Gerry who?

Vote-finagling then and now

When Democrats accuse Republicans of suppressing votes—rewriting voting rules to make it harder for some voters to cast their ballots—they often couch the accusation in terms of race. Republicans, they say, are trying to keep black people from the polls. And when Democrats accuse Republicans of gerrymandering—drawing congressional districts in a way that benefits the party doing the drawing— again they emphasize race, saying the districts are being drawn to minimize black representation.

The effect of the rule changes and the district drawing is frequently to reduce black voting and representation, but is that the purpose? Or is the purpose to weaken Democrats? 

During the last several decades, it's been difficult to tell the difference. With most black people voting Democratic, reducing Democratic influence has often reduced black influence, and vice versa. 

But the distinction is important. For one thing, the Constitution and various voting rights laws forbid discrimination by race, but they don't generally protect parties. Unsurprisingly, this gives the Democrats reason to frame their complaints in racial terms. Likewise, it encourages Republicans to defend their actions as simply partisan.

More important is what all this means for the future of the parties and their political practices. More black and Hispanic voters have been voting Republican lately. If the trend continues, we'll get to see how sincere the professions of the two parties are. Will Republicans be as quick to pass measures that reduce black political influence if in doing so they reduce Republican influence? Will Democrats be as staunch to defend black voters if in doing so they defend Republicans?

The past is never dispositive, but it's sometimes suggestive. Democratic complaints against voter suppression should be tempered by the knowledge that, for a century after the Civil War, the Democrats were the ones who taught the country how to suppress black votes. Despite the clear language of the 15th Amendment, Southern Democrats employed various means— including outright violence—to keep black people from the polls. Not until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act were Southern blacks able to vote in numbers at all comparable to their share of the population. As soon as they did, white southerners began leaving the Democratic party to join the Republicans.

Meanwhile, during this long century, Republicans were the champions of black voting. They weren't very successful, but because southern blacks, when they did vote, tended to vote Republican, in recognition of the Republican role in effecting emancipation, the Republicans had incentive to expand black turnout. They changed their tune only after the in-migration of the fugitive white southern Democrats.

Doubtless there are Republicans who have tried to limit black voting because they don't like black people. But if the past is any guide, the more decisive reason is that they don't like Democrats, the party black voters have been voting for. Certainly there are Democrats who have fought to expand black voting because they think black people should have the same rights as white people. But the fact that black voters were likely to be Democrats gave them additional reason.

Should we take encouragement from the fact that partisanship trumps racial thinking, to the extent it does? Many probably will, if only because we live at a time when being called a racist is a more serious matter than being called a partisan.

Will it make our politics fairer and more truly democratic? Don't hold your breath. Power will do what power does: try to hold onto it by whatever methods come to hand. This first rule of politics isn’t likely change.