Changing the Face of Congress: African-Americans in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract In last 30 years, United States has witnessed a continual increase in number of African-Americans elected to Congress. However, various political institutions in 1990s have swept in several changes that have had a profound effect on election of African-Americans to Congress. This research examines not only these changes, but all legislation and court decisions that have affected election of African-Americans. This analysis shows that contrary to popular belief future of African-American representation is not completely contingent upon political institutions. On contrary, this research shows that African-American citizens are not using all resources available to them. Namely, voting power. If this trend continues into 21st century, continued electoral success is in jeopardy. Introduction Although African-American citizens enjoyed electoral success following passage of 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) and its amendments, continued success in 21st century is in question. Will actions of courts have a disparate impact on number of majority-minority districts? How has existence of majority-minority districts affected other districts? Have Republicans benefitted from creation of majority-minority districts? Considerable research has been devoted to each of these questions past few years (Davidson and Grofman, 1994; Cannon, 1995; Hill 1995; Overby and Cosgrove, 1996; Gronke and Wilson, 1996). However, more important questions remain. What will happen to African-American representation in 21st century? In particular, will number of African-American congressmen in South decrease? No doubt, time will provide an answer to these questions, but there are several indicators that exist today that may provide some insight. Similar to previous studies, this research begins by first examining institutional impact of Congress, President, and judiciary on African-American representation. Although most scholars stop at this point, this research posits that an institutional analysis falls short of completely addressing issue. Thus, further study into behavior of African-American voters is also necessary in order to address these questions more fully. The last section analyzes other events that will occur at beginning of 21st century that may also affect African-American representation. Race and Representation Scholarly research surrounding African-American congressmen in general over last thirty years has almost exclusively dealt with voting behavior and Black Caucus (Levy and Stoudinger, 1976; Barnett, 1977; Jones, 1987; Bositis, 1994; Menifield, 1996). However, in wake of several Supreme Court decisions, research examining legislative redistricting and representation have proliferated (Jones and Gile, 1994; Davidson and Grofman, 1994; Cannon, 1995; Clayton, 1995; Hill, 1995; Petrocik and Desposato, 1995; Ostdiek, 1995; Bullock, 1996; Cameron, Epstein, and O'Halloran, 1996; Gronke and Wilson, 1996; Overby and Cosgrove, 1996). These articles examine not only creation of these districts, but their positive and negative effects on both Democrat and Republican parties, legislators and voters in these districts. Of above mentioned articles, Bullock most recently touched on issue that this research has raised. In his analysis of Georgia General Assembly, he posits that, the cutoff point at which whites are elected or point beyond which only blacks are successful is less clear (1996, p. 611). He notes that some researchers have argued that it is necessary for African-Americans to have at least a 65% majority to elect one of their own (Swain, 1993). His analysis shows that there have been significant fluctuations in percentage of African-American voters needed to elect an African-American into Georgia General Assembly. …