Last week I focused heavily on partisan gerrymandering and the adverse impacts that it has on society and representation. This week, however, I’d like to focus on the concept of racial gerrymandering, and raise the question as to whether or not, in modern America, we need to be worried about the damage that racial gerrymandering can have in regards to representation.
I’d like to just begin by explaining the concept of racial gerrymandering very briefly. Racial gerrymandering refers to the political practice of diluting the voting power of racial minorities as a method of suppressing voters. Moreover, it is exactly like partisan gerrymandering, but rather than try to suppress political parties, this form tries to suppress certain races.
One example of racial gerrymandering [in the history of the US] can be seen through Alabama’s capital [and the 2nd, 3rd, and 7th districts].
The 7th district is heavily democratic. The problem with this district is that it has many narrow strips [as visible above] that encompass cities and towns with black majority populations–including the city of Birmingham, which is incredibly far away when compared to other areas within the district. From an image alone it might be hard to understand the severity of racial gerrymandering in this instance, so let’s look at an example. In 2017, Democrat Doug Jones was running for Senate. He managed to win the statewide popular vote by 1.5 percentage points. However, he did not end up winning, because the only district he carried was the 7th [a district that is 63% African American]. From the discrepancy between popular and electoral vote, it can be deduced that without these “contortions” of district lines, Jones would’ve won. Had he won he would have been the second democratic [and African American] member of Alabama’s House delegation [which is made up of 7 members. Given the fact that Alabama has a 25% African American population and a 34% Democratic vote [as of 2016] this level of representation wouldn’t have been anything crazy–but due to racial [and partisan] gerrymandering this outcome could not come to fruition.
Another example of racial gerrymandering is apparent through Baton Rouge and the districts of Louisiana.
In this scenario both District 2 and District 6 have fairly odd shapes. In fact it looks like the 2nd has been inserted into 6th. Notably the 2nd District was drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act. District 6 has an African American [voting age] population of 21.5%. This percentage is so low because, in 2011, Republicans redrew district lines to move a massive amount of African Americans, living on the north side of Baton Rouge, into the highly Democratic 2nd district. As a result, the 2nd district became an extremely packed district that reaches all the way from Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Subsequently the district takes a very weird shape and packs minorities into one district, limiting voter representation.
As terrible as this all is, it’s important to note that in the past few years gerrymandering cases have moved to the forefront, as a number of social justice organizations have taken on state cases of racial [and partisan] gerrymandering.
One of these cases is Abbott v. Perez [Texas]. This case states that in 2011, the Republican State Legislature of Texas ‘redrew’ the voting districts. While redrawing them they affected the size and shape of a lot of the districts–particularly District 27 and District 35. Democrats claimed that these districts were redrawn specifically to “pack in” Latinx voters, subsequently diluting their electoral power within Texas. 6 years later in March of 2017, federal judges ruled that Republican legislators did in fact engage in racial gerrymandering when creating these districts. This ruling was later validated in August of the same year, as judges claimed that District 27’s boundaries “intentionally deprived [Latino voters] of their opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.” They also found District 35 to be an “impermissible [case of] racial gerrymandering.” They also urged Texas to redraw the districts in time for the 2018 election season. However, they later evoked this urging, ruling 5-4 that Texas did not have to change their congressional maps in time for the 2018 elections, despite being guilty of racial gerrymandering. As a result of this decision the GOP was ensured a majority in Texas, while subsequently reducing the political representation of the Latinx community. Moreover, while these cases have made it to the Supreme Court they do not always end up placating the problems that ensue as a result for racial gerrymandering.
Another notable Supreme Court case related to racial gerrymandering is Shaw v. Reno. Shaw v. Reno was a court case brought about in 1993 that raised the question: did the North Carolina residents who claimed that the 1990 redistricting plan discriminated on the basis of race raise a valid constitutional concern under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause? In this case the North Carolina state legislator had originally created only one black majority district. When their plan was rejected, they created a second one–this time with two districts [one of which was incredibly small]. The case ended with a final vote of 5-4 in favor of Shawn. It ruled that classifying citizens on the basis of race was in direct conflict with the American political value of equality. Moreover, Shaw v. Reno was a landmark case for the issue of racial gerrymandering, as it set a precedent in regards to the 14th amendment hat would be used throughout the decades following the ruling.
Furthermore, this blog post only highlights some of the many ways through which that racial gerrymandering robs minorities of their voter representation. Luckily there have been quite a few landmark Supreme Court cases that have challenged the constitutionality of this form of gerrymandering. The Supreme Court has managed to help placate racial gerrymandering on numerous occasions, but that doesn’t mean that the problem is entirely resolved–in fact there is a great deal of racial gerrymandering that still needs to be challenged. Moreover, it is important that the Supreme Court be utilized in cases of racial gerrymandering, as it is very much unconstitutional as well as damaging to the political representation of the American people.
SOURCES:
Court Cases and Gerrymandering — Vox
Gerrymandering Districts — Fulcrum
This is a really interesting blog post and I am glad that you brought up this issue. My mini team in the deliberation was in charge of discussing gerrymandering, so I did learn a lot about this issue and we briefly discussed issues related to racial gerrymandering such as redlining but did not go into enough detail. It is a big problem historically that many states have created ridiculously shaped districts to encompass cities and areas with a lot of minority citizens in order to “pack in” their vote and suppress the weight of their vote in an election. This practice goes against our democracy as it makes citizens feel as if their vote does not count and doesn’t accurately represent all people. It is good that there has been some headway in legislation to attack this issue, and I hope that there continues to be in the future so that we can get closer to eliminating the practice of gerrymandering, especially in regards to race and ethnicity.
Hi! This was another great and informative civic issue post. Racial gerrymandering is something I learned about in my high school history classes and I think it is definitely a huge issue that needs to be addressed. When parties use this tactic, it devalues the votes of citizens and skews the representation. It does not allow for the vote to truly represent what the people want. I think this post was very well written and really highlighted all of the issues surrounding racial gerrymandering. Once again, the visuals were also really helpful and added to the post. Great work and I’m looking forward to the next one!