Voting Rights Progress
Didn't the election of President Obama shatter the premise of racial gerrymandering?
MARCH 10, 2009
The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in a case that will test the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires all or part of 16 states to get Justice Department permission before changing their voting practices. Yesterday's decision in Bartlett v. Strickland, another election-related case, is less consequential but could be a window into the Court's thinking on race and the ballot.
The 5-4 ruling, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, struck down a North Carolina redistricting plan aimed at preserving minority voting power in a state legislative district in which voting-age blacks were only 39% of the population. Racial gerrymandering to create so-called majority-minority districts is permitted under the law but not in districts that are less than half minority, said the Court.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito signed on to the majority opinion, with Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia signing a concurrence. Thus did five Justices vote to limit the reach of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was written at the end of the Jim Crow era, and show some skepticism toward racial apportionment in general.
It's about time. Racial gerrymandering has been justified by proponents on the premise that whites vote in lockstep against black candidates. But if the election of President Obama didn't shatter that premise, nothing will. Among white voters, Mr. Obama outperformed both Al Gore and John Kerry in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Texas. Even in Deep South states where Mr. Obama won fewer white votes than Messrs. Gore and Kerry, such as Alabama and Mississippi, black politicians from overwhelmingly white districts have won office.
Racially polarized voting habits are clearly waning, and making certain seats "safe" for certain races only delays the day that it vanishes.
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