I think the law has gotten away from reality to the extent to which judges
generally refuse to take notice of the fact that, in the South, the
relationship between race and party affiliation substantially results from a
not-dead history of animus. Kevin Phillips' (then a loyal Republican, mind
you -- http://www.americandynasty.net/kp.htm ) analysis in The Emerging
Republican Majority (still a must read for anyone who follows American
politics) on forward (and, of course, prior to this as well -- consider
LBJ's famed statement about delivering the South to the GOP, or, indeed, the
whole relationship between the South and the Democratic party for the 100+
years prior to LBJ), this has been a "known fact."
As such, presupposing a strict and clean separation between racial and
partisan motives is to impose an artifical barrier onto a far messier
reality.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
[mailto:owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Hasen
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 9:45 PM
To: J. Morgan Kousser
Cc: election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: Re: Without Section 5
And would the Republicans in Texas be doing so out of racial animus, or out
of animus against "black and Latino, as well as Anglo Democrats, nationally
as well as in Texas"? If the latter, is Section 5 the proper remedy? In
other words, if in fact it is partisan motive, rather than racial motive,
that animates packing reliably Democratic minority voters into districts, is
an anti-race discrimination statute justified as a means for correction?
I ask these questions genuinely, not rhetorically.
Rick
J. Morgan Kousser wrote:
An interesting statement by Rep. Phil King, head of the TX House
Redistricting Committee in 2003, gives some sense of what the world
might be like without Section 5 of the VRA. In a deposition in
Session v. Perry, the TX re-redistricting case, he said that but for
Section 5, he'd have tried to draw a redistricting plan that would
have given the Republicans every one of Texas's congressional seats.
I doubt that that's possible, but he certainly could have reduced
Democratic seats by cramming more minorities into a smaller number of
districts if he hadn't had to satisfy Beer, Bossier I and II, etc.
This of course would hurt black and Latino, as well as Anglo
Democrats, nationally as well as in Texas.
Since a post-Stevens Court will take any remaining air out of Vieth,
and since Republicans can always apparently legally cover a racial
with a partisan motive under Section 2 and the 14th and 15th
Amendments -- see the evidence and opinions on the racial
discrimination issues in former congressional districts 23 and 24 in
Session v. Perry -- a failure to renew Section 5 will have quite
predictable consequences for African-American and Latino
representation: It will reduce it by encouraging Republicans to pack
minorities into as few districts as possible, which they can legalize
by claiming a partisan motive.
Vieth and the VRA really are connected.
Morgan
Prof. of History and Social Science, Caltech snail mail: 228-77
Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125 phone 626-395-4080 fax 626-405-9841 home
page: <http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~kousser/Kousser.html> (Newly
Revised!)
to order Colorblind Injustice: http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/T-388.html
"Peace if possible, Justice at any rate" -- Wendell Phillips
--
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow Loyola Law School
919 Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA 90015-1211
(213)736-1466
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org