January 3, 2003 9:30 a.m.
Guess Who�s Coming to the Statehouse?
The surprising political success of Nevada blacks.
by: John J. Miller, National Review
Seven blacks in the Nevada state legislature may not
sound like a big deal � except that they give the
Silver State the unexpected honor of having elected
the most racially progressive legislature in the
country, compared to its population. Nevada is less
than 7 percent black, but its legislature is 11
percent black (seven of 63 members).
What's especially interesting is that none of these
seven lawmakers comes from a majority black district,
according to a recent article in the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. (See the chart at the bottom of the
page. Also read a related editorial on the subject
here � it's unsigned, but the author is Rick
Henderson.)
The political success of black Nevadans is a
compelling rebuttal to the claims of liberal
civil-rights activists, who say that black candidates
face enormous racial hurdles if they can't run for
office in majority-black voting districts. For years,
groups such as the Congressional Black Caucus and the
NAACP have done everything in their power to bring
racial preferences to the voting booth, in the form of
gerrymandered political districts drawn with the
intent guaranteeing the election of minority
candidates. The Supreme Court has frowned on this
practice, but has not totally overturned it � and the
number of majority-minority districts has steadily
increased over the last couple of decades.
In Nevada, however, black pols have flourished in the
absence of these peculiar arrangements. Nevada's
record even puts to shame liberal states that probably
like to regard themselves as bastions of racial
tolerance. California has 120 members in its state
legislature, but only six of them are black;
Massachusetts has 200 legislators, but only seven of
them are black.
Nevada isn't the only state where black candidates
have done well: They have strong contingents in the
Michigan, New Jersey, and Ohio legislatures, too.
Where they haven't succeeded � and this is true almost
everywhere � is in statewide elections. And the rise
of majority-minority districts is a big part of the
reason why.
That's because candidates who win in these
environments aren't forced to create multiracial
coalitions that include whites. These districts
generate the likes of Maxine Waters, the
grievance-spewing congresswoman from Los Angeles, not
Douglas Wilder, the former governor of Virginia who
was elected to office with substantial white support.
For black politicians, therefore, the path to
statewide success does not wind through gerrymandered
districts. The next black candidate to win a statewide
election is much more likely to hail from Nevada than
from, say, one of the tangled congressional districts
of North Carolina or Texas.
There will always be majority-minority districts, as
long as there's residential segregation. Yet the
civil-rights establishment hurts minority political
aspirations when it embraces race-driven
redistricting; its strategy may produce a few extra
legislators, but few if any of them will ever become
governors or senators.
Republicans, unfortunately, often have been strong
supporters of racial gerrymandering, in the belief
that packing as many blacks as possible into the
fewest number of districts essentially "whitens" the
other ones, and thereby makes them friendlier to the
GOP. This is a clever tack, but it does come with a
high cost. Majority-minority districts are usually
strongholds of extremism, and they make the Democratic
party more liberal than it otherwise would be. Because
Republicans often don't even run candidates in these
districts, it puts many blacks in the position of not
seeing Republicans ask for their votes � until
presidential nominees do. Despite this, Republican
strategists continue to scratch their heads over why
so few blacks voted for George W. Bush two years ago,
and wonder whether they put enough African American on
display at their Philadelphia convention.
The lesson of Nevada is a simple one: Blacks can
succeed without special help � in the voting booth,
and in many other areas as well.
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John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"First... to clarify what we stand for: the United States must defend liberty and
justice because these principles are right and true for all people everywhere. No
nation owns these aspirations, and no nation is exempt from them."
-US National Security Strategy 2002
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