And, of course, this is made worse by the fact that there are plenty of Senators who plan to stay there for life. So, Deval Patrick will probably never be able to move on to the Senate because the timing won't be right for Kennedy's seat and Kerry will probably never retire.

Now, maybe as time passes we'll see things change and more Blacks and other minorities will get elected to the Senate based on the work they are doing today. But there's definitely a lag here.

The younger generation of Patterson, Patrick and Obama will have Senators elected from them, depending on specific circumstances (e.g. if Ted Kennedy retires or John Kerry retire, Patrick has a shot, but obviously he's not going to primary them out. Patterson might have a chance if he were to choose to run for the Senate in 2010, but he'll probably want to remain in the Governor's mansion, and that will be that, since there probably won't be an open Senate seat in NY for a while).

Harold Ford is so young (he's not even a year older than me at 38)that his political career will probably encompass another generation of politicans, most of which are much lower down the political rungs. It stands to reason that Ford's generation will elect more Senators than the Patterson/Patrick/Obama generation, all the moreso because they have a completely open playing field before them.

"Okay, let's assume that all of your problems in your life are due to me and my white homies keeping you down. Assuming that we're going to continue to do so, as I assume you must, just WTF are you going to do about it?"

She really didn't have an answer. Now, granted, I was being completely tongue-in-cheek with her (which she didn't appreciate), because in all honesty, there's only me and another guy named Clem keeping all black people down everywhere (lol).

The point being that Du Bois sentiment was completely correct. If you acknowledge that something sucks in your life and you're not going to get any help from that whence the suckage comes, just what are you going to do to get around, over, through it?

And, as an aside, in an ideal world, there would be no redistricting. Hopefully, we'll see the end of it in our lifetimes. The practice speaks to the worst in us and, as TNC points out, actually has a long-term detrimental effect directly countering, once again, the behaviors we all say we want in our culture.

This might be a problem in some areas, the districts are set up to ensure a lack of turnover so the longer one stays in the House, the harder it is for a politician to want to do something risky like run in a primary against a well funded white candidate and then hope to win against the Republican. It is giving up the power you have for a shot at a seat that might give you even less power.

For Michigan, the best shot would be someone who is relatively unknown to me, or someone like Dennis Archer who has an impressive resume, but has to wait until a dem retires. He may be too old at that time.

This is not to argue that there is not a distinctive aspect to being Black in this country, yet, however one wants to see it, we are a part of this nation, cruelly grafted on to it, but a part no less. Ellison would argue that our personalities are central to this nation's character and culture and many of our leaders have tried to argue that America's inclusion of Black people is really America's realization of itself.

I think Black people have always known this, the question is when, where and how do White Americans come to realize this, which will in a real way open up the doors for Af-Am politicians to represent more diverse populations at the state and national level. To continue the DuBois reference, we didn't create the problem, we have led the fight to fix it but we ultimately cannot fix it alone.

"you didn't create this quote. but you will have to mangle it."

Drawing Congressional districts is a sort of dirty science -- you can put lines to advantage based on incumbency, etc., although you can't -- quite, not anymore -- draw 'em exclusively based on race or ethnicity.

But when Bob Dole did the Voting Rights Extension back in the day, Republicans had a strategy, Democrats played defense -- and the Congressional Black Caucus made an interesting bargain.

So Dole wrote the law in time for the 1990 Census that if you COULD draw a majority-minority district, you HAD to draw it. That -- not the Contract with America -- was the primary factor in pretty much obliterating the moderate Southern Democrat, since basically all the Democratic votes in the southern states were clustered in just a few districts. Democrats tried to please everybody on this one, and failed -- middle of the road guys like Martin Frost TRIED to persuade various black politicians at the national level, and of course candidates for new "black" seats all over the South, that this wasn't the best strategy, but he lost -- including his own seat.

The result -- with much happiness in the CBC -- was tripling African Americans in Congress, while costing the Democratic majority (we're talking a couple dozen seats net loss).

This was corrected at the margins through court cases in the mid-1990s (see Mel Watt's district), but the damage was done.

But, here's the thing: to maximize influence, you don't want to be dominant in just a few districts. You'd rather be decisive in a LOT of 'em.

When there are, say 200,000 reliable liberal votes in a state with 5 million voters and 10 US Representatives, bunching 150,000 of 'em in one district does not empower them. It guarantees that they can elect one of their own, who will be out of step with the rest of the delegation and have only minimal influence in the Congress as a whole.

But put 50,000 liberal voters in FIVE districts in a state like that, where 200,000 wins the seat, and you have a major force in half the delegation that should win three, and might win all five.

k1
ryanculver.blogspot.com

Carol Moseley Braun (b. 1947) is a different generation than Jesse Jackson (b. 1941), Bobby Rush (b. 1946) and Al Sharpton (b. 1954)?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP2U0jmZjec

I seem to recall Chris Rock's cogent rebuttal to this point: "You ain't never seen two Indians!"

Let me go through some points of why I think thats so.

1. Racism. In a state wide race the stakes simply aren't as high usually as it was this year in the Presidential race. Most people see their Senator/Governer as a player but not the major reason why the country will thrive or fall. For that reason on the state level racist attitudes that people looked beyond to elect Obama can still be expressed in their state wide votes. Some people will put up for a lesser white candidate in this situation where they wouldn't in the General election because the stakes were just too high.

2. Volunteers/Infrastructure. Again people of all races religions and creeds volunteered and gave money to Barack Obama in his run for President. Many of them did it because the stakes were too high to put another Republican disaster in office. But who really gets inspired for a Senatorial campaign? And many times the black candidates who end up running can't attract the help and or support from white folks to get them to do phone call or go door to door or give money from the same white people who did all of those things for Barack in their state.

3. Choices of Campaign Managers: Not enough can be said about David Axlerod and the work he did for Barack Obama. But how many Black candidates in state wide races get the same level of instruction and direction from their campaign manager? Axlerod had already shown his bonafides by getting the Patrick cat elected to Governer but where are the other Axlerods who will promote a black candidate over a black one in Democratic primaries? I think before we can win elections on the state level we are going to have to learn to win the Democratic primaries because that is where we get our legs cut from under us and a lot of that comes from who is pulling the strings. Look at how much money the cat who was running against Michelle Bachmann got after her McCarthy moment on MSNBC and he still lost. Look at how much money the Dem in GA got (can't think of his name right now and I am google lazy at the moment) and the support but he still lost to Chambliss.

Its an interesting thing to watch MSNBC all day. Not that they are acccurately representative but the truth is I see more black REPUBLICAN strategist who sound like they know what they are doing on MSNBC than black Democratic strategist. And I am not saying they necessarily have to be black but having a black James Carville or a black David Axlerod would definitely be nice.

I think if we can find away to get past those issues the rest is cake. A lot of times its not who you know, its about who the people you associtate with know. How did Barack Obama get into the Senate? Coffee clatches where white folks he did know introduced him to affluent and influential white (and black I am sure) folks.

I have to ask. Who in their right mind would want a relic like Bobby Rush representing them?

Franken's a celebrity, but I wouldn't lump him in with the others. Franken went to Harvard and graduated cum laude. I'm sure his celebrity was a big help in getting elected, but he's also well educated, genuinely accomplished, and demonstrably smart in a way the others are not.

With most black elected officials outside of the South coming from urban areas, this maybe an additional hurdle for them.

Somebody did a great couple of survey questions a few years back, asking people if they would rather live in a "diverse" neighborhood (most did), and then, wickedly, asking what they considered a diverse neighborhood to be. (In fact, IIRC, they asked in terms of 'when would you move out'.)

Large majorities of both whites and blacks said that they would not stay in a neighborhood that had become too much the other -- nobody wanted to be the last black family in a white neighborhood, or the first white family in a black neighborhood, that sorta thing.

But when they asked what "diverse" was, or "mixed", whites tended to say, oh, about 20% minorities (more than that, they'd move), while African-Americans tended to say, about 50-50 (less than that, they'd move).

Do the math -- African Americans make up something under 15% of the population, right? So feeling uncomfortable in any neighborhood where 15% of the population makes up less than 50% of the locals pretty much guarantees enclaves.

I find that when people set up the whole paradigm of older generation vs. new generation, it sends to get confusing. It is not about generation, my friend, but ideology.

My govenor David Paterson and Al Sharpton who are good friends are the same age. Al Sharpton is technically not a part of the Civil Rights Generation as those who are in their 60s and 70s. Al Sharpton has actually made that clear a million times.

Shani-O, co-sign!!

"When Obama was confronted by the Black Left in Fl. my thought was that his policies articulated a vision of refashioning a stronger society from the bottom up. Attention to urban areas, education, housing, job creation and healthcare puts a finger on the needs of the Af-Am community while addressing the overall societal needs. Are his positions any less pertinent because he doesn't add the adjective "Black" to these topics? "

Be careful! Be careful! Those guys who protested Obama in Florida are not representative of the black left. That is an unfair characterization. Obama is an accomodationist not a tranformationist, I will advise you to look up transformationism in regards to black political thought. Nonetheless, I co-sign with the rest of your post.

SGWhiteinFL,

I think you brought up a great point in regards to Axelrod. Did anyone read "The Message Keeper", it was posted over at the New Republic back in November. It pretty spoke about how Axelrod helped sell a black candidate to White America using certain strategies.

AriesWym,

Yes, that is so true. People are speculating that if David Patterson runs for governor in two years, he may have problem with folks upstate since he is from NYC (Harlem).

While I've heard the "the Voting Rights Act lost us Congress!" argument time and again, it's just not true. In fact, it's been pretty persuasively disproven. The lines from the 1990 redistricting were put in place (in most cases) by 1992. While the Dems lost a few seats in '92, it wasn't the route that '94 was. While I don't have the articles in front of my, I believe redistricting to create additional majority-minority districts made a difference in one or two seats, not the dozens the Dems lost.

That doesn't mean that applying Section 5 of the VRA to redistricting hasn't had some negative consequences - I think the argument that black politicians are focusing their arguments solely to a black audience *has* made it more difficult in some ways to build up the base of support to win statewide office. But, the focus on redistricting really did change the shape of Congress. I'm not sure if there were any blacks in the House in 1965. A lot of the change has to do with making sure states can't redraw districts to disfranchise blacks or other minorities. So, maybe there are some negatives there, but I would be they are more than outweighed by the positives.

That said - at some point Section 5 of the VRA (the preclearance section) will have to expire or be made national in scope (which just isn't going to happen). Though I'm not sure it will happen anytime soon, since there are probably not any states that want to be tarnished as racist for challenging it.

I always sit down next to Black men on the subway or train. Or White men. Or Latina women. I commute, and an open seat's a goddamn open seat. (What *is* hilarious about sitting next to Black men, especially of the young hip-hop variety, is how much it PISSES them off. They're thinking they'll take up two because us whiteys are so a-feared, and then my middle-aged honky ass comes along and says, "'scuse me." Heh. Post-racial FTW!).

IMO, Sharpton's ideology is very much similar to the ideology of Rush and Jackson, which is why I lump them together.

Patterson is clearly made of a different cloth, and seems (to me) to be in the older range of a different group of black politician (that's why I group him closer to Obama, who is 7 years his junior).

(Perhaps my point didn't go across well enough, but by generation I was not necessarily speaking chronologically, but in regards to the attittudes of different groups of black politicians).

In re: Harold Ford, I've been thinking, and though it's clear that racism was part of the reason he wasn't elected (this is, after all, TN, and Corker did put up that "Call me" ad), it's also true that Ford had never held state-wide office in TN.

Seeing as how TN is an East-to-West state, and Ford's hometown of Memphis is on the extreme SW of the State, he was somewhat unknown in the center and east of the state.

(FWIW, Corker was from Chattanooga, which is in the SC of TN. I don't know the population densities and TV markets of TN well enough to opine on whether Ford and Corker were fairly equally well known in TN at the time of the 2006 Senate run, but I do think that Ford would benefit from State wide office if he eventually wants to go the Senate).

Don't blame Black folk for Michael Steele not being a Senator. Steele got 30% of the Black vote. I want someone to point out to me a White Republican that loses after they get 30% of the Black vote.

So Dole wrote the law in time for the 1990 Census that if you COULD draw a majority-minority district, you HAD to draw it.

I'm writing a thesis about the evils of majority-minority districting, so I sympathize with the spirit of your post. But this just isn't true. What happened was this. In '65 the Voting Rights Act gets passed. Blacks get registered, but then they discover that in many southern towns and states, electoral structures were put in place at the turn of the century, back when blacks were still voting, to prevent them from electing anyone. Namely, lots of multi-member districts and city councils elected at-large, instead of from individual wards. So this complicated vote dilution jurisprudence arises where Section 2 of the VRA was used to break these systems up. Then in 1980, the Supreme Court rules in Mobile v. Bolden that in order to show a violation of Section 2, you need to prove that the town made its dilutive electoral system with the intent of diluting black votes. Now, in Mobile, Alabama, they were actually able to go back to the archives and determine that in 1900 when they made the city council election at-large, their goal was to prevent blacks from getting elected. But in much smaller towns without that kind of archival evidence, it was impossible to do. So, in 1982, Congress, led by Ted Kennedy and Dole, amends the VRA and crafts a results test that ignores intent. And here's where you really get things wrong, because (a) it was Dole who put in the proviso that the VRA doesn't guarantee proportional representation and made a lot of statements in the record attempting to minimize what the whole thing meant, and (b) the VRA doesn't actually require you to draw majority-minority districts where you can draw them; at most, it requires you to draw them up to a point of proportionality, and I would actually argue that it doesn't even require that. It's an insanely vague statute. Now, of course it's true that the Department of Justice understood the law to mean just what you claim Dole intended it to mean, but they were wrong and the Supreme Court has repeatedly said so.

In fact, John Conyers himself was in the House in 1965! According to Wikipedia the total number was 6.

(And after this, you should ALWAYS remember that Adam Clayton Powell was not only an African-American in Congress in 1965, he was a major player in Great Society legislation. Killing Jim Crow wasn't all bus boycotts and marches -- there were bills and hearings and markups and floor debates, w/ ACP flashing his cufflinks all over the joint.)

Of the 66 seats Democrats in the House lost between 1981 and 1995, 54 of 'em were lost after the 1990 reapportionment. If you want to argue that 1992 proves it wasn't reapportionment cuz there were 258 Democrats elected to the House that year, I'd respond that 1992 was Clinton's year: the first true test of the new Congressional districts was the off-year Republican landslide.

Sure, there were a lot of factors -- the failure of health care, the Clinton budget's tax increases that hadn't started to grow the economy yet, and so on. The Contract with America certainly nationalized the election -- but the fact is, the districts had changed substantially in at least 40 of the 54 Democratic seats that went Republican that year, mostly because of the majority-minority requirement.

So my point is that it was a MAJOR strategic mistake to wind up tripling the CBC (and moving it to the left) while eliminating the entire southern moderate wing of the Democratic party.

And just to repeat Silver's point -- this affects the prospect of African Americans in the Senate, because a US representative who wins national office from a state is an ideal position to compete state-wide for a Senate seat... unless his district has been drawn to be as unlike the rest of the state as possible.

Or that the lawsuits filed by the RNC in support of majority-minority districts had some political purpose?

I'm just sayin'.

It would've been a major strategic mistake if it were actually what anyone did (other than DOJ, in their misguided enforcement of the statute), but Congress didn't. The law just doesn't say that. It says:

A violation of subsection (a) of this section is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) of this section in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.

No majority minority districting requirement there, necessarily, although it's been read that way.

Why do we have a Senate in the first place?

That's not a simple question, right. I mean partly the framers of the constitutions wanted a bicameral legislature to provide a nice contrast to England, but a huge part of why we have a Senate is: to protect the institution of chattel slavery.

The Senate's existence owes a lot to the 3/5ths compromise, which of course was a fancy way to codify the "peculiar institution" into the supposedly democratic constitution. Aside from restricting the franchise to white men, the constitution made damn sure that abolitionist white men would never have enough senators to outvote pro-slavery white men -- even if abolitionists outnumbered the pro-slavers in the country at large.

The Senate is intentionally anti-democratic. As it was originally conceived, the Senators weren't even popularly elected. Today, it allows the 500,000 residents of Wyoming to have the same representation as the 35 million people in California. This creates a situation where Senators representing a very small percentage of the US population (or representing a small, unpopular ideology) can literally shut down the federal government.

We see the legacy of this structural racism all the time. Despite a wholesale landslide in most elections in 2008 for Democrats, from 2009 until at least 2011, the 40 Republican senators will basically have the ability to stop any legislation they want through the filibuster.

Oh, and there are no African American Senators, either, for many reasons, including those mentioned by Silver and TNC. You have to wonder if the framers are as farsighted as they're made out to be, and if they somehow foresaw the fact that only like a handful of African Americans would ever get into the Senate, even by 2009.

In any event, one thing is very clear: for lots of reasons, the Senate is a big Eff You to non-white Americans.

The Founders largely (but not unanimously) conceived of the Union as an organization of states. Since smaller states were understandably afraid of being outvoted by larger ones, they liked the idea of a Senate with two Senators per state, regardless of population. Since the smallest states at the time of the Founding included most of the least pro-slavery states -- New Hampshire, Connecticut, Delaware, it's simply wrong to regard the Senate as just a way to perpetuate slavery. It was a way to keep the big states from dominating the small ones.

Slavery cut across the conflict between big and small states; it wasn't on one side.

The biggest state was Virginia, the one absolutely indispensible state for both the Revolution and the Union. Along with the other southern states, Virginia took the view that slaves should be counted as part of the population for representation in the House. Naturally, both the small states (especially the least pro-slavery ones in the North, but also, if less vocally, the smaller Southern states) and the large Northern ones, like New York, told Virginia to take a hike -- they realized that the slave states' outrageous proposal wasn't just a way to give slave states in effect 60% more of a vote than free states, it was also a way to perpetuate slavery itself.

But the Constitution didn't perpetuate slavery. Nor did the creation of the Senate anticipate, even implicitly, the perpetuation of slavery. If anything, it was the opposite.

First, Roger Sherman (from Connecticut) proposed the 3/5 compromise, so the slave states would join the Union. Ill, but since none of us has managed to do as much for liberty and democracy as the folks who created the United States Constitution, humility might be useful in bitching about it: I'd have preferred slaves didn't count at all for representation in Congress, but they didn't ask me.

In any case, 3/5s is better than 100%, which was the original proposal.

Second, we got a Senate that -- at the time -- actually INCREASED the power of the states (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware) that wanted an immediate end to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. So (another compromise to keep the slave states in the Union), the Constitution included a requirement that the slave trade could not be banned until ... 1808, I think it was.

Which they promptly did as soon as the Constitution allowed, through votes in Congress -- INCLUDING the Senate that you're bitching about. When they abolished the slave trade, the hard part was the House, not the Senate. It wasn't until much later, the days of Calhoun, that the Senate became the place where a minority of the nation's population developed a veto -- and that was because of the way the country was adding states, the Missouri compromise and all that, plus the way immigrants went disproportionately to the North (since the south had its own cheap labor).

The Founders just kicked the can down the road for a generation -- which is a pretty good sign that 1) they couldn't have gotten a country, if they had tried to resolve it at the time, and for better or worse, they chose to create the USA, and 2) it is reasonable to conclude that most of 'em really did figure that slavery would gradually decline and disappear, as it had in much of Europe, especially without the constant importation of new captives from Africa.

They were wrong about the second part, but that was because of the cotton gin and South Carolina going nuts, infecting the rest of the South, not because of the creation of the Senate.

I think you're misreading the argument. The argument is not that gerrymandering causes a lack of black representatives. It is that gerrymandering concentrates black representation within gerrymandered districts. While gerrymandering caused an increase in black representation, it took away black voters from surrounding districts, causing those districts to become more conservative instead of mixed.

Also, this means that much of the "farm team" of potential senators in a state consists of politicians who have only had to compete in --- and appeal to --- gerrymandered districts instead of the more mixed crowd one needs to win statewide elections.

I have. I've been to a town largely made up of Osage Indians.

Granted the Reservation system does mean they might be more among their own, their situation is also greatly different than other groups, but many American Indians don't live on reservations. Granted many of them might additionally live in places we/us rarely visit. (Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, the Dakotas, Oklahoma, etc) Or maybe not. California has more American Indians than any state and I'd imagine a good deal of them don't live on reservations. There's a fairly sizeable Indian population in Florida as I recall.

One thing I note is he indicates the low chance of Massachusetts having a Black Senator, but they have had a black Senator. True Edward Brooke was Republican, so maybe can't count as black for some here, but he was a moderate/liberal Republican in a different era.

I would just like to say that the pool of rising political stars is shallow. Try to name 10 black politicians that are currently in office at any level. Now, name the ones that you believe have an aspiring future. I just said Corey Booker twice, and cut my first list in half when I had to contemplate their futures.

But I still think the Senate, whether intentionally or not, has for most of US history been racist in its very implementation. If nothing else the demographics of the Senate, which is the topic of this thread, is enough evidence that something is fishy with the way the Senate is set up. And we can look at the legislation that has come out of (or died in) the Senate, and consider the reasons why (Missouri compromise and everything else included), and I think any reasonable person will end up at the same spot: the Senate is racist by design. Maybe the founders didn't intend it that way, but that's how it ended up in practice. Petty distinction if you ask me.

Look, we can give the founders every benefit of the doubt, or we can look at them with a bit of skepticism and criticism. I'm just as glad as anyone else that they ended up creating the USA, because otherwise Al Gore would never have invented the internet.

There's no need to give the Founders the benefit of any doubts -- they were damned clear about what they were doing. Richard Ellis is on, I think, is fourth book on the subj. -- the nation was founded on the promise that we're all equal, but the contradictory deal that gave us a national government was a compromise with slavery. It's not like anybody hid it.

But it's REAL important to notice what you're assuming here, cuz it remains the central point in dispute: the American Revolution was fought on the principle that population compels representation. You're taking that for granted -- but the Founders didn't, literally because: it wasn't.

Remember, they had originally demanded as colonists rights they would have had as Englishmen, e.g., "no taxation without representation". It was only when the Crown replied they didn't have those rights because the Crown had not granted them, that we became a revolution: with the Declaration that governments don't grant rights, we're born with 'em.

It's been nearly a century since we added representation in the House, even though the population has tripled AND we've actually added several states, including Senators, so it's no wonder people have forgotten what the American Revolution was FOR.

So your complaint isn't about "demographics of the Senate", it's about the way the Founders put the principle that 'population compels representation' into practice. Methinks we'd all be better off focusing on how that is failing in current practice, which ain't about the Senate.

I mean, think about the history the way it was at the time: backed by the other slave states, Virginia and South Carolina tried to define 'population-compelled representation' by demanding that slaves be counted for "representation" in the House. They were trying to DOUBLE the voting power of the free population in those states -- the votes of human OWNERS. It'd be as if last November my wife and I got to cast four votes, because we own two cars -- except of course the Founders weren't arguing about machines, they were debating people as property: do they count as "population" that compels representation? What would the American Revolution mean, if slaveowners counted more than free people who did not own slaves?

Everybody at the time knew that this was a real serious turn to take in the road, which is why in the end, they didn't quite take it: the creation of the Senate was to PREVENT that, not to perpetuate it.

But fercrysakes, if you want to focus yer bitchin' on something meaningful, stop complaining about the Senate, and look at the House: for generations, the practice after every Census has been to take votes in Congress away from people who can and do vote, to "represent" people who can't and don't.

That's why Congressional districts in states like NY and Massachusetts, which have consistently lost seats in the House, will have 200,000 voters in 'em, while new districts in Arizona and California have half that. The overall population is roughly the same, within the rules of proportionality -- but the idea that We, the People are better represented by forcing 400,000 voters in NY to split two reps by giving two reps to 200,000 voters in Arizona is just nuts: you're wasting time bitching about the Senate, but THIS is something we could actually fix. There's a new Census coming, yanno, and another apportionment after it.

(Note to TNC: your own Baltimore has finally reversed 50 years of population decline -- ya want see 'em screwed out of another seat in Congress?)

INMSHO, I call it the Connecticut rule: no state that gains population should lose representation in Congress. So when states like California or Arizona grow fast enough that proportionality requires they get a new Representative: we just ADD to the total.

That's the other factor -- hidden under all the politically correct bullshit -- which explains how majority-minority districts fail to help African-Americans in Congress became black Senators: because the way we gerrymander House districts is based on the zero-sum apportionment of the same 435 seats among the states, the dynamic is always about representatives picking their voters, instead of voters picking their representatives.

THAT's what we should be bitching about -- and the rest will take care of itself.

Not sure if you're still around to read this (got busy yesterday and couldn't check back in), but I have a couple of points:

1) From the context of the 1982 VRA renewal, it's pretty clear the changes were meant to address what were seen as an incorrect (but binding) Supreme Court opinion. Congress, since at least the 70s, had intended the VRA to have an expansive reading. The 82 renewal/amendment basically restored the VRA to what Congress had thought it meant all along.

2) Asssuming for this limited purpose that the VRA amendments did have a causal relationship with the Democratic loss of the House in 94, I find the "evil genius" theory (that the Republicans were evil geniuses who knew that this is what would happen) hard to accept. I don't think anyone would go out of their way in 1982 to pass a law that could not possibly help them until 1992. There are simply too many variables in the intervening decade. In fact, Republicans at the time thought that they would never have a realistic chance to win the House. Plus, I've never seen any credible evidence that Republicans in Congress held the "evil genius" view.

3) For an academic study on whether there were "perverse effects" to the creation of majority-minority districts, check out http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/stuff_for_blog/Grigg_Katz_MPSA2005.pdf. The authors argue pretty persuasively that any perverse effects. Basically, states with a mandate to create majority-minority districts acted the same as states that did not. The Republicans simply did a lot better than the Democrats in 1994 - as evidenced by them winning 8 Senate seats, which would not be effected by the VRA.

3b) I would also recommend having a look at http://www.fairvote.org/reports/1995/chp3/gans.html, which states that 1994 was the first time Republicans won the Congressional vote (by %) in the South. So, you would have expected massive Republican gains in the South regardless of VRA-related gerrymandering.

4) Even if I'm wrong, I would make one final point - there has so far been no gerrymander so perverse that the people couldn't get past it. Just as Democrats won in 2006 despite Republican gerrymanders, Republicans won in 1994 despite Democratic gerrymanders. At the end of the day, these things may shift the balance slightly, but they cannot withstand waves.

on www.thedefendersonline.com

just want to add that a lot of the inspiration for our system of government was found in the writings of Roman politicians, particularly Cicero the great compromiser. as such many of the decisions made can be traced back to the fall of the Roman Republic and consequent attempts by the FFs to avoid the pitfalls of Roman 'democracy' (as the most apt historical precedent for what they were attempting)

so i think these compromises and the creation of a bicameral legislature in the first place can best be seen in the greater historical context, rather than as specifically designed to perpetuate slavery. this is not to say that the senate did not play a role in the perpetuation of slavery, but rather that the PURPOSE behind its creation was rooted in the experience of the Roman republic. (why was it called the 'Senate' anyways?)

While the much-discussed “Bradley Effect” - best described as the disconnect between what white voters tell pollsters they are going to do in the voting booth and what they actually do - did not materialize as many had feared, exit poll results reveal that race still matters and the electorate was not as unified as some seemed to hope.

Hilarious. "Whites fooled us by not giving us the Bradley Effect, but don't worry - we've got these other stats to prove they still hate us! Pay no attention to those Iowans behind the curtain!"

Obama received 43% of the white vote, up from Kerry’s 41% of the white vote in 2004, the only group that did not, on the whole, vote for Obama.

"Here's a statistic showing that a black candidate got more of the national white vote in 2008 than a futhamucking white candidate did four years earlier, which we will use to prove how racist white folks still are." Priceless.

I'm not even going to start on the article's loving rendition of how whites in the Deep South voted. Alabama whites for McCain! And stop looking at those damn Iowans again!

(Note that I'm not denying that white voters went for McCain over Obama. It's just that the article is so badly written, it's comedy gold).

Louisiana has an oddball one one in West Feliciana Parish. The parish has a slight black majority and went for McGovern, but it's went Republican in the last three Presidential elections. This election it went for McCain as much as it did Bush in 2004 and Obama only received about one percent more than Kerry did. He did noticeably poorer than Gore or Clinton in the Parish. Kind-of just an oddball outlier, but I like statistics. Maybe there's some odd dislocations due to the hurricane or heightened turnout among whites or something.

It should be Tennessee, not Kentucky. My mistake. Also West Feliciana apparently is known for Angola prison, which may or may not skew it's voting or demographics.

Patterson is clearly made of a different cloth, and seems (to me) to be in the older range of a different group of black politician (that's why I group him closer to Obama, who is 7 years his junior)."

To begin with, Sharpton is a civil rights leader, that is his focus.

Patterson is a politican and now govenor.

And also, it is not that clear cut. Many outside of NY (I am not sure where you live) don't know about the relationship between Sharpton and patterson.