Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 7, 1991 TAG: 9104090488
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Even so, the results are not all that bad for black Virginians. Under a Senate redistricting plan approved last week there would be three black-majority districts, albeit one with barely over 50 percent. There could have been four or five districts with strong black majorities. But the Senate plan does not reflect gerrymandering to reduce black political influence.
The latest House plan, meanwhile, raises the number of black-majority districts from nine to 11. There could have been as many as 13, but this plan is a big improvement over the initial version, and has been welcomed by the House black caucus.
We hold no brief for the political aspects of the Democratic gerrymanders. And the racial aspects are certain to be an issue in the redistricting lawsuits that seem inevitable. Still, we ask: Is it really so bad not to create as many black-majority districts as humanly (or computerly) possible?
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union seem to think so, and find themselves allied with Republican lawmakers in support of plans that contain more black-majority districts. But changing times may have rendered obsolete the traditional strategy that the NAACP and ACLU continue to embrace.
That strategy is not only to create black-majority districts wherever possible, but also to ensure that the black majorities in such districts are sizable. Not too many years ago, it took a 65-percent black population to meet a widely accepted definition of a black-majority district. The percentage has gone down, but a 60-percent majority is still thought better in some quarters than a 55-percent majority, and a 55-percent majority better than a 51-percent one.
As a remedy for the historic political isolation of black voters, the traditional strategy makes sense - when and where voting patterns are racially polarized, and when and where blacks are not as likely to vote as whites.
But today in Virginia, blacks are as likely to register and to vote as whites. And there is tantalizing evidence that in a number of districts with significant but not majority black populations, racially polarized voting has diminished substantially. (Consider the breakdown of the vote for Gov. Wilder in 1989, for example, or in the campaigns of state Sen. Robert Scott, a black man who represents a district two-thirds white.)
Neither the federal government nor such private groups as the NAACP and ACLU should cease their vigilance regarding the racial implications of legislative redistricting in Virginia. (Because of a history of racial discrimination in voting, Virginia remains under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires U.S. Justice Department approval of redistricting plans.) Such monitoring, however, and lawsuits if need be, should be targeted more carefully than is allowed by rigid adherence to old formulas.
There are two reasons, one philosophical and one practical, for saying this.
The first, philosophical, reason is that people should be equal in the eyes of the law, and not accorded special treatment on account of race. To counter the centuries when that principle was violated against blacks, such things as special attention to black political interests are necessary. But to the extent a race-conscious remedy has demonstrably served its purpose, it should be scrapped.
The second, practical, reason applies especially to race-conscious redistricting. The more black-majority districts you draw, and the bigger you make the black majorities in those districts, the fewer districts overall can there be in which black voters have a significant voice.
Where blacks and whites are at such odds that political communion is impossible, this arithmetic truth is immaterial. But in the circumstances that increasingly obtain in much of Virginia, too much race-conscious redistricting could weaken rather than strengthen black political influence.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB