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Chapter Twenty-Three "TO GET BEYOND RACISM" Political Access and Economic Opportunity SEGREGATION in schools and housing were signs of caste; denial of the right to vote and of economic opportunity constituted the basis of caste. Votes and jobs were at the heart of a better life for Mrican-Americans. Without them, decent schools, housing, and access to good public accommodations would be out ofreach, whatever the laws said about segregation. As discussed in chapter 10, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had spectacular success in destroying grandfather clauses, literacy tests, poll taxes, and other devices long used to keep Mrican-Americans from voting. So extraordinary was the success ofthe Voting Rights Act that by 1981-1982, the spread between black and white registration in Georgia was only 2.8 percent, in South Carolina 3.2 percent, in Virginia 7.2 percent, and in Mississippi 9.4 percent.l So successful was the act in enfranchising Mrican-Americans in the early 1970S that Mexican-Americans, who were not covered (as noted, classified as white by the Census Bureau, except in 1930), and who had sometimes been kept from the polls in Texas and other areas of the Southwest by intimidation, argued that they, too, needed special protection . As a result ofa strong lobbying effort by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and allied groups, Congress passed amendments to the Voting Rights Act in 1975 extending coverage to counties throughout the nation where more than 5 percent of the voting-age population constituted a language minority group, where only English ballots had been used, and where the voter turnout had been under 50 percent in the previous presidential election. The underlying premise was that in such jurisdictions members ofnon-English-speaking groups (mainly MexicanAmericans ) had suffered discrimination. As a result, Texas, Arizona, and Alaska and several counties in California and in other states were brought under the provisions of the act.2 Counting by Race and Equal Rights in Politics Leaders of both African- and Mexican-American groups argued that access to the polling booth did not translate into power unless members 42S 426 PLURALISM, PUBLIC POLICY, CIVIC CULTURE of minority groups could ensure election of persons of their own kind. Once again the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights mobilized a strong lobbying effort in Congress; in 1982 additional amendments to the Voting Rights Act were passed that made it possible for black or other minority plaintiffs to challenge any jurisdiction for engaging in electoral discrimination ifelection results showed that the number ofblacks, Mexican -Americans, or other minorities elected were not commensurate with the overall population proportions in a city, county, or other jurisdiction. Congress validated a system of counting by race on the basis of a radically new theory of representation, that electoral districts should be designed or redesigned in order to promote the election ofpersons from designated minority groups. It would no longer be necessary for plaintiffs to prove discriminatory intent on the part ofthose who had designed the electoral districts, as the U.S. Supreme Court had decided in a 1980 case; it would be enough to show that Mrican- or Mexican-Americans were not getting elected.3 The intent standard, by which plaintiffs were required to prove that an at-large election system had been adopted or maintained for a racially discriminatory purpose, was not controversial, but had not been easy to demonstrate.4 The effects test was much easier to utilize since it was based on statistics. With blacks holding only 1.2 percent of the elective offices in the U.S. and constituting 10.5 percent of the voting-age population in 1985, hundreds of jurisdictions were vulnerable to challenge under the effects test.5 Even before the 1982 amendments, the Court had ruled in 1975 that in drawing up a reapportionment plan a state might count by race to ensure that Mrican-Americans and other nonwhites had majorities in certain legislative districts. The Voting Rights Act of1965 called for clearance by the U.S. attorney general of any plan to redistrict jurisdictions covered by the act. When New York State was obliged to redraw its state legislative districts, the attorney general raised questions about the plan submitted as insufficient to guarantee equal voting rights for blacks, whereupon the state redrew the district lines on the premise that a 65 percent nonwhite population would be needed to obtain the approval of the attorney general as a sufficient number likely to promote the election of a...

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