Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-lvtdw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-15T00:12:39.082Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do Majority-Minority Districts Maximize Substantive Black Representation in Congress?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Charles Cameron ,
David Epstein  and
Sharyn O'Halloran
Charles Cameron
Affiliation:
Columbia University
David Epstein
Affiliation:
Columbia University
Sharyn O'Halloran
Affiliation:
Columbia University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Majority-minority voting districts have been advanced as a remedy to the underrepresentation of minority interests in the political process. Yet, their efficacy in furthering the substantive goals of minority constituents has been questioned because they may dilute minority influence in surrounding areas and lead to an overall decrease in support for minority-sponsored legislation. Thus, there may be a trade-off between increasing the number of minority officeholders and enacting legislation that furthers the interests of the minority community. Using nonlinear estimation techniques, we simulate the districting strategies that maximize substantive minority representation, and find that such a trade-off does exist. We also find that, outside of the South, dividing minority voters equally across districts maximizes substantive representation; inside the South the optimal scheme creates concentrated districts on the order of 47% black voting age population. In addition, minority candidates may have a substantial chance of being elected from districts with less than 50% minority voters.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 90 , Issue 4 , December 1996 , pp. 794 - 812
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aranson, Peter, Hinch, Melvin, and Ordeshook, Peter. 1974. “Election Goals and Strategies: Equivalent and Non-equivalent Candidate Objectives.” American Political Science Review 68 (03):135–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barone, Michael, and Ujifusa, Grant. 1993. Almanac of American Politics, 1994. Washington DC: National Journal.Google Scholar
Black, Merle. 1978. “Racial Composition of Congressional Districts and Support for Federal Voting Rights in the American South.” Social Science Quarterly 59 (12):435–50.Google Scholar
Bott, Alexander J. 1990. Handbook of United States Election Laws and Practices. New York: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Brace, Kimball, Grofman, Bernard, and Handley, Lisa. 1987. “Does Redistricting Aimed to Help Blacks Necessarily Help Republicans?” Journal of Politics 49 (02):167–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browning, Rufus, Marshall, Dale Rogers, and Tabb, David. 1984. Protest Is Not Enough: The Struggle of Blacks and Hispanics for Equality in Urban Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bullock, Charles. 1981. “Congressional Voting and the Mobilization of a Black Electorate in the South.” Journal of Politics 43 (08): 662–82.Google Scholar
Cain, Bruce. 1992. “Voting Rights and Democratic Theory: Toward a Color-Blind Society.” In Controversies in Minority Voting, ed. Grofman, Bernard and Davidson, Chandler. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Chambers, John M., and Hastie, Trevor J., eds. 1993. Statistical Models in S. Chapman & Hall Computer Science Series. London: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Cleveland, W.S. 1993. Visualizing Data. Summit, NJ: Hobart Press.Google Scholar
Combs, Michael W., Hibbing, John R., and Welch, Susan. 1984. “Black Constituents and Congressional Roll Call Votes.” Western Political Quarterly 37 (09):424–34.Google Scholar
Davidson, Chandler, ed. 1984. Minority Vote Dilution. Washington, DC: Howard University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, Chandler. 1992. “The Voting Rights Act: A Brief History.” In Controversies in Minority Voting, ed. Grofman, Bernard and Davidson, Chandler. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Davidson, Chandler, and Grofman, Bernard, eds. 1994. Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, David, and O'Halloran, Sharyn. 1995. “Interest Group Competition and Endogenous Coalition Formation.” Manuscript, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Fox, John. 1991. Regression Diagnostics. Newberry Park, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Greene, William H. 1993. Econometric Analysis. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Grofman, Bernard, and Davidson, Chandler, eds. 1992. Controversies in Minority Voting. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Grofman, Bernard, Griffin, Robert, and Glazer, Amihai. 1992. “The Effect of Black Population on Electing Democrats and Liberals to the House of Representatives.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 17 (08):365–79.Google Scholar
Grofman, Bernard, Handley, Lisa, and Niemi, Richard. 1992. Minority Representation and the Quest for Voting Equality. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Guinier, Lani. 1994. The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Hardle, Wolfgang. 1990. Applied Non-Parametric Regression. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hausman, J., and McFadden, D.. 1984. “A Specification Test for the Multinomial Logit Model.” Econometrica 52 (09):1219–40.Google Scholar
Hill, Kevin. 1995. “Does the Creation of Majority Black Districts Aid Republicans?” Journal of Politics 57 (05):384–401.Google Scholar
Hinich, Melvin. 1977. “Equilibrium in Spatial Voting: The Median Voter Result Is an Artifact.” Journal of Economic Theory 16 (12):208–19.Google Scholar
Keech, William R. 1968. The Impact of Negro Voting. Chicago: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Kernell, Sam. 1973. “Comment: A Re-evaluation of Black Voting in Mississippi.” American Political Science Review 67 (12): 1307–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Key, V. O. 1949. Southern Politics in State and Nation. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Kousser, Morgan. 1993. “Beyond Gingles: Influence Districts and the Pragmatic Tradition in Voting Rights Law.” University of San Francisco Law Review 27 (Spring):551–92.Google Scholar
Lublin, David. 1994. “Gerrymander for Justice? Racial Redistricting and Black and Latino Representation.” Ph.D. diss., Harvard University.Google Scholar
McClain, Paula, and Stewart, Joseph. 1995. “W(h)ither the Voting Rights Act after Shaw v. Reno: Advancing to the Past?” PS 28 (06):24–6.Google Scholar
McDonald, Laughlin. 1992. “The 1982 Amendments of Section 2 and Minority Representation.” In Controversies in Minority Voting, ed. Grofman, Bernard and Davidson, Chandler. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Overby, L. Marvin, and Cosgrove, Kenneth. 1996. “Unintended Consequences? Racial Redistricting and the Representation of Minority Interests.” Journal of Politics 58 (05):540–50.Google Scholar
Polsby, Daniel, and Popper, Robert. 1993. “Ugly: An Inquiry into the Problem of Racial Gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act.” Michigan Law Review 92 (12):652–82.Google Scholar
Poole, Keith, and Rosenthal, Howard. 1991. “Pattern of Congressional Voting.” American Journal of Political Science 35 (02):49–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Press, William, Flannery, Brian, Teukolsky, Saul, and Vettering, William. 1986. Numerical Recipes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rice, John. 1988. Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis. Pacific Grove, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Rousseeuw, Peter, and Leroy, Annick. 1987. Robust Regression and Outlier Detection. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Swain, Carol. 1993. Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Venables, W. N., and Ripley, B. D.. 1994. Modern Applied Statistics with S-Plus. New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitby, Kenny J. 1985. “Effects of the Interaction between Race and Urbanization on Votes of Southern Congressmen.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 10 (11):505–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitby, Kenny J. 1987. “Measuring Congressional Responsiveness to the Policy Interests of Black Constituents.” Social Science Quarterly 68 (06):367–77.Google Scholar
Yatrakis, K. 1981. Electoral Demands and Political Benefits: Minority as Majority, A Case Study of Two Newark Elections 1970, 1974. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.