Colorblindness in Voting

The U.S. Supreme Court decision that on Thursday struck down two predominantly black congressional districts and one predominantly Latino district in Texas and North Carolina speaks to a hope: that voters will vote for a candidate without regard to race or ethnicity. What the high court decision does not speak to, however, is the sad reality of continuing discrimination.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing on behalf of a narrow 5-4 majority in the Texas case, said voters should be more “than racial statistics.” Indeed, all voters should be equal, and all political aspirants should have an equal shot at a seat in Congress regardless of race or ethnicity. But that has not always been the case, especially in the South.

In Texas, after the 1990 census dictated that the state be given three additional congressional districts, the Legislature drew lines creating two black-majority districts in Dallas and Houston and a Latino-majority district in Houston. The lines were odd. But, as Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a dissent in the North Carolina case, what of the oddly shaped districts that are predominantly white? Strange political maps are neither a racial phenomenon nor a new phenomenon.

Gerrymandering became part of the political lexicon in 1811 after Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry persuaded the state Legislature to draw district lines that favored his party. The district outline resembled a salamander, and the process was named gerrymandering. In California, after the 1980 census, Rep. Phil Burton became known as a master of gerrymandering because the lines he drew protected his fellow Democrats. Incumbency has long motivated boundaries that plunge, ascend and reach tentacle-like to embrace coveted groups of voters.

So how can the gerrymandering be justified? Consider: Until Mel Watt was elected in 1992 to represent North Carolina’s controversial 12th District, no black person had been elected to Congress from that state since the 19th Century and Reconstruction. No district with a black majority was drawn until after the 1990 census, although the state population was about 22% black. The bizarrely shaped, long and narrow 12th District meandered 160 miles across the state, corralling black voters in cities and other enclaves. Civil rights lawyers argued that it represented the state’s “compelling interest” to encourage black participation.

Here in Los Angeles, about 40% Latino, no Latino had ever been elected to the county Board of Supervisors until a federal voting rights lawsuit forced creation of a largely Latino district that elected Gloria Molina.

Thursday’s court ruling, which has no effect on California’s 52 congressional districts, unfortunately means tougher going for minority political candidates. But it also means that candidates of all backgrounds may have to reach beyond narrow constituencies in order to get elected, and that result is good.

In Texas, for example, a white Democrat represents the Latino-majority district. In California, the local electoral successes of Tom Bradley and Willie Brown were demonstrations of white-voter crossover. Can and will those multiracial coalitions appear more often? They must, or a nation that is becoming more racially mixed will wind up with a less representative Congress.