Does race matter in elections?

Does race still matter in elections? By law it does, at least in jurisdictions such as Guilford County that are covered under Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Some (1, 2) are suggesting the county should avail itself of the act’s “bail-out” provisions, and one commentator, Joe Guarino of Greensboro, has called it a “bad law.”

A popular conservative blogger, Guarino drew a parallel between North Carolina’s 12th Congressional District, which is drawn to ensure minority representation, and the 13th Congressional District, which is drawn to the advantage of a Democratic candidate by packing liberal constituencies in Greensboro and Burlington into what would otherwise be a conservative-leaning district.

“I would conflate the situations in those two districts under the banner of self-serving Democratic behavior,” Guarino said.

First, some background on why North Carolina jurisdictions such as Guilford County — others are Caswell, Cumberland and Rockingham counties — are under federal supervision and require review from the US Justice Department before redrawn political districting maps can be put in place.

The Voting Rights Act was passed by Congress in 1965 to remedy the disenfranchisement of minority voters, particularly in the South, where blacks had been systematically excluded and discouraged from political participation since the turn of the century. Through Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, a formula was established to determine where “racial discrimination in voting had been more prevalent… and to provide more stringent remedies where appropriate.”

Section 4 established three criteria for determining whether a jurisdiction should be covered under the Voting Rights Act:

The first element in the formula was that the state or political subdivision of the state maintained on November 1, 1964, a "test or device," restricting the opportunity to register and vote. The second element of the formula would be satisfied if the Director of the Census determined that less than 50 percent of persons of voting age were registered to vote on November 1, 1964, or that less than 50 percent of person of voting age voted in the presidential election of November 1964.

So is the Voting Rights Act still needed in Guilford County? After all, an African-American man holds the most powerful political position in the county. Blacks hold three out of 11 positions on the county commission. They hold two out of nine positions on the Greensboro City Council, albeit down from the traditional three slots and the city’s first black mayor was voted out of office after only one term. And three out of eight members of the Guilford County delegation to the NC General Assembly (excluding two state senators whose districts bleed across county lines) are black.

To be eligible for bailout, a jurisdiction must essentially keep its nose clean for 10 years, including having “no pending lawsuits that allege voting discrimination.” I’m not aware of Guilford County missing the mark on any of the items on the laundry list, although questions have certainly been raised in recent weeks about the dilution of the minority vote in effect and intent in Greensboro.

From the Justice Department website:

Before being allowed to "bailout," the jurisdiction must have eliminated those voting procedures and methods of elections that inhibit or dilute equal access to the electoral process. It must also demonstrate that it has made constructive efforts to eliminate intimidation and harassment of persons seeking to register and vote and expand opportunities for voter participating, such as opportunities for registration and voting, and to appoint minority officials throughout the jurisdiction and at all levels of the stages of the electoral process. The jurisdiction must also present evidence of minority electoral participation.

The once adopted and then withdrawn Rakestraw redistricting plan was opposed by citizens on the basis that it would make minority voters worse off.

Southern Coalition for Social Justice voting rights attorney Allison Riggs testified before the Greensboro City Council on Tuesday that

There are significant reasons Plan B — the Rakestraw plan voted upon at the last city council meeting — is retrogressive. Plan B reduces the African-American voting age population in District 1 from nearly 71 percent to 66 percent. Alone, that significant reduction in voting age population may be enough to warrant a finding of retrogression. But when you pair that with the fact that Plan B moves high-performing African-American precincts out of District 1 and moves high-performing white precincts into the district, this is even more persuasive evidence of retrogression. In a jurisdiction where voter turnout is already low, this is significant. The moving of even one high-performing precinct can change the outcome of an election. If you change the political performance of a district such that minority voters have diminished ability to elect the candidate of their choice, you have created a retrogressive redistricting plan and the Department of Justice will object.

Notably, among the requirements of eligibility for bailout by a jurisdiction is that “no change affecting voting has been the subject of an objection by the Attorney General.”

I don’t know whether, in a legal sense, this matters in terms of preclearance of a redistricting plan or bailing out of the Voting Rights altogether, but it’s not hard to observe that the atmosphere in Greensboro, as in many parts of the state, has become racially charged.

The conservative, white majority on council has made decision after decision that has antagonized minority constituents, whose concerns have been championed by the council’s two black members and one of its white members who draws significant support from the minority community. Most significant is the decision on Tuesday to reopen the White Street Landfill, but other decisions include reducing the period when additional early voting sites are available before this year’s general election, redirecting federal funding for energy efficiency from an area of the city that is majority black and economically depressed and moving the speakers-from-the-floor segment back to the end of the meeting at a time that is inconvenient for the public.

Sharon Hightower, an east Greensboro resident, raised the question of whether black citizens have a voice in city government:

Redistricting, early voting, landfill, $5 million grant they took from the east and made it a citywide issue, — these are serious issue, serious issues. Not only are they racist issues, they’re classist issues. Because if you’re lower income, you’re disenfranchised. And that’s the way they treat us. We make money. We spend money. We pay taxes. We buy homes. We got mortgage payments, car payments. We are valuable people, too.

Where might the US Justice Department’s interest in equitable redistricting plans come into play here?

For starters, the decisions of the conservative, white majority on council is likely to inspire a backlash by black voters and their progressive, white allies, energizing them to participate in larger numbers in the next municipal election. The current majority faction on council holds an interest in maintaining power and naturally would like to insulate itself against an electoral backlash. If a redistricting plan submitted to the Justice Department such as the discarded Rakestraw plan were rejected because it appeared designed to thwart the will of the black electorate, how might that appear to federal officials. What does the fact that a four-member majority of council initially supported the plan and passed it without any public explanation say about intent?

Greensboro is not necessarily unique in North Carolina in its experience with racial turmoil and political representation. Witness the division and emotion surrounding the push by the newly elected conservative majority on the Wake County School Board to discard the school system’s nationally recognized policy of achieving socio-economic balance in schools in favor of an assignment policy that keeps students closer to home.

On a statewide level, Politico reports that Republican lawmakers are using race as part of a mapping strategy to enhance their own political prospects by pushing black voters out of districts that Republicans want to win.

The redistricting wars are about to hit North Carolina, and Republicans in the Tar Heel State are considering a controversial but well-worn strategy that has worked elsewhere in the South: Create a new majority-minority district while destroying other districts occupied by white Democrats.

Whether such tactics should be regarded with the same level of concern as the classic voter suppression tactics of the Jim Crow era that gave rise to the Voting Rights Act in 1965, one thing is clear: The atmosphere in North Carolina is racially charged.

NC NAACP President William J. Barber II condemned a remark by US Rep. Patrick McHenry to the effect that creating a third black influence district would help the Republican Party pick up three seats in the next election in a statement yesterday.

When he says “minority-influence district” he means the tea party wants to draw new lines around black areas, and lump us all into a third segregated voting district. Their aim is to remove progressive black voters out of surrounding areas, where we can create a strong voting majority with the growing number of white and brown progressives to get our anti-racism, anti-poverty agenda passed. McHenry and the extreme ultra-conservative tea party Republicans want to defeat our progressive agenda, and take us back to their good old days. John Tedesco wants to keep us in our “neighborhoods.” Ron Margiotta wants to keep “the animals” in our “cages.” McHenry wants to re-segregate our voting districts so the tea party can win nine out of 13 of North Carolina’s congressional seats and pass their regressive agenda.

From there, Barber looks back to the 1898 Wilmington massacre, when the party of white supremacy — then the Democrats — used violence, intimidation and later legal codification to drive a wedge between black voters and progressive allies.

Is the Voting Rights Act still relevant in North Carolina? The answer to that question might have something to do with your political ideology, party affiliation and race.