THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 6, 1995 TAG: 9507060007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
In one of its final decisions of the term, the Supreme Court has dealt a blow to the kind of racial gerrymandering that has created majority-black districts in North Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Georgia and Virginia.
Gerrymandering is nothing new, of course. In 1811, Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry reluctantly signed a bill that created a district that looked like a salamander in shape. It blatantly favored his Democratic Party over the Federalists, got called a gerrymander and the name stuck.
Amendments to the Voting Rights Act in 1982 seemed to insist on the creation of majority-black districts whenever possible, in effect racial gerrymandering. After the 1990 census, the Bush Justice Department complied, not without enthusiasm since packing many blacks into single districts tended to create even more solidly Republican districts with a white majority.
The Supreme Court has acted in a Georgia case. White voters in a majority-black district claimed to be victims of discrimination since they were no longer represented by a white politician.
The court ruled in their favor, not because it believed whites deserve white representatives but because drawing districts with a racial purpose violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. The court said the government must treat citizens as individuals, not as ``components of a racial, religious, sexual or national class.''
Two objections to gerrymandering - racial or otherwise - need to be kept in mind. First, it attempts to create an electoral system that favors one party over another. Second, it polarizes the electorate and detaches political districts from community realities.
Those who favor majority-black districts, like the notorious Interstate 12th in North Carolina that follows I-85, appear to believe that all blacks have similar views and have a community of interest. Even if that were true, which it isn't, that would make them an interest group but not a political community.
A community is normally thought to include people who share the same circumstances, depend on the same infrastructure, use the same roads and schools and pay the same taxes. Turning districts into associations of the like-minded or similarly pigmented tends to divorce politics from the grass roots.
If blacks in North Carolina who share nothing but race can be agglomerated in the 12th, why not create districts that contain a majority of senior citizens, gun owners, gays or evangelical Christians regardless of where they live?
The court has acted correctly in insisting on treating people as individuals, but also in keeping electoral districts tied to political geography.
The original intent of the Voting Rights Act was a noble one - to assure that each person has the right to vote, to run for office, to participate fully in the democratic process. But the court has now decided sensibly that some of its remedies have gone too far.
There's no right to membership in a homogenous electoral district or to representation by a person of one's race, sex, ethnic origin or religious persuasion. It's the difference between assuring every individual a chance to sit at the table and play the game and stacking the deck to favor one group of players over another. One is the essence of democracy, the other threatens to undermine it. by CNB