Race, Ethnicity, and the Politics of City Redistricting: Minority-Opportunity Districts and the Election of Hispanics and Blacks to City Councils

Notes

N o t e s C H A P T E R O N E 1. With the right to cast ballots secure, most voting-rights advocates have advanced the single-member district election format as the preferred remedy for minority vote dilution under the at-large format (Barker 1994). For the limitations of the single-member district as a remedy for the dilution of the voting strength of several minority groups in multiethnic cities, see Reed (1993), Macchiarola and Diaz (1993a, 1993b, 1993c), and Mollenkopf, Olson, and Ross (2001, 51–62). 2. Sloan 1969; Campbell and Feagin 1975; Karnig 1976; Jones 1976, 1979; Robinson and Dye 1978; Taebel 1978; Davidson 1979; Latimer 1979; Berry and Dye 1979, especially 113–22; Karnig and Welch 1980, 79–83, 1982; Davidson and Korbell 1981, 992–98; Vedlitz and Johnson 1982, 733–34; Mundt and Heilig 1982, 1046; Heilig and Mundt 1984, 62–64; Engstrom and McDonald 1981, 1982, 1986, 1987; Ball 1986, 30–33; Teasley 1987; Brouthers and Larson 1988; Welch 1990; McDonald and Engstrom 1992; Moncrief and Thompson 1992; Burton et al. 1994, 217–25; Renner 1999; Walawender 1999; for county level see Bullock 1994; Burton et al. 1994; McDonald et al. 1994; Keech and Sistrom 1994; Sass and Mehay 1995; for school boards see Stewart, England, and Meier 1989; Hill and Redix-Smalls 2002; for a discussion of SMDs enhancing the election of a white minority see Haeberle 1997, 287–89. 3. Gay (2001) finds that the election to Congress of a black descriptive representative may decrease the voting participation of whites while only slightly increasing the voting participation of blacks. 4. Parent and Stekler (1985, 221) note that the black community may not be homogeneous; class stratification within the black community raises the potential for political divisions (see also Canon, Schousen, and Sellers 1996, especially 849–50; Johnson 2002, 131–35). 5. The city council in some cities is elected by a combination of both at-large designated seats and single-member district designated seats. Thus, a “mixed” format. 6. See, for example, Brace et al. 1988; Grofman and Handley 1989b; Grofman, Handley, and Niemi 1992, 118; Hudson 1998, 153–54; Kirksey v. Board of Supervisors of Hinds County, Mississippi, 554 F.2d 139, 1977; United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh v. Carey, 430 U.S. 144, 1977; Ketchum v. Byrne 740 F.2d 1398 7th Cir. Ct. of Appeals, 1984; Barnett v. City of Chicago 97–2792 7th Cir. Ct. of Appeals, 1998. 1 2 5 C H A P T E R T W O 1. The presence of blacks on governing bodies at the local level is higher in the South than elsewhere. This is explained by the regional difference in the percentage of cities that have substantial black populations. Among nonsouthern cities with at least 10 percent black population, about 8 percent have a black population above 40 percent. This contrasts with the South, where 20 percent of such cities exceed 40 percent black population (Grofman and Handley 1989a, 272–74). The assumption is that a larger black population is conducive to the election of black candidates. Substantially more southern cities with a minimum threshold of blacks have a black population large enough to elect candidates of choice. 2. By adjusting the number of councilmanic seats within a single-member district system, a threshold of exclusion can be manipulated to exclude smaller groups (Engstrom 1987). The threshold of exclusion is the minimum percentage of the electorate that a group must constitute in order to have a numeric opportunity to elect a candidate of choice, given the “worst case” assumptions about the behavior of the other voters. In this case a six-seat council excludes all groups that constitute 10 percent or less of the entire citywide population. C H A P T E R T H R E E 1. Rogerson and Yang (1999, 27) suggest that the identification of a city’s maximal number of majority-minority districts is an “analytical” matter divorced from the more “complex” problems of urban geography. 2. It has been argued that Shaw and its progeny steer away from embracing proportional representation for protected minorities that are spatially dispersed among nonminorities yet allow for race-conscious districting when minorities “live in distinct, easily identifiable clusters” (Forest 1995, esp. 104–05). 3. Massey and Denton (1988b) argue that segregation is a multidimensional phenomenon that includes five conceptually distinct facets. The relative eveness of a group’s distribution throughout the city may...