Interesting little story in the Northwest edition of the D-G today, but you can’t see it unless you subscribe.

I mentioned the other day work toward establishing a Hispanic majority state House district around Springdale. A new appointee to the state Board of Education, Mireya Reith, is active in that effort and, some say, perhaps a future legislative candidate herself. She and others will meet with the Board of Apportionment about the idea next week.

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The DOG has dug up a couple of people who think this is NOT a good idea. One is Latino, Adam Arroyos, who is also a former Walmart executive. Another is Springdale Council member Kathy Jaycox, quoted as saying creating a legislative district for “one group” doesn’t seem like a good idea. Arroyos said a Hispanic district could cause “divisiveness.”

Yes. White Republican businessmen call the shots in Northwest Arkansas and any deviation from that would be divisive, at least so far as the corporate boardrooms are concerned. (Some had thought Walmart and Tyson might support a Hispanic district, presuming that Latino voters would be sympathetic to their conservative agenda. That would take some significant agenda change, I’d think.)

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Full participation in the democratic process and diversity are now officially deemed divsive. This is Republican orthodoxy at work. Free thinking is not allowed. Districts will be shaped to maximize control by the orthodox. Call it Old Testament politicking. Black/white (and I don’t mean that strictly metaphorically.) Good/bad.

I prefer to think si se puede.

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UPDATE: A Republican says some in GOP still support Hispanic district and have a Latino Republican to run. If the vote were strictly by Hispanic voters, I’d have to bet the Democrat would win in such a district. But the Republicans naturally count on the monolithic Republican white vote, combined with a sliver of the Hispanic vote, to carry the day for their cutout.

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