[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 27, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H9585-H9589]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REDISTRICTING IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May
12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Georgia [Ms. McKinney] is recognized for
60 minutes.
Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, as this legislative week begins, I would
like to take an opportunity to once again
[[Page H 9586]]
commend the members of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus who are now
preparing to have their annual conference weekend with workshops, and I
am absolutely certain that the issue of redistricting will take center
stage in that conference weekend.
{time} 2230
The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, under the leadership of State
Senator Diane Harvey Johnson, has done a wonderful job, and can never
really be commended enough for its dedication and its ability to
withstand all of the trials and tribulations of the recently adjourned
special session under the leadership of the redistricting task force
that, with David Scott at its helm, the Georgia Legislative Black
Caucus was able to wade through very treacherous waters.
While the Georgia General Assembly failed to provide the citizens of
the State of Georgia with a redistricting plan, certainly the Georgia
Legislative Black Caucus can be credited with preventing a horrendous
plan from passing onto the desk of the Governor.
I would also like to take a moment to say a few words about one of my
leaders in the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, State Representative
Tyrone Brooks. When I was elected to the Georgia House of
Representatives in 1988, I began, after having been sworn in in January
1989, to serve with my father, and the two of us became the only
father-daughter legislative team in the country. Of course, we were
much celebrated, but even though my father had been a member of the
Georgia Legislature for over 20 years, it was to State Representative
Tyrone Brooks that I have turned for leadership. I am proud that he
took me under his wing and made me into half the legislator and civil
rights leader that he is for the residents of the State of Georgia.
Mr. Speaker, on the grounds of the Georgia State Capitol there is a
statue. The name of that statue is expelled because of color. This
statue commemorates the service of 33 black people who were elected,
duly elected, to the Georgia legislature, but who in 1868 were expelled
for no other reason than the color of their skin.
Since 1965, the Voting Rights Act has utilized the tool of
redistricting to enhance equal opportunity in the area of politics, but
in 1993, something happened. That something was the Shaw versus Reno
case, which set a new standard in redistricting principles. That new
standard is a beauty standard, the beauty standard being that districts
have to look a certain way in order to be effective, and if those
districts do not conform to a particular standard of beauty, then there
is something inherently wrong with those districts.
It is through this tool of resdistricting that we have been able to
perfect our democracy. I recall from a publication called ``Sister
Outsider'' a quote. The quote is, ``For the master's tools will never
dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him
at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine
change.''
The question I pose is does my presence in this body, in the United
States House of Representatives, dismantle the master's house? What is
it about the presence of African-Americans, women, Latinos, other
people of color, that causes discomfort to some people in this country?
Could it be the things that I dare say, or is it merely just the way I
look that causes some people to say, ``This is not your place''? Then,
of course, that would compel the highest court in the land, the United
States Supreme Court, to apply a double standard.
I have an article here written by one of the members of that
community of dedicated lawyers who are out there laboring long and
hard, and their only effort is to try and make this country a better
place for all Americans. The title of this article is ``Gerrymander
Hypocrisy: Supreme Court's Double Standard.'' It was written by Jamon
B. Raskin, professor of constitutional law and associate dean at the
Washington College of Law at the American University.
It begins:
Racial double standards are nothing new in American law,
but the Supreme Court's voting rights jurisprudence has
turned farcical. State legislators redrawing Congressional
and State legislative districts in the 1990s now carry both a
license and a warning from the Court. The license, granted
for decades, is to draw far-flung, squiggly lines all over
the map in order to guarantee the legislators' reelection or
the reelection of incumbent white U.S. House Members. The
warning, issued in the Court's 1993 Shaw v. Reno decision, is
not to draw any such bizarre districts with the purpose of
creating African-American or Latino political majorities.
These two Supreme Court positions are on a logical
collision course. From the day it was decided, Shaw looked
deeply suspicious, since it imposed strict scrutiny on only
those oddly shaped districts where African-Americans or
Latinos are in a majority. The Court had never before found
that the Constitution required districts to have certain
shapes, sizes, or looks. District appearance was a
question for the States. Now, in the name of tidy district
lines and fighting what Justice Sandra Day O'Connor called
``political apartheid,'' a term never used by the Court to
describe slavery, Jim Crow, poll taxes, literacy tests, or
white primaries, the court cast doubt on dozens of
racially integrated districts represented by blacks and
Latinos.
In the illustrative case of Vera versus Richards last
August, a panel of three Republican judges threw out as
racial gerrymander two majority-black congressional districts
and one majority-Latino district in Texas, solemnly invoking
Martin Luther King all along the way.
Meanwhile, the same panel categorically rejected challenges
to majority-white districts whose perimeters looked every bit
as peculiar as those of the minority districts. The panel was
not disturbed that House incumbents from Texas were actively
involved in the redistricting process, or that they were so
influential in getting districts drawn for incumbency
protection that all but one of them had been reelected in
1992. Neither were the judges troubled by the fact that
minority districts appear contorted precisely because white
Democratic incumbents, looking for liberal votes, took big
geographic bites out of minority communities.
By blessing the entrenchment of white incumbents and wiping
out black and Latino majority districts, the district court
is only following the perverse logic of Supreme Court
doctrine. The ``equal protection'' clause of the 14th
Amendment, enacted in 1868 to dismantle white supremacy, has
been twisted by the Court to mean that African-Americans and
other minorities may not form a numerical majority in any
district unless they are in communities that are
geographically compact and residentialy isolated.
Without consciously drawn minority districts, most States
would continue to have lily white House delegations. No black
has ever been elected to Congress from the South in a
majority-white district. Even today, with the new districts
(hanging on by a thread), minorities remain underrepresented
in Congress and in every State legislature.
Furthermore, these districts discriminate against no one.
On the other hand, ``incumbency protection'' districts are
deeply offensive to democratic values.
By fencing out unfriendly voters and potential rivals,
incumbents make districts in their own image, and turn
elections into a formality. In our self-perpetuating
incumbentocracy, voters don't really pick public officials on
Election Day because public officials pick voters on
redistricting day.
But in the Court's new racial Rorschach test, incumbent-
friendly ink blot districts are lawful if the race in the
majority is white.
We have, through these districts, the opportunity to elect people who
would otherwise not grace these halls, and there has been a lot of
misinformation about these districts. Laughlin McDonald is the voting
rights litigator for the ACLU. In an effort to try and dispel some of
the misinformation about these districts, he wrote two pieces, one of
them entitled ``Exploding Redistricting Myths'' and the other one
entitled ``Drown in a Sea of Misinformation.'' I will submit both of
these pieces to the Record, because it is important that all of the
misinformation that has been thrown out by various scholarly people be
challenged and rebutted at each step along the way.
Mr. Speaker, in the most recently adjourned special session of the
Georgia Legislature, we had something very unfortunate happen. Of
course, we understood that the 11th Congressional District had been
challenged by primarily the Democratic candidate who ran against me,
who lost because of an ineffective message, and so was able to find
some recourse in the courts. However, something else happened. That
something else was that the Second Congressional District was added
into the mix, so now the lower court, the same lower court in Georgia
that found the 11th Congressional District to be unconstitutional, now
is going to have a hearing on the constitutionality of the Second
Congressional District of Georgia, which is also a majority-minority
district.
[[Page H 9587]]
The Georgia Legislative News of August 21 chronicles what happens.
The headline is ``Parks Attacks Second District,'' and it begins:
In an unexpected legal maneuver, Georgia's Second
Congressional District is under attack by Lee Parks, attorney
for the original plaintiffs in the Johnson v. Miller suit,
which resulted in the 11th District being declared
unconstitutional.
What started out as one majority-black district under attack now
results in two majority-black districts being under attack.
Unfortunately, in the September 26 edition of the Atlanta Constitution,
the headline reads, ``Another Majority-Black District At Risk.'' First
there was one, and now there are two.
It begins:
About Face: State Admits Racial Gerrymandering. The United
States Justice Department has abandoned its defense of
Georgia's Second Congressional District, and State attorneys
on Monday admitted that race dictated the drawing of its
lines, putting the future of another majority-black district
in jeopardy.
Now, I know that we have at the Justice Department very young,
idealistic, dedicated attorneys who have experienced 30 years of
victory in the area of voting rights, and all of a sudden now, after
Shaw versus Reno, we have 30 years of precedent being rapidly eroded.
{time} 2245
I would just hope that the Justice Department is not losing its will,
that it is not punch-drunk after the first round. Now, more than ever,
we need people who are dedicated to the proposition that everybody
deserves a voice in this Government, to be prepared to fight, to make
sure that everyone does have a voice in this Government.
Mr. Speaker, I have been through the story of how in the Georgia
legislative special session a particular special interest became so
pronounced that it was impossible for the legislature to conclude with
a congressional map, and that particular special interest is the kaolin
industry that pervades the economy of the State of Georgia and as well
the legislature of the State of Georgia. There were maps that were
produced, but those maps conveniently excluded the kaolin belt from the
11th Congressional District of Georgia, which I represent.
Mr. Speaker, because it is only fair that those counties be included
in the 11th Congressional District, the Georgia legislative Black
Caucus fought for the opportunity of the residents of those counties to
be able to elect their candidate of choice, and so by fighting, we were
not able to have a map.
The whole issue of the double standard can be seen in these maps that
I have. The 6th district of Illinois contains a super- majority that is
white, of 95 percent, the 6th Congressional District of Illinois has
not been challenged in any court.
Mr. Speaker, we also have the 6th Congressional District of Texas,
which has a supermajority. That supermajority is white. This district
has gone through the same scrutiny as has the 11th Congressional
District of Georgia. This district, with its squiggly lines, apparently
conforms to the beauty standard. It passes the beauty test. It is a
beautiful district, so ruled by the courts. It is constitutional.
Yet the 11th Congressional District of Georgia, which I think is one
of the most beautiful districts ever drawn by any legislature in the
State of Georgia, has also a supermajority of 64 percent that happens
to be black, has undergone the same kind of scrutiny as the 6th
Congressional District of Texas, but Georgia's 11th Congressional
District has been declared unconstitutional by the lower court and even
our own U.S. Supreme Court.
So I stand today before this body as a representative without a
district representing people who deserve to have their voices heard in
the area of public policymaking. Of course, whatever happens will be
determined by the lower court in Georgia, and we will be forced to
abide by and will happily abide by the dictates of the law of the land,
but of course it does not mean that the law is always right, and it
certainly does not mean that the law is color blind.
In 1868 those 33 black members of the Georgia Legislature were
expelled because of the color of their skin, and here I stand facing
the same fate, but I do not stand alone, and that is because there too
have been others, even from this body, who have preceded me. Thank
goodness we have this thing called a Congressional Record, because we
can go back and we can search the Record and find the words of other
Members of Congress, others similarly situated, others who also faced
expulsion for no other reason than the color of their skin.
Mr. Speaker, one such representative, the last, in fact to grace
these halls in the beginning of the 20th century was Representative
George White from North Carolina. I would like to read what
Representative White had to say. This is in 1901:
I want to enter a plea for the colored man, the colored
woman, the colored boy, and the colored girl of this country.
I would not thus digress from the question at issue and
detain the House in a discussion of the interests of this
particular people at this time but for the constant and the
persistent efforts of certain gentlemen upon this floor to
mold and rivet public sentiment against us.
At no time perhaps during the 56th Congress were these
charges and countercharges containing as they do slanderous
statements more persistently magnified and pressed upon the
attention of the Nation than during the consideration of the
recent reapportionment bill. As stated some days ago on this
floor by me, I then sought diligently to obtain an
opportunity to answer some of the statements made by
gentlemen from different States, but the privilege was denied
me, and I therefore must embrace this opportunity to say out
of season, perhaps, that which I was not permitted to say in
season.
Now, Mr. Chairman, before concluding my remarks, I want to
submit a brief recipe for the solution of the so-called
American Negro problem. He asks no special favors, but simply
demands that he be given the same chance for existence, for
earning a livelihood, for raising himself in the scales of
manhood and womanhood, that are accorded to kindred
nationalities. Treat him as a man. Go into his home and learn
of his social conditions, learn of his cares, his troubles,
and his hopes for the future. Gain his confidence, open the
doors of industry to him.
This, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps the Negro's temporary
farewell to the American Congress. But let me say phoenix-
like, he will rise up someday and come again. These parting
words are in behalf of an outraged, heartbroken, bruised and
bleeding, but God-fearing people; faithful, industrious,
loyal people, rising people, full of potential force.
Sir, I am pleading for the life of a human being. The only
apology that I have to make for the earnestness with which I
have spoken is that I am pleading for the life, the liberty,
the future happiness, and manhood suffrage for one-eighth of
the entire population of the United States.
George White did not leave Congress quietly. He fixed the record. For
as long as there will be a United States of America, there will be
people who can pull this Congressional Record and find his words there.
I guess you could say I am doing the same thing. For if it is the
will of this country that African-Americans can no longer serve in the
U.S. Congress, I guarantee you that I will fix this record. I, too,
will speak on behalf of an outraged people who only want the
opportunity to participate as full citizens in their Government.
The State of Georgia did not want us, three of us; the State of
Georgia did not defend the congressional map that produced its most
diverse congressional delegation in history, and so the State of
Georgia is now prepared to say goodbye to that diversity.
I found a book entitled ``The Passion of Claude McKay.'' Claude McKay
did a poem that I would like to read. The title of the poem is, ``If We
Must Die.''
If we must die, let it not be like hogs, hunted and pinned
in an inglorious spot. While round us bark the mad and hungry
dogs, making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die,
oh, let us nobly die so that our precarious blood may not be
shed in vain, then even the monsters we defy shall be
constrained to honor us, though dead. Oh, kinsmen, we must
meet the common foe. Though far outnumbered, let us show us
brave and for their thousand blows deal one death blow, what
though before us lies the open grave. Like men will face the
murderous, cowardly pack, pressed to the wall, dying, but
fighting back.
Mr. Speaker, I intend to carry this fight for the preservation of
democracy in America, for as long and as far as we can take it. I would
like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues who have all been
so kind, courteous, concerned, and committed.
I would like to thank the people from around the country who have
taken the time to write letters to us, to place telephone calls to our
office, to share their concern about the evil turn that this country
has taken, and what it means for average, ordinary Americans, that
their representation could
[[Page H 9588]]
be yanked away from them. If it starts with the 11th Congressional
District of Georgia, and then moves over to the Second Congressional
District of Georgia, and then sweeps across the South and moves up to
the North in Illinois and New York, where will it end?
{time} 2300
In fact, we have a very renowned writer in Georgia, Bill Ship, who
poses the question, ``Are the bad old days back?'' Of course we
certainly hope not.
I do not want there to be a statue on the Grounds of the U.S. Capitol
commemorating the service of the 40 plus African-Americans, the Latino-
Americans, the Asian-Americans who may too very well be expelled if
this awful page in our history is allowed to be written. I certainly do
not want another statue on the grounds of the Georgia State Capitol
commemorating my service in that body and my service in this body and
my expulsion, either.
So I guess I would have to say that it all depends now on the will of
the American people. Do we want to assure that our democracy is one
that includes everybody, even people like me who do not come from
wealth, who are not able to finance the tremendous amounts that it
takes to run campaigns and to try and beat back the block voting that
occurs in our State, along with the fact that we still have the second
primary which requires a candidate to win three times when they should
not really have to win but once.
I hope the bad old days are not coming back. I know that they will
not come back if the American people will say enough is enough and that
what we meant was certainly not this.
Mr. Speaker, I include the two articles referred to in my special
order for the Record, as follows:
Drowing in a Sea of Misinformation
(By Laughlin McDonald)
The debate over majority-minority voting districts is
threatened with death by drowning in a sea of misinformation
and speculative assumptions. The hard facts are that the
increase in the number of minority elected officials,
particularly in the South, is the product of the increase in
the number of majority-minority districts and not minorities
being elected from majority white districts. And because of
the prevalence of white bloc voting, minority populations
well above 50% are generally necessary for minorities to have
a realistic opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.
Of the 17 African-Americans elected to Congress in 1992 and
1994 from the states of the old Confederacy, all were elected
from majority-minority districts. The only black in the 20th
century to win a seat in Congress from a majority white
district in one of the nine southern states targeted by the
special preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act was
Andrew Young of Georgia. He was elected in the bi-racial
afterglow of the civil rights movement in 1972 from the Fifth
District where blacks were 44% of the voting age population.
Still, voting was racially polarized and he got just 25% of
the white vote.
Those who have claimed that racial bloc voting was a relic
of the past in the new South always brought up the example of
Andrew Young. His election was proof that a moderate black
candidate who knew how to organize a campaign could pile up
white votes and win anywhere, they said. Young proved them
wrong. In 1981, after serving in Congress for three terms,
being ambassador to the United Nations, and raising more
money than in previous campaigns, Young got only 9% of the
white vote in his election as mayor of majority black
Atlanta. In 1990, Young ran for governor of Georgia. In both
the primary and runoff he got about a quarter of the white
vote, but running statewide where blacks are 27% of the
population, he was defeated. Even for a candidate with
extraordinary qualifications, such as Young, racial bloc
voting is a political fact of life.
A pattern of office holding similar to that in Congress
exists for southern state legislatures. Approximately 90% of
all southern black legislators in the 1980s were elected from
majority black districts. No blacks were elected from
majority white districts in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana,
Mississippi, and South Carolina.
By 1994, there were 262 black state legislators in the
southern states, 234 (89%) of whom were elected from majority
black districts. Of the 1,495 majority white legislative
districts, only 28 (2%) were represented by blacks, a
percentage basically unchanged since the 1970s. For blacks to
have a realistic change of winning, they have had to run in
majority black districts.
There has also been a substantial increase in the number of
minorities elected to city and county offices throughout the
South. As with Congress and state legislature, the increase
can be traced directly to the creation of majority-minority
voting districts.
It is possible, of course, to conflate the exceptions such
as Andrew Young with the general rule, but to do so requires
one to rely upon anecdotal evidence and ignore the facts. One
scholar has concluded based upon a recent study funded by
the National Science Foundation, by far the most
comprehensive study to date of the impact of the Voting
Rights Act, that ``[t]he arguments that Blacks need not
run in `safe' minority districts to be elected, that White
voters increasingly support Black politicians, that
racial-bloc voting is now unusual--all turn out to be
among the great myths currently distorting public
discussion.'' \1\
\1\ Richard Pildes, ``The Politics of Race,'' 108 Harv.L.Rev.
1359, 1367 (1995).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Numerous decisions of federal courts support these
conclusions. To cite just a few, in Burke County, Georgia the
court found ``overwhelming evidence of bloc voting along
racial lines.'' In Chattanooga, Tennessee black and white
voters ``vote differently most of the time.'' In Arkansas
voting patterns were described as being ``highly racially
polarized.'' In Springfield, Illinois there was ``extreme
racially polarized voting.'' In northern Florida voting was
not only polarized but was ``driven by racial bias.''
If whites voted freely for minorities there would be no
need to include race in the redistricting calculus, and in
places where significant racial bloc voting does not exist
the courts have not required the creation of majority-
minority districts. But because whites generally vote on
racial lines, majority-minority districts are necessary to
provide minorities the equal opportunity to elect
representatives of their choice.
Some have argued that partisanship, not race, is the
determinative factor in elections. Blacks, however, have
generally been unable to win in majority white districts no
matter whether they were controlled by Democrats or
Republicans. The argument also ignores the fact that
partisanship is inextricably bound up with race. Much of the
political dealignment and realignment that has taken place in
this country over the last 30 years has itself been driven by
race. Conservative whites have fled the Democratic party for
various reasons, but important among them have been the
increased participation of blacks in party affairs and the
belief that the party was too preoccupied with civil rights.
Majority-minority districts are not a form of segregation,
as some have charged. The majority-minority congressional
districts in the South are actually the most racially
integrated districts in the country and contain substantial
numbers of white voters, an average of 45%. Moreover, blacks
in the South continue to be represented more often by white
than by black members of Congress, 58% versus 42%. No one who
has lived through it could ever confuse existing
redistricting plans, with their highly integrated districts,
with racial segregation under which blacks were not allowed
to vote or run for office.
While the converse is exceptional, whites are frequently
elected from majority-minority districts. During the 1970s
whites won in 48% of the majority black legislative districts
in the South, and in the 1980s in 27%. In Georgia in 1994
whites won in 26% of the majority black legislative
districts. Given these levels of white success, racially
integrated majority-minority districts cannot be dismissed
simply as ``quotas'' or ``set-asides'' for minorities.
There is also no evidence that the majority-minority
districts cause harm or increase racial tension. In Miller v.
Johnson (1994) the Supreme Court invalidated Georgia's
majority black Eleventh District on the grounds that race was
the predominant factor in the redistricting process and the
state impermissibly subordinated its traditional
redistricting principles to race. The trial court, however,
expressly found that the plaintiffs ``suffered no individual
harm; the 1992 congressional redistricting plans had no
adverse consequences for these white voters.'' The Supreme
Court did not disturb these findings.
Farm from causing harm, the evidence suggests that
integrated majority-minority districts have promoted the
formation of biracial conditions and actually dampened racial
bloc voting. In Mississippi, after the creation of the
majority black Second Congressional District, Mike Espy, an
African-American, was elected in 1986 with about 11% of the
white vote and 52% of the vote overall. In 1988 he won re-
election with 40% of the white vote and 66% of the vote
overall.
In Georgia, the Second and Eleventh Congressional Districts
became majority black for the first time in 1992. From 1984
to 1990, only 1% of white voters in the precincts within the
Second, and 4% of the white voters in the precincts within
the Eleventh, voted for minority candidates in statewide
elections. A dramatic and encouraging increase in white
crossover voting occurred in 1992. Twenty-nine percent of
white voters in the Second and 37% of white voters in the
Eleventh voted for minority candidates in statewide elections
that year. Whether these trends are temporary or not, they
undercut the argument that majority-minority districts have
exacerbated racial bloc voting.
In Miller the Court stopped far short of saying that a
jurisdiction couldn't take race into account in redistricting
or that it couldn't draw majority-minority districts. Indeed,
Justice O'Connor, who was the crucial vote for the five
member majority, wrote in a concurring opinion that where a
state redistricts in accordance with its ``customary
districting principles'' it ``may well''
[[Page H 9589]]
consider race, and that judicial review was limited to ``extreme
instances of gerrymandering.'' Such a view is consistent with
the Voting Rights Act and the interpretation it has always
been given that a jurisdiction must take race into account to
avoid diluting minority voting strength.
As a practical matter it is probably impossible to avoid
considering race in redistricting. Members of the Court have
frequently observed that one of the purposes of redistricting
is to reconcile the competing claims of political, religious,
ethnic, racial, and other groups. Legislators necessarily
make judgments about how racial and ethnic groups will vote.
According to Justice Brennal, ``[I]t would be naive to
suppose that racial considerations do not enter into
apportionment decisions.''
Redistricting by its nature is fundamentally different
from other forms of governmental action where, for
instance, scarce employment or contractual opportunities
are allocated on a race conscious basis. A contractor
denied the opportunity to bid on 10% of a city's
construction contracts, or a white applicant denied the
chance to compete for all the openings in a medical school
class, have independent claims of entitlement and injury.
But a resident who has not been harmed by a redistricting
plan has no legitimate grounds for complaint simply
because race was one of the factors the legislature took
into account.
Voting districts have traditionally been drawn to
accommodate the interests of various racial or ethnic
groups--Irish Catholics in San Francisco, Italian-Americans
in South Philadelphia, Polish-Americans in Chicago. No court
has ever held these districts to be constitutionally suspect
or invalid. To apply a different standard in redistricting to
African-Americans based upon speculative assumptions about
segregation and harm would deny them the recognition given to
others. To do so in the name of colorblindness of the
Fourteenth Amendment, whose very purpose was to guarantee
equal treatment for blacks, would be ironic indeed.
Integrated majority-minority districts are good for
minorities because they provide them equal electoral
opportunities. But they are also good for our democracy. They
help break down racial isolation and polarization. They help
ensure that government is less prone to bias, and is more
inclusive, reliable, and legitimate. These are goals that all
Americans should support.
____
Exploding Redistricting Myths
(By Laughlin McDonald)
After the Supreme Court held Georgia's majority black
Eleventh Congressional District unconstitutional as an
instance of extreme gerrymandering, the governor called the
legislature into special session to repair the damage. But it
couldn't agree on a new map and has dumped the matter back
into the lap of the federal court. As the court prepares to
act, let us reconsider, and reject, two of the myths
surrounding majority black districts--that they are
unnecessary and that they are part of a Republican/African-
American cabal that has mortally wounded the Democratic
party.
Because of white bloc voting, minority populations well
above 50% are generally necessary for minorities to have a
realistic chance to electing candidates of their choice. Of
the 17 African-Americans elected to Congress in 1992 and 1994
from the states of the old Confederacy, all were elected from
majority-minority districts. The only black in this century
to win a seat in Congress from a majority white district in
one of the nine southern states targeted by the special
preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act was Andrew
Young. He was elected in the biracial afterglow of the civil
rights movement in 1972 from the Fifth District where blacks
were 44% of the voting age population.
It is possible to conflate the exceptions such as Young
with the rule, but to do so one has to ignore the facts. The
notion that racial bloc voting is rare and that minorities
have an equal chance in majority white districts in the South
is simply a myth that continues to cloud public debate over
redistricting.
The claim that majority-minority congressional districts
are the cause of the decline in fortunes of the Democratic
party is also largely a bum rap. White Democrats have been
elected to Congress from Georgia under the existing plan.
Three were elected in 1992, along with three black
Democrats. A white Democrat was also elected in 1994,
Nathan Deal, but he defected to the Republican party
earlier this year.
Democrats suffered a major reversal in 1992 when a
Republican defeated Democratic incumbent Wyche Fowler for the
U.S. Senate. Two years later, the state's long time attorney
general, a Democrat, left the party and was reelected as a
Republican. Neither the statewide election of Republicans nor
the defection of Democrats can be laid at the feet of
majority black congressional districts.
Democrats have lost ground in Georgia--statewide, in the
U.S. Senate, and in the House--for a lot of reasons,
including their failure to deliver on health care and
campaign finance reform, not to mention the house banking
scandal which helped defeat white Democrat Buddy Darden in
1994. But mainly Democrats have been hurt because
conservative whites have left the party in growing numbers--a
backlash that set in after passage of the major civil rights
acts of the 1960s.
Some observers question whether redrawing congressional
district lines in Georgia would do much to reverse Republican
gains. It is possible, however, to draw constitutionally
acceptable plans that protect the black incumbent and create
up to three additional Democratic ``opportunity districts.''
But many white Democrats refused to join with blacks in
supporting such plans during the abortive special session,
either because they wanted the black incumbents out, they
thought the party would damage itself further by seeming to
give in to black demands, or they were on the verge of
quitting the party themselves. Clearly, some of the party's
redistricting wounds are self-inflicted.
Deconstructing the majority black districts, whatever its
partisan impact, would surely bleach the Congress. That might
suit some people just fine, but no system that treats blacks
as second class voters and denies them the opportunity that
others have to elect candidates of their choice, should
pretend to be a real democracy.
Majority-minority districts are not only good for
minorities, they are good for the country as a whole. Because
they are highly integrated (45% white on average) they help
break down racial isolation and encourage biracial coalition
building. That has happened in Georgia where white crossover
voting increased substantially in the precincts within the
Eleventh District after it was created in 1992. Majority-
minority districts also help insure that government is more
inclusive, reliable, and legitimate. These are goals that all
Americans should support.
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