Legal Research on Chandler Davidson

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muld bo likcly in a race-free society. Suppose that the shoe wore on the other

fmt, i.e. that in those sane states, the proportion of uhite officials uere re-

duced to the point whele it comprised onLy one-fifth the nunber one houl.d expect

on the basis of the uhite percentage of the population. In other words, suppose

that the white proportion of elected officials dropped from 94.4t--the current

pcrcentage--to about lst, uhich is one-fifth of thc white percentage of the pop-

ulation in those states, Does anyone believe that whites in that instance f,ould

not see this as evidence of mssive and intolerable exclusion?

The situation of l"lexican Anericans in the Southwest is conparable to that

of Blacks in the South. l'lexicm Anericans have historically been the victims

of violence, state-ssnctioned segregation in schools and housing, "Jim Crow,r

practices, and job discrinination. Yet still today they are widely excludcd from

all neaningful participation in local politics. An analysis of all persons Nho

served as nenbers of city councils. in Texas frcm 1968 to !.978 revcalcd that less

than 6t were Mexican Anericans, in a state xith a 1980 Spanish-origin population

of 21.01. Even in South Texas, rhere Mexican Anericans conprise a majority of

the population, less than one-third (3f.7t) of city council nenbers during this

period were I'lexican Anericans. In reporting these figures, thc Texas Advisory

Comittee to the U.S, Comission on Civil Rights rcnarked, I'It is signifi.cant...

that even today 179 (83.61) of the 214 lartcr citics in Tcxas havc at-lsrge

clectlons for city coucil."5

The pointed reference to at-large elections both by the .roint Center for

political studies and the Texas Advisory comittee reflects a stronS consensus

onong students of electoral politics that; major barrier to ninority political

representation is the existence of electoral mles which, in combination with

bloc voting arcng rvhites, hake it virtually inPossible for ninoritics to elect

candidates of their choice, even when ninority tumout is relatively'high, uhen

there are no fornal barriers to registration and voting, and when there is no

fomal inpedinent to ninority candidates standing for office.6

These electoral practices include at-large elections, run-off requirements,

anti-single shot rules or their equivalent, the numbered place voting system,

and racial gerrynandering, anong others. In many jurisdictions that I have had

the opportunity to observe, several of these structures are used in concert, pro-

viding the franework within which a highly unified white vote overwhelms sn



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equally unified but smaller ninority vote to insure defeat of the latter.s pre-

ferred candidates. Elective office, a major avenue to political influence, is

thus nade rroff linits" to the minority comunity. lyhcn no altemative avenue

to influence exists--md this is often the case--ninority vote <tilution is said

to exist.

In such cases, the ni.nority co:nmunity is not Iunderrcprescnted,'in the Ueak

s.nse that it is sinply unable to elect its preferred candidatcs in rough pro-

portions to its percentage of the population. Rather, the ninority comunity is

frozen out of the polj.tical process altogether. UnIike Repuhlicans or Democrats,

who sometimes find thenselves underrepresented in this weak sense, Blacks in the

South and Mexican Americans in the SouthNest are inpoycrished, historically sub-

qrdinated peoplGwho occupy the position of an excruded group. rn local settlngs
they are isolated in segregated neighborhoods, refused entry into the clubs and

frlendship networks within Hhich informl influence can be Cxerted, and, given

their lack of schooling and their relative shortage of funds, are at a great

disadvantage in establishing effective organizations and voluntary groups of

the kind that nenbers of the white najority often utilize when they find then-

selves disadvantaged in electoral politics.

In ny rosearch on nunicipalities, I have listened to titeralLy hundreds of

ninority leaders and activists conplain of an almost total involuntary isolation

fron the politicaL life of their coroity. It is this uderrepresentation in
a strong sense that I refer to as vote dilution. It is an inability of Dinority

groups in nany comunities to gain even the nerest foothold in the political

systen, a

The minuscule proportion of elected minority officials today--seventeen

years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed--is indicative of widespread

vote dilution. Oiven the fact that a significant prcportion of all elected Black

and I'lexican Anerican officials have uon office in the relatively few cities and

counties with oven{helningly ninority populations--the so-called ',black belt',

regions and the I'brorm fringe" in south rcxas--the statistics on elected officials

understate the extent to which, in mny, nany cities, couties, and school districts

with sizable ninority populations there are no ninority officials at all. A

systenatic survey of such jurisdictions, I am convinced, uould reveal that great

nunbers of them exenplify the kind of extrene political isolation that I refer

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to as ninority vote dilution. It is this situation, and not the negligible prob-

tem of slight underrepresentatj.on on govemnental bodies of the sort that Deno-

crats and Republicans sometimes become enbrciled over during redistricting battles,

that Congress rust rddress itself to. In blunter tems, it is not ,'underrepresenta-

tionrt, but virtua!Iy no i.on, that the proposcd ancndmcnt to Section 2

is intended to rectify.

The Theory of the Swing Vote

It is sonetines alleged that while at-large elections and concomitant

dilutionary devices may prevent minorities fron electing pcople of their choice

to office, a trswing votorr wielded by the ninority comunity will giye it an

appreciable influence over candidatss who are elected to office, even if these

candidates are not anong thoso preferred by the minority comunity. This theory

rests on tuo mjor assunptions: a) that the minority vote is t)?ically decisive

to the electoral outcore, or, in other words, that the votes cast by the ninority

comunity are necessary to the wimersr victory; b) that when the first assunp-

tion is corroct, the winning cendidates will then be receptlve to the wishes of

their ninority constitutents, or they my lose the next election.

The first assumption, however, is by no reans always true. In ilouston,

where I live, Blacks in recent years have constituted about one quarter of the

population, and in city elections they have had a tumout rate that is about the

sane as that of whites. An an&lysis of voting pattems over a 2o-vear span

(from 1955 to 1975J rcvcaled that thc margin of victory among winninS council

candidates wder the at-large system was typically so great that the black vote,

cven when unified behind a candidate, was unable to affect'the outcome of all

but five council races out of 77. In other words, the black voters could have

stayed at hone in 72 races, and if the whitesr voting pattem had remained un-

changed, the same candidates would still have been elected. A sinilar analysis

of voting pattems betueen I9SS and l98l in Abilene, Texas--a city with a com-

bined Black and Mexican Anerican population of about l8t during this period--
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indicated that the minority bloc could'have nade the difference in election out-

cores in only l5 of 68 contests. Since 1970, the ninority bloc coutd have

affected the outcone in only 5 out of 28 cases.

More to the poi.nt, even when the first assumption untlcrlying thetlsrring vote,'

thcory is correct, it docs not neccssarily follo\ that winning candidates will