacts on elections, including this year’s hotly contested races for president and U.S. Senate.
The district requires three separate proofs of address to establish residency from those seeking to be registered for school. A bilingual sign to that effect is posted at the entrance to the administration building, with “must have three” underlined and “no exceptions!” added in handwriting. Tony Bonomo, president of the Hazleton Area School Board, said electing voters by region may be more fair, but he and the other incumbent board members are not likely to initiate such a change.
“Plaintiffs fail to allege with any credible specificity that the claimed Hispanic group of voters is politically cohesive or that the White majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it usually to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate — both assumptions flatly refuted by the reality of the partisan demographics of Hazleton,” the board’s lawyer wrote.
The influx of new residents has long been a topic of conflict in Hazleton. The City Council approved the Illegal Immigration Relief Act in July 2006, seeking to deny business permits to companies that employ people who are living in the country illegally, fine landlords who rent to them and require tenants to register and pay for a rental permit. A federal judge struck down the ordinance.
Source: Education Headlines (educationheadlines.net)
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