Of redistricting, the Voting Rights Act, and Limited Voting | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article, Delma Blinson, originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    Carter Wrenn, arguably the most brilliant political strategist in recent North Carolina history - the author of Jessie Helm's remarkable U. S. Senate career - had a profound analysis of the impact of the Voting Rights Act on North Carolina politics in his and Gary Pearce's (one of the main authors of Jim Hunt's Dynasty) Talking About Politics blog on July 15. Here's how Carter analyzed the VRA and its impact on redistricting in the Old North State:

    The other day Thomas Edsall of the New York Times reported that a terrible thing has happened. Since the Voting Rights Act passed, the number of Black state legislators has grown from fewer than 5 to 313 - but at the same time, Black political power has diminished. The problem: Most Black legislators are Democrats which makes them members of the minority party now that Republicans control every state legislature in the "former Confederacy."'

    It's what's called, Edsall reported, the 'Re-segregation in Southern Politics.'

    The way Edsall sees it, two varmints are responsible for this sorry state: Southern whites leaving the Democratic Party and Republicans drawing redistricting plans.

    Now there is a whole dollop of subtle forces at work here which make this lament a little like the fellow who got exactly what he asked for - but then cried foul because it wasn't what he expected.

    The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 to remove roadblocks on Black voter registration. And it did. Then it evolved into a kind of affirmative action program to help elect African-Americans to office. And it did that too.

    But, in 2011, after Republicans got control of redistricting, one of those subtle forces (with an acute sense of irony) moved, and when it finished moving Republicans were taking electing African-American politicians a lot more seriously than Democrats ever had.

    Once, years ago, a friend who wanted to run for State Senate came to see me and said, What do you think? And I looked at the demographics in his district and said, I'd pass. Thirty percent of the registered voters in the district are African-Americans - I don't see much chance you or any other Republican will win it.

    That was just harsh reality. When 30% or 40% of a district's voters were African-Americans, demographically, it meant the district was almost always going elect a Democrat. And Democrats understood that. So when they redistricted they always created lots of districts where 30% to 40% of the voters were African-Americans.

    That elected the most Democrats.

    But it didn't necessarily elect the most African-Americans - because a lot of the Democrats representing those districts were white.

    Then, in 2011, when Republicans controlled redistricting - maybe due to temptation or just plain calculation or, maybe, listening to that subtle voice - they reached two straightforward conclusions.

    The first was that the way to comply with the Voting Rights Act (and elect more African-Americans) was to create more districts where African-Americans were a majority of voters.

    And that's what they did.

    Republicans legislators drew more 'majority-minority' districts than Democrats ever had, and the next election more African-American legislators were elected than ever before.

    The second conclusion was that creating more districts where 50% or 51% of the voters were African-Americans meant the other districts would be more likely to elect Republicans.

    And that happened too. It worked just as planned - so far.

    Of course, the Democrats were unhappy so they sued to overturn the Republican redistricting plan - which led to the ironic circumstance of Democrats standing up in court arguing only 40% of the voters in a district should be African-Americans while Republicans were arguing, Well, if 40% is a good idea why isn't 50% better - it means more African-Americans will be elected.

    And, of course, the only answer Democrats had was odd too - faced with a plan to elect more African-Americans but fewer Democrats they said, No way.

    So, in the end, the Voting Rights Act worked just as it was intended. African-American registration grew. Turnout grew. More African-Americans were elected. The Democrats got exactly what they wanted. But then - in what must have seemed like an act of malicious magic to Democrats - the whole thing backfired.

    Click here to go to the original source, where you will find more of Carter's musings.

    While I know Carter knows about this, for our reader's sake I would add one other facet to the story of the impact of the VRA and redistricting. That is the impact of the computer on this phenomenon of which Carter talks. In the last redistricting process the level of sophistication of the technology that allowed the crafting of districts not based on static ratios but on how specific pieces of geography might be expected to vote is arguably the single most significant reason the Republicans were as successful as they were, particularly in the House where more districts split traditional boundaries.

    In the decade following the enactment of the VRA there was a running debate about what a majority-minority district actually needed to look like. Almost every submission to the Department of Justice had to deal with "packing" and "diluting" without ever knowing precisely what percentage of minority voters was necessary to allow minorities to elect candidates of their choice. But all that changed with the ability of technology to not only compute the percent of the population that was minority , but to also correlate that with registered voters, actual voters in select previous elections and even how voters in much smaller geographic segments actually voted (say for president, U. S. Senate, and both houses of the legislature.) What this allowed the number crunchers to know is what the probability of electing a candidate of specific characteristics was with much more precision than was ever possible before.

    For example, had Bill Cook, when he was in the House, not been an honorable man he had a chance, given him by the computer, to put Arthur Williams in a minority Pitt County district. The software was that precise. But Bill took the high road of rejecting it in order to not have Beaufort County split between two House districts. Others were not so magnanimous. It simply illustrates the technological capabilities that never existed even before the 2000 census.

    And for the "For What It's Worth" file we predict that after the 2020 census the redistricting software will be enhanced by both parties to allow for the correlation of data bases that will predict how voters will likely vote based on specific bellwether issues.

    And as a footnote for those following the circus that is the Beaufort County Limited Voting Study Committee I would simply suggest that the discussion above clearly illustrates the foolishness of that committee recommending a voting system without the kind of analysis Carter talks about, much less the impact of technology, particularly in light of Section 4 of the VRA having been extinguished - for the time being at least.

    Gary Brinn stacked the Limited Voting Study Committee with those he felt would recommend it being abolished, because he had run on that platform. Then when they actually got into looking into the numbers Gary, and his handlers, realized he probably not only could not get elected in any system other than limited voting but that indeed he needed for people to be able to vote for someone in addition to Hood Richardson in order for Gary to be assured of re-electability. So what do we get? A recommendation from the main-man against limited voting that we keep limited voting, just allow the limits to be juggled to his advantage.

    What goes around comes around.