Latinos found jobs and cheap housing in a Pennsylvania city but political power has proven elusive

By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press

HAZLETON, Pa. (AP) — A federal lawsuit argues the way representatives are elected to a local school board in Pennsylvania’s coal region is unfairly shutting Latino voters out of power. Nearly two-thirds of students in the Hazleton Area School District are Hispanic but no Hispanic has ever been elected to its school board. That’s prompting a court challenge claiming non-Hispanic white voters are employing the district’s “at-large” election system to keep things that way. The district’s 78,000 residents are about 55% white, 40% Hispanic and 5% Black, Asian or multi-racial. The school district’s lawyers say Hazleton’s voters are divided more by partisan political affiliation than they are by race and ethnicity.