Notes
Notes NOTES TO INTRODUCTION 1. We say “mostly,” because there were black elected officials in the 1960s, including two mayors in the state of Ohio, not to mention formal, nonprotest political events such as the Gary Convention of 1972, among others. 2. Rawlings passed away on November 21, 2003. 3. “Crediting Rawlings’ Non-Nonsense Approach,” by Karin Chenoweth, Washington Post, January 17, 2002, p. 6. 4. Such a sentiment is not new. Katherine Tate makes a parallel point with respect to African American mass participation in her superb and aptly titled book, From Protest to Politics (1994). 5. For the purposes of consistency, throughout the book we use “African American (s)” to modify or refer to masses (e.g., constituents, voters, citizens, interests), but “black” when referring to elites (e.g. legislators, party leaders, bureaucrats, caucuses ). Though the adjective/noun “African American” is more contemporary, using “black” is more than appropriate, given the fact that state legislative black caucuses and the National Black Caucus of State Legislators tend to use this adjective for self-identification. 6. Relevant works are too numerous to list here, but notable books include Mary and Thomas Edsall’s Chain Reaction (1992); Michael Oni and Howard Winant’s Racial Formation in the United States (1994); Kenneth O’Reilly’s Nixon’s Piano (1995); and Hanes Walton’s African American Power and Politics (1997). 7. There are curious parallels between the efforts of contemporary new federalist advocates and the actions taken by President Andrew Johnson during Reconstruction. 8. “Crossing the State Lines: States Brace to Handle Welfare Reform and Black Legislators Are Ready to Safeguard Their Constituents’ Interests,” interview with Betsy M. Peoples, Emerge, November 30, 1996, p. 34. 9. Ibid., p. 34. 10. That is, we are keenly aware that “sitting at” the table (i.e., empowered with the ability to vote on a predetermined public policy agenda) is dramatically different 239 from “setting” the table (i.e., empowered with the power to affect either the listing of items on a public policy agenda or the order by which such items will be debated). Given this reality of politics, enhanced numerical presence without concomitant institutional power translates into a diminished ability to affect decisions. In this regard, race and institutions matter; points we explore in subsequent chapters. 11. Except for recently elected Senator Barack Obama, and Carol Moseley Braun’s lone term, the electoral ceiling effectively remains the U.S. House of Representatives. Some scholars (e.g., Walters 1988; Walton 1997c) claim African American political participation translates into presidential influence in other ways, such as the appointment of African Americans to prominent administration positions or policy change; President George W. Bush’s two secretaries of state, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, are notable examples. But these examples only reinforce our point that the House electoral ceiling persists. NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 1. Throughout the book we use “African American” to refer to the masses (e.g., voters, citizens, residents, electorates or communities), though we recognize that there is no monolithically shared notion of “community” interests. We use the term “black” to refer to elites (i.e., elected and appointed officials, bureaucrats) as often they do in organizational names (i.e., the Congressional Black Caucus, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, Blacks in Government, Black Affairs Advisory Committee of the Social Security Administration). 2. Unfunded mandates are regulations imposed on state governments and local governments to administer programs for which states receive no reimbursement from the federal government. Together, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995— which allows members of Congress to stop any uncompensated mandate estimated at greater than $50 million by a point of order—and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, granted states an unprecedented level of discretionary authority over public policies in contemporary politics. 3. We use terms like “black interest/s” and “black politics” to refer to the combined interests of the African American communities and black elites. This understanding reiterates the perspective of eminent scholar and former president of APSA Lucius Barker regarding black politics from a disciplinary perspective as “the systematic examination of the nature, structure, and operation of the political system that facilitates , impedes or affects the realization of the democratic promise.” On a more programmatic level, however, black politics can be understood as those activities taken by constituents and elites aimed at promoting the actualization of policies congruent with black policy preferences. Our study utilizes these two approaches to black politics and therefore...
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