Almost all African Americans won by landslides - or by default
Published April 28, 2015
by Patrick Gannon, The Insider, April 27, 2015.
Of the 11 African-Americans elected to the state Senate last year, eight took their seats with no opposition last November. The remaining three won by garnering an average of 71 percent of the votes against opponents.
No close contests in Senate districts represented by African-Americans. Not one.
In the House, the results for black candidates also were lopsided. Of the 23 African-Americans in the 120-member chamber, 16 took their seats for the two-year session because no other names appeared on the ballots with them in November. The other seven won by getting an average of nearly 78 percent of the votes. In other words, all but one black House member who faced opposition won by landslide.
Rep. Robert Reives II, of Sanford, won the closest House race with a black candidate, garnering 56 percent of the votes against a Republican. After that, it was Howard Hunter III, of Ahoskie, who took 69 percent in his race. That's not close.
By the way, all African-Americans in the General Assembly are Democrats.
Why did all but one of the 34 African-Americans elected to the House or Senate win by huge margins or not have an opponent last November? At least in part, it's because the districts they represent are skewed heavily toward Democratic or black candidates because of the way the Republican General Assembly drew them through the redistricting process in 2011.
The N.C. FreeEnterprise Foundation, a Raleigh-based nonpartisan political research organization, rates legislative districts based on historical voting trends to show the degree to which voters in particular districts have favored Republican or Democratic candidates in past elections.
Before the 2014 elections, the group rated all 11 Senate districts now represented by African-Americans as "strong Democratic." (That pretty much means it would take a miracle for a Republican to win there). In the House, the FreeEnterprise Foundation ranked all but one of the districts now represented by black legislators as "strong Democratic." Guess which one wasn't? Yes, it was Reives' district, which the foundation determined "leans Democratic."
This explains in part why Republicans didn't challenge many of the black candidates. Why would anyone want to spend time and money on a race they're almost sure to lose because of the makeup of the district's voters?
Whether any of those districts are skewed too heavily toward African-Americans is a question for North Carolina's highest court. The U.S. Supreme Court recently informed the N.C. Supreme Court that it must consider again whether Republicans relied too much on race in drawing the maps in 2011. Originally, the N.C. Supreme Court sided with the map-drawers.
The legal arguments from each side are complicated. Among the questions is whether or not the General Assembly unfairly stacked minorities into certain districts to dilute their influence elsewhere, thus making life easier for Republican candidates.
Republicans who drew the maps claim that they are legal, and the courts ultimately might decide that they're right.
Then again, maybe something's not right with the law.
And no matter what happens with the court case, there's another obvious issue. Because of the lopsided districts, voters in many parts of North Carolina are stuck with the same legislators – or at least the same party – term after term, with little hope of electing someone else.
Hope they're happy with who they have.
April 28, 2015 at 9:51 am
Norm Kelly says:
Who was it that decided to look at skin color when it came to redistricting? That's right! Demoncrats! Who always, always, without deviation, looks at skin color first and foremost, and there is no second place? Once again, demons! I call them demons on purpose. They have earned the title. Demons create districts based on skin color, then WHINE like little babies when Republicans do exactly the same thing. What's the context of the lib whining in this case? I try to be specific by saying 'this case' because libs are such whiners I have to be specific about which whine I speak. In this case libs are whining because Republicans put TOO MANY blacks in districts. Libs insist that only a black can represent a black, so there MUST be black-only districts. By law. But then libs whine because there may be TOO MANY blacks in a district that would force a black to represent the district. So, according to what libs call 'logic', creating a district where odds are about 90% that a demon black will be elected because the way the district is drawn is acceptable. Because there's a snowball's chance that a black WON'T be elected? But when Republicans draw a district where the odds go up to about 95-97% chance that a black will be elected to represent blacks, suddenly libs call foul? How's that for logic? Talk about concentrating way too much on skin color!
Libs are a confused and confusing bunch. Kill a baby on purpose, it's legal and labeled aborting a tissue mass. Kill a baby by accident, such as an auto collision, and suddenly that tissue mass is a living baby who's life was stolen. The driver of the car 'causing' the accident is charged with murder.
Forcibly put lots of blacks in a district so that a black is forced to be elected, then libs say it's great and not just legal but moral. Put what libs call 'too many' blacks in a district, and suddenly it's immoral. And for some reason that libs don't have the logic to explain, it's also illegal.
See, confused. And confusing. Why bother trying to figure out a group of people who can't figure out themselves. Both sides of the argument support their socialist agenda! So long as libs get to make all the rules, libs are a happy bunch. Just let someone else, like voters, try to make a decision, and suddenly libs use the courts to force their agenda on the masses anyway! So, they are not only a confusing bunch, they are also very frustrating. Must be hell to be so smart and so caring!
April 28, 2015 at 11:27 am
Richard L Bunce says:
Have you considered the problem may be with the voters in these and all other districts? I noticed you did not say these elected Democratic Party members were not qualified. I noticed you did not mention any primary challenges these elected officials might have faced within their party to run in the general election.
In reading between the lines on many articles on this subject of late it seems as if Democratic Party supporters wanted the elected Republicans Party members to draw districts that maximized the ability of Democratic Party members to win. I note that the Republican Party candidates become the majority in the NC House under districts drawn by a Democratic Majority. As we are coming up and the end of the redistricting cycle when voting populations have shifted the most it would seem the Democratic Party should look to maximize their 2018 and 2020 results just as the Republican Party did in 2008 and 2010.
As for the race baiting... there are no races in our species. "Race" is a social construct based on self identification. See Federal guidelines and Census instructions. Any candidate can self identify with any "race". That the self identification of persons as a particular race and self identifying as Democrats has become a unified set is an issue for the persons in that set, not anyone else.
As long as humans are involved in the process there will be gerrymandering. Getting the humans out of the process and allowing no demographic data into the automated process is the only answer going forward. Here is an example...
http://rangevoting.org/GerryExec.html
