Will the Supreme Court Preserve Voting Rights for Minorities?

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Most political observers with an ear to the ground are listening for rumblings of the key issues that will shape the elections of 2006. There’s no doubt that national security, the Iraq war and kitchen table concerns such as the economy, health care and education may determine the outcome. But Congressional Democrats should also pay attention to the Supreme Court’s review Wednesday of the controversial Texas Congressional redistricting plan. The outcome of this case is likely to serve as a wake-up call for future redistricting battles involving members of the minority community.

When the Department of Justice decided to file a brief supporting the scheme by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) to break up Democratic

districts — and when it backed a controversial Jim Crow-style law in Georgia that will force voters to show a government-issued photo ID to vote — the message was made abundantly clear. That is, when it comes to enforcing our laws on civil rights and voting rights, partisanship has trumped the long-held principle of “equal justice under the law.”

The Texas chapter of the NAACP, along with the Lone Star Project, have analyzed the amicus brief filed by the Justice Department and have concluded, justifiably, that the Voting Rights section of the Justice Department is now controlled by partisan political appointees. This is a sad development and should be reversed.

For decades, the department was a model of professional, nonpartisan enforcement of the civil rights laws that have prevailed through Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Now, the tables are being been turned — and I fear that this shift could cause a serious rollback of the historic protections that the Voting Rights Act has provided to minority voters.

The Justice Department’s amicus brief fails to recognize the ability of minority communities to elect their candidates of choice, where a minority group makes up less than 50 percent of the district’s population. The redistricting plan that DeLay and his allies bullied through the Texas Legislature entirely erased a district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that Republican, Democratic and nonpartisan voting rights experts agreed was effectively controlled by African Americans, even though the district was represented for years by then-Rep. Martin Frost (D).

Texas Republicans, and now the U.S. Justice Department, argue that because the district did not meet the arbitrary standard of being 50 percent black, the “facts on the ground” don’t matter, and the district should not be protected under the Voting Rights Act.

Sound complicated and a little arcane? It is. But the implications of the Justice Department’s position could have an effect reaching well beyond Texas.

Currently, 19 members of the Congressional Black Caucus — almost half of its membership — represent districts that are under 50 percent African American, including Reps. Charlie Rangel (N.Y.) in the Northeast, Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee and Diane Watson of California, Sanford Bishop and Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, Artur Davis (Ala.) and Mel Watt (N.C.) in the South, and all three current African-American Members from Texas: Eddie Bernice Johnson, Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green.

Under the new DOJ rationale, the voters in these districts would not be able to invoke the Voting Rights Act to protect their ability to effectively exercise power as a community to choose their Representatives, simply because they don’t meet the 50 percent standard.

Any rigid standard requiring a 50 percent minority population, regardless of the realities of voting behavior, is a political gift to Republicans who want to eliminate Democratic seats in Congress and others who would seek to limit the overall influence of minority voters. If adopted as law, the Texas style redistricting scheme will be all the rage in 2011. A rigid percentage standard encourages minority voters to be “packed” into as few Congressional districts as possible, and remaining minority populations to be “cracked” into multiple districts, eliminating their influence altogether.

This is why civil rights leaders must continue to focus on fighting these issues in the court at the same time they seek to renew key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which represents the pinnacle of our nation’s civil rights achievements by bringing the promise of democracy to all citizens.

Civil rights leaders know this coming argument before the Supreme Court may not yield much success, given the loss of former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. But given the stakes in preserving minority voting rights, these nonpartisan organizations and leaders must pay heed while preparing for the long haul.

The rumblings that the Justice Department is making in the Texas case may seem faint now, but they will become deafening unless legal strategies are prepared and executed in a timely fashion to fight these types of redistricting schemes.

Any Congressional redistricting schemes that break up minority voting power or dilute the black vote, or any minority votes affecting diversity within Congress, should cause every Member of Congress to put aside partisanship in order to strengthen the enforcement of voting rights and to stop erecting more hurdles and barriers to participation in the electoral arena.

If not defeated, these redistricting efforts will pick up steam and develop into a roaring freight train on a track to dilute minority voting rights in 2011 and beyond.

Donna L. Brazile, the campaign manager for Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore in 2000, runs her own grass-roots political consulting firm.