From our earliest days as a nation
We struggled with representation
Should a person equal a vote
Or some other system of note?
Is fairness our highest priority
Or shall we be ruled by minority?
And what will be your reaction
If you are the wrong part of a fraction?
It is time to write about fractions. You probably thought that the three-fifths
fraction went away with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and
you would be partly correct.
Unfortunately, the philosophies that generated the voting blocs that demanded political power
through counting slaves as 3/5 persons have not gone away. Other fractions were debated, but the
three-fifths rule was a compromise to the plantation economy demanding an edge. The rule was enacted in1787 and
provided 47 votes in the House of Representatives in 1793 versus the 33 that
the number of voters might have authorized. As the national population expanded, so did the advantage of
counting slaves for representation in Congress, although they were denied the
right to vote. In 1812, the year
of our 2nd war of independence from England, that number jumped to
76 versus 59; in 1833, the number became 98 versus 73. You can only imagine how crestfallen
those states became when they lost the Civil War and had to change to voting by
counting only citizens in the census.
The census every decade also provided an opportunity to periodically
enforce the concept. But you need to recognize that any system that has the
potential to permit an unfair advantage will likely fall prey to that monster
sooner or later. The very term gerrymandering is derived from Governor
Gerry of Massachusetts who, in 1812, sculpted the electoral lines for state
senate districts so that one appeared to be a salamander. After more than one hundred years of
line drawing to gain advantage, the federal government ruled in 1964 that each
district should be roughly equal to other districts in population numbers. “Isopopulation” rules might seem
difficult to circumnavigate, but people are creative and political people are
deviously creative.
In 1964, during the civil rights crisis, the federal
government issued guidelines for “one-man equals one vote” changes in our
electoral system. About a decade later, I was elected to a district school
board in Connecticut based on that revision in district lines. Can you imagine having isopopulation
districting and a fair electoral system?
It actually happened in a state where Democrats and Republicans were
essentially even in numbers. Both
sides were motivated to play fair and campaign on issues, at least for a
time. Allow me to look back to the
sixties for a moment to actually paint a bit more of the picture, however. The “Solid South” was indeed solid and
solidly Democratic in the fifties and sixties, but party was less the critical
identifier than social conservatism in the South. One only had to see the billboards denouncing John F.
Kennedy or Chief Justice Earl Warren to understand that civil rights were seen
as an abomination rather than a popular sentiment. The Voting Rights Act of
1965 was enacted to counter the common practice of denying voting rights of
minorities, but this did not dispel disenfranchisement. Soon, the Nixon “Southern Strategy”
evolved as the leading solution to fighting change, including change protecting
civil rights. Democrats merely
registered as Republicans and continued doing what they had done for a
century. The Solid South remained
solid, but the Ds changed to Rs.
The Voting Rights Act pushed by President Johnson was later
overwhelmingly extended three times (the last time for 25 years) demonstrating
a sense of the Congress that safeguarding the right to vote in a Democracy was
of the essence. Some states including
the Solid South, plus Virginia and Arizona were found to have an historical
pattern of infringing voting rights and therefore had to have any voting
changes pre-approved by the Justice Department before they could be enacted. Most recently, Shelby County Alabama
has filed suit with the Supreme Court to strike section 5 of the Voting Rights
Act. That provision requires
states like Alabama prove that any new law does not discriminate against
minorities in the voting process.
By way of disclosure, Alabama had attempted over law 200 changes that
had to be amended because they were found to be discriminatory since the last
renewal of the law by Congress (2006).
Despite that evidence, Justice Scalia made the comment in court that the
law has become a “racial
entitlement,” and that Congress was unable to act effectively (despite the
overwhelming majorities in both House and Senate in each of the four
renewals). He claims that the
Congress is unable to do the job.
Without saying so, it appears that he feels that he is up to the task of
saying no to the federal oversight.
Although Scalia denounced the Congress for being too intimidated by
voters to do the “right thing,” he openly assumed that the Supreme Court could. Judicial legislating? Of course not. Laws are too important to be written by
an intimidated Congress. Besides,
the efficiency of the Supreme Court is unmatched as in Bush v. Gore and without
error as in the Inquisition v. Everybody.
The Supremes notwithstanding, various states have provided
creative ways to enhance their odds to eliminate the rising power of
minorities. Michigan comes to mind
as the place that democracy forgot.
What need have we for municipal elections when the governor can appoint
an all-powerful Emergency Manager for cities and towns in fiscal trouble? So far, each of the half dozen or so that Governor Rick
Snyder has declared has been overwhelmingly black in racial makeup. None have been released from emergency
powers. The Emergency Manager in
each case has stripped all powers from duly elected city officials including
Detroit, most recently. Why
gerrymander when you can simply appoint a dictator? Recall that even Mussolini was credited with running the
trains on time. Emergency Managers
can sell municipal property to friends or hire and pay those friends with impunity. There is no check or balance. The numerator for black municipalities
in that Michigan fraction is always zero.
Voters repealed PA 4 to stop this heinous practice last November, but
the majority Republican legislators created a temporary law (PA436) in lame
duck session to circumvent the voters and then made that law take full effect
on 28 March. Can you imagine the
temerity of the voters to attempt democracy? Shame on the voters.
Hail Snyder. Should these
fractions be legal? Of course,
democracy is messy…so I have heard.
Gerrymandering has made a huge comeback as shown in the
last national election. The GOP,
despite being outvoted in House elections managed a 55% majority of House
seats. They had over 500,000 fewer votes.
Oh! those darned fractions.
Even Virginia resorted to some questionable tactics by deliberately
redistricting DURING the presidential inauguration when a Democrat (Marsh) went
to the event and the State Senate went into session unannounced. The state was reapportioned in 2011 and
the state constitution calls for reapportionment ONLY every ten years. I presume this will go to the courts
since the meeting appeared to be in violation of announcement rules and the
reapportionment is only two tenths of the way to ten years. Which way do you think the Supremes
would vote? There was lots of
gerrymandering to overcome the more than half million plurality won by
Democrats and there were other attempts that were unsuccessful, but even this
tactic was not the sole card for the minority.
As in Cleveland in 2004, the election in November 2012 was
rife with problems of people being disenfranchised through assignment of poll
hours in racial minority districts and by elimination of early polling as well
as a variety of other tricks that were highlighted in the Florida elections and
where it was attempted as in Pennsylvania. The net result is that the fractions that we normally
associated with losing an election are quickly becoming false notions. If a state has the power to redistrict
when it wants and is run by either party (mostly red, but CA and MA could play
a similar blue game), then the danger is that minority party rule as we have
witnessed in failed governments could seriously damage our democratic process. The GOP has decried its lack of support
from Blacks and Hispanics and yet has done nothing to change its message. It has only sought to re-package the
same message. Meanwhile it has a
strategy to change the electoral system so that they can win control through a
plan they call REDMAP. The RED has
the double meaning of redistricting and Red = Republican. Forget 60% in the Senate.
Peace,
George Giacoppe
03 March 2013
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