Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 21, 1991 TAG: 9104210084
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
The number ultimately will be determined by redistricting, which is the uncertain art - part statistical, part political - of reshaping the nation's congressional districts, based on the 1990 census.
Last week, some analysts reluctantly offered rough, please-don't-pin-me-down estimates of the impact of the massive growth in the nation's non-white minorities on their representation in the House. They estimated the additional numbers of Hispanic-majority and black-majority congressional districts likely to be produced by redistricting. Then, assuming that with rare exceptions these so-called "minority districts" are and will be represented in the House by minority members, the analysts found:
The number of "Hispanic" seats in the House may nearly double, from 10 now to at least 18, and possibly to 20, after the 1992 elections.
The number of "black" seats is likely to show a net increase of about a third, from 24 now to 32 after 1992. The analysts noted that two or three districts that previously have had black majorities may be at risk because of blacks' migration from cities to the suburbs and their replacement by an influx of Hispanics.
Asian Americans - with Hispanics, the other minority that experienced the largest growth over the last decade - now occupy three seats in the House, but their number is not likely to increase through redistricting, the analysts said. Asian Americans, according to the analysts, are too scattered throughout the nation for the construction of an "Asian" district.
One American Indian, representing the nation's oldest but smallest non-white minorities, sits in the House now. No change is expected.
The analysts included Earl Bender, a redistricting specialist who is a consultant to the Democratic Party; Ben Ginsberg, general counsel of the Republican National Committee; Charles Kamasaki, vice president for research, advocacy and legislation of the National Council of La Raza; David Bositis, a political analyst with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies; and Clifford Collins, a redistricting specialist on the staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
As if to validate the analysts' reluctance to offer very confident estimates, the Census Bureau released data Thursday that cast some doubt on its count.
The agency announced that, in a survey to determine the accuracy of last year's census, it discovered that as many as 6 million people - including 2 million, or 5.6 percent, of the nation's blacks and 1.8 million, or 6.1 percent, of its Hispanics - had not been counted by the census takers.
Two major black and Hispanic organizations, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Congress of La Raza, responded immediately by calling upon the Department of Commerce, as they have in the past, to adjust the census results statistically to compensate for its undercount of minorities.
The survey disclosing the undercount "confirms what we believed all along - that the census process is flawed," said one of the analysts, Clifford Collins, a redistricting specialist with the NAACP.
Another, Lisa Navarrete, spokeswoman for La Raza, said the survey's indication that the census undercounted minorities "doesn't surprise us a bit."
A federal court has ordered Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher to decide by July 15 whether the census should be statistically adjusted to make up for the undercount. Mosbacher in the past has indicated an unwillingness to make the adjustment. The NAACP and La Raza are engaged in lawsuits aimed at forcing the secretary to adjust the census.
The two major political parties took divergent views toward the survey and the issue of whether the census should be adjusted.
Gary Koops, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, described the survey results as "preliminary numbers," and said that the question of adjusting the census was one the committee would deal with "down the road."
Ron H. Brown, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, held a meeting with civil rights and voting rights advocates on Friday, after which he said, "The 1990 census has been a disgrace. It is the most inaccurate in 20 years, particularly in its undercount of blacks and Hispanics."
Brown said that he was "not optimistic" that Mosbacher would order an adjustment of the census results, which the Democratic chairman and most members of his party have advocated.
On the basis of analysts' estimates, non-white racial and ethnic minorities are likely to occupy a total of about 55, or 13 percent, of the seats in the House after 1992. That, however, would represent only about half of the proportion of non-whites in the nation's population. Americans of African, Hispanic and Asian descent now constitute between one-fifth and one-fourth of the U.S. population. Hispanics may designate themselves racially as either black or white.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB