THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 15, 1994 TAG: 9408150242
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ROANOKE LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Virginia may have elected the nation's first black governor, but a research project indicates Virginia trails the rest of the South when it comes to black representation in local government.
``The virtual absence of blacks from the state's town councils indicates a continuing racial polarization at the grass-roots level,'' authors of a study on the effects of the Voting Rights Act conclude.
Thomas R. Morris, a political scientist and president of Emory & Henry College, and Neil Bradley, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Foundation's southern regional office, co-wrote the Virginia chapter in the book, ``Quiet Revolution in the South.''
The book, the result of a project funded by the National Science Foundation, focuses on the eight southern states covered by the measure President Lyndon Johnson signed into law on Aug. 6, 1965. The law focused on states where blacks had suffered the most from discrimination.
Morris said last week that the act was one of the most significant actions ever by the federal government because it clearly was a major infringement on states' rights. It still requires Virginia and seven other states to get federal permission to change any election law or district boundary.
Virginia's political leaders, Morris said, have always taken offense to the Voting Rights Act because ``the federal government is saying, `We don't trust you to change.' ''
In 1973, Virginia was the first state to seek exemption from the act.
But Morris said the act never would have passed had it not been for such abuses as poll taxes, literacy tests and, in earlier years, exclusive white primary elections.
Morris said Wilder's election in 1989 was a poignant reminder of the progress in overcoming racial barriers. It means race is not always the determining factor in the outcome of elections. But he pointed out that Wilder's winning margin came largely from Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, the fastest growing regions with the largest non-native populations.
``The irony of Virginia is that it is the only state to have popularly elected a governor who is African-American,'' Morris said. ``One can look at that and say Virginia has certainly come a long way. It certainly was a big election. . . . But at the local level, white voters do not in any significant numbers vote for African-American candidates.''
Morris said there has been more progress at the statewide level because the structure of local elections in Virginia dilutes the voting strength of blacks, who make up nearly 20 percent of the state's population.
Most cities, towns and counties have at-large elections. If there are eight seats to be filled, all voters have eight votes and theoretically have a chance to influence who gets elected to all eight seats.
``It allows local representatives to focus on the greater good of the community rather than one specific district,'' Morris said. ``It just happens to have significant racial consequences because it does permit dilution of the black vote.''
In a single-member-district system, the city is divided into geographical districts, and voters are limited to vote for a single candidate running to represent their district.
When Norfolk began electing its council members by district in 1991, nine of Virginia's 41 cities followed suit and abandoned at-large elections. Lawsuits or objections by the Justice Department forced the changes when city annexations diluted the voting power of blacks.
Morris said Virginia lags behind other Deep South states in electing blacks to local offices largely because it lagged behind in the filing of civil rights lawsuits challenging at-large election systems.
But Virginia leads other states in demonstrating that blacks can win statewide offices, Morris said, primarily because white and black Democrats have formed a strong coalition.
``The pattern has sort of reversed itself in Virginia,'' Morris said in a telephone interview from his college office.
When the Voting Rights Act was extended in 1982, supporters pointed out that Virginia, with four blacks in the state House of Delegates and one in the Senate, had the lowest ratio of black legislators in the South. by CNB