Carnegie
Corporation
of New York
Spring 2007
Carnegie Corporation continued its support for MALDEF and its projects
through 2003. In the nearly 40 years since its founding, MALDEF, which
is headquartered in Los Angeles, has matured and grown as an organization
and continues its efforts on behalf of Latinos, including litigation,
advocacy and education. “We work through the legal system to advance
the political and economic well-being of the Latino community,”
says Nina Perales, Southwest regional counsel of MALDEF. “We pride
ourselves on being the best lawyers that the Latino community could have.”
Perales was lead counsel in successfully arguing a redistricting/voting rights case in which MALDEF represented the American GI Forum of Texas and individual voters before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case was heard on March 1, 2006, and on June 28, 2006, the Court announced its ruling against the Texas redistricting plan that moved 100,000 Latino voters out of Congressional District 23 in an attempt to control an election of an incumbent. The ruling has “very far-reaching implications for minority political rights,” Perales says.
MALDEF was also recently involved in Padilla v. Lever, a case that involves a section of the Voting Rights Act dealing with language assistance. The question being litigated was whether petitions initiated by private citizens with regard to an issue such as a recall election have to be translated. MALDEF argued before the Ninth Circuit Court that if the only way a recall election can be held is via petition, then the petition is part of the election process. On September 19, 2006, the Ninth Circuit Court decided that the language minority provisions of the Voting Rights Act do not require translation of recall petitions in Orange County.
“MALDEF is disappointed with the Ninth Circuit’s narrow reading of the Voting Rights Act’s language minority provisions,” said Perales. “Because petitions determine what issues will be put to the voters, petitions are a critical component of the electoral process. [This] ruling will chill language minorities’ participation during this important phase of the electoral process.”
Defending the Rights of
Native Americans
Launched in 1970 with a grant from the Ford Foundation, the Native American Rights Fund (NARF; www.narf.org) was founded to provide legal assistance to Indian tribes who faced challenges that threatened their tribal existence and cultural foundations. Many of these challenges stemmed from the U.S. termination policy passed by Congress in 1953 (House Concurrent Resolution 108). Explains John E. Echohawk, co-founder and, since 1977, executive director of NARF, “Basically, they were terminating these treaties without our consent, so they were breaking treaties, terminating tribal governments and selling their land, giving them a check and sending them to the cities. All of this was forced on us against our will. During the civil rights era, we started fighting back against that policy. A key strategy was legal enforcement of the treaties, which are the supreme law of the land.”