Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 15, 1993 TAG: 9312220268
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Blacks' role was discussed by some activists in terms of the higher cost of traveling to a convention vs. voting in a primary, and the resulting reduced participation by one of the party's most loyal constituencies. But another problem stems from the racial gerrymandering that occurred, under cover of the Voting Rights Act, in congressional redistricting after the 1990 Census.
Delegates to a state nominating convention would have been chosen by congressional district, including the strongly black-majority 3rd District. The 3rd was constructed by splitting inner-city Tidewater from white neighborhoods of the same cities, and connecting them to Richmond's east side.
The creation of such a district, virtually guaranteed to elect a black representative, accords with an extreme view of voting rights much favored these days by politicians of both left and right. The former like it because it creates safe districts for liberal black Democrats, the latter because it makes surrounding, white districts safer for conservative Republicans.
Such neo-segregation is disappointing, however, to those who believe America should be working to dismantle racial barriers and polarized voting, not reinforce them. Nor is it clear that it does much for the political power of aggrieved minorities.
Virginia's new 3rd is a case in point. Its congressman, Democrat Robert Scott, is black - but previously represented a white-majority district in the state Senate and almost surely could have been elected from a congressional district drawn with racial considerations less dominant. By removing black voters from the adjacent 1st, 2nd and 7th, it reduced the need for those districts' incumbents to pay attention to the views of blacks. (In the case of the 1st, it seems also to have removed conservative GOP Congressman Herb Bateman from the endangered-species list.)
Similarly, if state Democrats had opted for a convention, the number of black delegates from the 3rd would still be limited to the allocation for that district, no matter how big the turnout at local mass meetings. Meanwhile, black influence on delegations from adjacent districts would have been far less than before, because their black voters had been moved into the redrawn 3rd.
For purposes of the 1994 Democratic Senate nomination in Virginia, this artificial diminution of black influence - under the guise of guaranteeing black influence! - was solved by going to a primary. But a nationwide, pick-the-top- 435 primary isn't an option at the congressional level.
There, the answer must be a more moderate, less results-oriented reading of the Voting Rights Act, and a more sophisticated public understanding of what constitutes political influence.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB