DOJ drops lawsuit seeking Hazleton’s adoption of seldom-used election system
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL FILE - Hazleton City Hall is seen on May 21, 2021.
HAZLETON – The U.S. Department of Justice has dropped their lawsuit alleging the City of Hazleton’s method of electing city council members — the same as most municipalities in eastern Pennsylvania — disproportionately harmed Hispanic voters.
The DOJ filed the lawsuit in January, in the waning days of the Biden Administration.
“The Hispanic population is a growing and important population in the City of Hazelton (sp), and those citizens should have the ability to choose candidates that represent their interests,” U.S. Attorney Gerard M. Karam for the Middle District of Pennsylvania said at the time. “This complaint demonstrates my office’s commitment to partner with the Justice Department to enforce civil rights statutes like the Voting Rights Act.”
The lawsuit alleged that Hispanic-preferred candidates “have run for the city council and routinely lose.”
By switching to voting districts, the DOJ alleged that opportunities would be created for Hispanic voters to elect candidates of their choice. They originally sought a court order forcing the city to switch to single-member voting districts.
Election by single-member voting districts is a system seldom used in eastern Pennsylvania, used by only a handful of municipalities in Schuylkill and neighboring counties.
No municipalities in Carbon, Columbia, or Lebanon employ the system. In Schuylkill, only Palo Alto does.
Wilkes-Barre, Avoca, and Wyoming Borough in Luzerne County do, as does Salisbury Township in Lehigh County, as well as Milton and Watsontown in Northumberland County.
Notably, Allentown and Bethlehem both use the at-large system like Hazleton.
“The City’s current system of electing Council members does not act as a systematic barrier to our Hispanic community’s participation in the electoral process or their ability to select Council members of their choice,” Mayor Jeff Cusat said in a statement Tuesday. “The DOJ’s baseless assumption that the non-Hispanic white voters vote as a block to defeat Hispanic candidates could not be supported.”
“The Hazleton community simple cannot be stereotyped by people who have never visited the area,” he continued.
The lawsuit came after the Hazleton Area School District, too, too, was sued to force the adoption of the seldom-used at-large system.
In Luzerne, Schuylkill, Columbia, and Northumberland counties, the regional or hybrid systems are employed almost exclusively by rural districts. In Carbon County, every school district uses the at-large system.
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