Fair Representation in North Carolina
Douglas J. Amy
Many of the arguments against the
elongated, many-sided 12th congressional district in North Carolina are based on its
shape, described by opponents as "odd" or "bizarre." Its shape does
clearly deviate from what some propose as the ideal district shape : a neat, compact
geographical district, preferably drawn along the lines of political subdivisions.
An aura of tradition surrounds this ideal
of compact districts. Such districts are commonly thought of as "natural" and
"desirable," and some believe that their creation should be one of the highest
goals in districting decisions. This approach to districting often is justified by three
types of assertions: (1) that compact districts are politically neutral; (2) that compact
districts do a good job of representing a homogeneous set of political interests; and (3)
that voters' political identities are closely tied to geographical areas.
But once we begin to examine these
standard justifications for compact districts, they do not hold up to close scrutiny.
Indeed, compact districts often may do a very poor job of representing the interests of
voters. The ultimate purpose of districting must be to enhance the representation of
interests. But there is no necessary correlation between these interests and any
particular district shape. As a result, the compactness of a district is a flawed measure
of the adequacy or fairness of representation. In the end, the criterion of compactness
should bow to the higher value of ensuring a fair opportunity for representation of
minority voters.
The Myth of "Neutral" Compact Districts
One of the main reasons that compact
geographical districts are celebrated is that they appear to be politically neutral. In
particular, the plaintiffs in the Shaw v. Hunt case against the North Carolina districts
portray compact districts as being "race-neutral" or "color-blind." In
contrast, the 12th congressional district is portrayed as race-based and designed to
further certain political interests. But while the latter is true, the former is not.
Compact
districts are not politically or racially neutral and they also inevitably promote a
certain specific set of interests.
As a matter of principle, constructing
racially or politically neutral districts is an impossible goal to achieve in
single-member districts -- even those drawn according to traditional criteria like
compactness. All compact districts will be politically biased and work to further some
interests over others.
The reason is simple: these districts are
single-member districts and as such they function to represent only the interests and
views of one part of the electorate: the majority of the voters who elect that district's
representative. The minority of voters who support the losing candidate or candidates are
thus left with no effective representation of their interests. Although winning candidates
inevitably claim to represent everyone in a district, they in fact work to promote
policies that many people in that district strongly oppose.
The particular minorities that go
unrepresented will vary from district to district. In one district, it may be a rural
minority outvoted by an urban majority; in another it may be a Republican minority
outvoted by a Democratic majority or a black minority outvoted by a white majority. But in
all of these cases, it is the majority interest only that is represented. In actuality,
then, there are no politically "neutral" districts that do not distort
representation in some way. And this is true irrespective of whether the districts are
drawn to be compact or not.
Given the inherent majoritarian political
bias in all districts, it is misleading to argue that an attempt to draw more compact
congressional districts in North Carolina would be a "race-neutral" effort. In
practice, this effort would favor the interests of the white majority and work to the
disadvantage of the black minority in the state.
Indeed, it is the political and racial
imbalance produced by using this approach to districting in the past that necessitated the
need to draw the oddly-shaped 12th district in the first place. So the choice in North
Carolina is not between race-based districts and race-neutral ones; the choice is between
drawing districts in which only whites are represented (a form of race-consciousness) and
drawing districts that allow some representation for blacks as well.
The illusion of "race neutral"
districts persists in part because it is sometimes difficult to discern any racial
intentions in the boundary lines of compact geographical districts. How could a simple,
square district be biased? The problem with this belief, of course, is that it focuses on
the political intentions of the line-drawers and blithely ignores the political effects of
these districts.
Such districts clearly have racially
biased effects, irrespective of the intentions underlying the line drawing. Indeed, it can
be shown that even if compact districts were drawn with no intentions at all -- that is,
were drawn by a computer in a completely random manner -- that the effect would still be
to underrepresent racial and ethnic minorities.
As Bernard Grofman has commented,
"blind districting is extremely unlikely to give rise to proportional results."
He calculated, for instance, that with completely random districting for the U.S.
Congress, "an 11% black population minority could only expect to get 1.5% of the
seats on average."
It should be understood that the fact that
districts are not political or racially neutral -- that all districts promote some
interests over others -- is an inherent and unavoidable characteristic of the
single-member district system we use to elect members of the U.S. House of
Representatives.
This system is simply not designed to
represent fairly all interests in a particular district. The basic purpose of elections is
to produce a legislature that accurately mirrors the variety of views and interests of the
electorate -- that is what democracy is all about. But single-member districts are
designed to represent only part of the electorate: the majority of people in a given
district.
As noted above, all of these single-member
districts -- no matter how they are drawn -- will inevitably leave minorities in these
districts unrepresented. Moreover, as political scientists have long known, single-member
district elections tend to produce a legislature that is misrepresentative -- a body that
over-represents majorities and underrepresents minorities. It is this misrepresentative
nature of single-member district elections that necessitated the creation of
majority-minority districts to remedy the underrepresentation of minorities in the U.S.
The basic unfairness and
unrepresentativeness of our single-member district election system is much of what
underlies the complaints of the plaintiffs in the Shaw case. As white citizens,
they feel they will go unrepresented in a district with a black majority. And this may be
the case. But it is a mistake to see this circumstance as an argument against the creation
of districts to ensure minority electoral opportunity.
In reality it is an argument against the
single-member district system in general. Merely changing how the single-member district
lines are drawn would not necessarily guarantee representation for the plaintiffs. The
plaintiffs could go unrepresented in any single-member district, even a compact one, and
even in a majority white district. For example, the plaintiffs could be Democrats in a
predominantly white, Republican district.
The potential to go unrepresented is
present in every single-member district, irrespective of how it is drawn. It should be
emphasized, however, that the danger of going unrepresented is particularly acute for
blacks where, as in North Carolina, there is persistent racially polarized voting. Such
voting patterns, which seriously cripple electoral opportunity for blacks wherever they
are in a minority, know no geographic or geometric boundaries.
The abolition of race-based districts
would not solve the problem of the injustice of district minorities going unrepresented.
It would only ensure that blacks are one minority that consistently is submerged in these
North Carolina congressional districts.
Logically, the most effective solution is
a districting approach which eliminates the problem of minority underrepresentation in
general -- an approach that ensures all groups fair representation. The only realistic way
to do this is to abandon single-member districts and move to a multi-member district,
proportional representation election system.
Proportional representation (PR) elections
are the most common form of elections in Western democracies in large part because they
guarantee fair representation for political, racial, and ethnic minorities -- and do so
without having to create special minority-dominated districts. PR systems use large,
multi-member districts in which seats are distributed according to the percentage of the
votes received by a particular candidate or party.
Consider, for example, a district in which
ten legislative seats were being elected. If the Republican party were to receive 50% of
the vote in the district, it would receive five of the ten seats; 30% of the vote would
win three seats.
In such a system, minorities are
guaranteed fair representation no matter where they live in the district, and no matter
how the district lines are drawn. Indeed, the drawing of these large district lines no
longer have political implications because minorities in these districts cannot be shut
out of representation. As a result, reapportionment and redistricting in PR systems become
rather mundane, uncontroversial activities because they have such little impact on
representation.
PR would satisfy the interests of all
parties in the Shaw case. PR would ensure that blacks could have a fair opportunity
to elect representatives of their choice while at the same time it would not require the
creation of oddly-shaped or race-based districts in which white voters were submerged.
Thus, if the plaintiffs oppose race-based
districts like the 12th congressional district, and yet also do not want to return to
traditional districts that submerge the vote of blacks in white majorities, then the only
other viable option for them is to support the adoption of a PR system. Clearly, PR
elections would be the most simple and elegant way to ensure fair representation for
everyone in North Carolina.
While such remedies currently are not
authorized by Congress, there are no provisions in the U.S. Constitution that would
prohibit the use of PR elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. It is an
alternative remedy for minority vote dilution that deserves much more serious
consideration by the courts and all parties involved in voting rights cases. But as long
as alternative elections systems are not available in North Carolina, the only other way
to ensure fair representation for minorities is to design districts in which they are a
majority.
It is this fact that is recognized in the
Voting Rights Act and its amendments. Without the ability to design majority-minority
districts, racial and ethnic minorities would have little or no chance of achieving their
fair share of representation in our legislative bodies. By necessity, because minority
populations are sometimes not geographically concentrated, race-based districting will
sometimes result in oddly-shaped, non-compact districts. Especially in large congressional
districts, that may be the only way to capture enough minority votes to create a majority
in the district.
While such districts may be ugly
geographically, they are beautiful democratically -- because they work well to ensure that
minority voters have a meaningful opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. These
oddly-shaped districts may offend our sense of aesthetics, but their political effects
move much closer to our core democratic ideals and make our legislatures more
representative.
The Myth of Homogeneous Interests in Compact Districts
Another main justification offered for
giving compactness a high priority in districting is the belief that compact districts
represent natural and homogeneous communities of interest based on geographical proximity.
Critics of the 12th congressional district in North Carolina claim that its constituents
have little in common (except race) compared to the other more compact districts in that
state. There are several problems with this assertion.
First, the assumption underlying this
position is that regions themselves are somehow "regularly" shaped. This is
clearly not always true, as in North Carolina's Piedmont Crescent which stretches the
length of the state.
Second, it assumes that all the voters in
a particular geographical region share all the same interests. But this is not necessarily
true. People in a region do share certain limited interests -- such as an interest in
clean air or in particular economic development projects. At the same time, however, the
people in a region may be divided, sometimes deeply, over competing concerns and
interests.
This, unfortunately, is particularly true
in racially diverse communities and even more so when there is a history of discrimination
against racial groups. Moreover, people living in the same area often do not have common
opinions about pressing social, economic and political problems such as abortion, taxes,
welfare, affirmative action, free trade, gun control, crime, etc. Even when a district is
almost entirely rural or urban, there are still usually distinct political cleavages along
the lines of class, race, gender, and ideology. When regions are full of such diversity of
interests and political opinions -- as most are -- it makes little sense to insist that
geographical or geometric considerations be the primary basis for representation.
There are reasons to believe that
geographic representation may not be as important today as it was in the past. In colonial
times, many citizens were tightly bound to their geographical regions. Indeed, it would
not be unusual for a person to grow up, raise a family, and die within 20 miles of where
he or she was born. But that is not the case today.
Increasingly Americans are less tied to
and less identified with a particular geographic locality. According to the U.S. Census
Bureau, almost 20% of Americans move every year. 50% of the U.S. population changed
addresses between 1985 and 1989. As a result, when people identify themselves politically,
it often has less to do with their place of residence than with their particular
ideological or party preferences.
As argued by journalist Hendrik Hertzberg,
"The ties that bind are no longer just the ties of propinquity. The communities that
count are communities of interest or belief -- communities that are at least as likely to
be national as local. Ideology, profession, class, even racial and sexual identity --
those are the soil our roots grow in now, as much as or more than where we live."
In other words, for the purpose of
representation, it may make little sense to group together people by geography. Instead,
they should be grouped together by the political interests by which they define
themselves. In the Supreme Court's decision in Shaw v. Reno, Justice O'Connor
questioned the legitimacy of districts that link together people who "may have little
in common with one another but the color of their skin." But a better question to ask
is whether it makes sense to have districts that link together people who may have little
in common with one another but the place in which they live?
Again, this is not to suggest that there
are not some valid regional interests that deserve representation. The point is that these
are not the only interests or the most important interests deserving representation; and
that the primacy given to compact geographical districting only ensures that some other
interests are not fully represented.
If the accurate and fair representation of
competing interests is the goal of elections, then these interests -- not just traditional
geographical considerations -- need to be taken into account in the districting process.
Indeed, it is this logic that underlies the creation of majority-minority districts to
ensure that minorities have a fair chance to be represented in our legislatures.
To underscore this point, it is useful to
note that other Western democracies do not put the primary emphasis on geographical
representation that we do here in the United States. Most of these other countries use
different election systems (usually PR elections systems) that allow for the
representation of a variety of interests: geographical, ideological, ethnic, etc. This is
done by creating large, multi-member districts, in which several members of the
legislature are elected in proportion to the vote received by particular parties.
PR systems recognize that geography is but
one basis for representation and that citizens should be allowed to group themselves
together in other ways to win representation. In the preference voting form of PR (a form
already used in the U.S.), citizens can vote for a particular candidate because of his or
her place of residence, or ideology, or gender, or race, etc. In this way, citizens form
"voluntary constituencies" that come together on the basis of a variety of
political criteria to elect particular candidates.
In contrast, our current single-member
district system forces a certain kind of representation on voters -- it presumes that
geography is what matters most -- while PR allows voters to be represented in the ways
they feel most appropriate. This is another reason why PR has become the most common and
popular election system among Western democracies, and another reason why it deserves more
careful consideration here in the United States.
Conclusion: Fairness Over Compactness
The ideal of compact districts
persists largely as a matter of political habit and tradition, not because it actually
enhances the process of representation. The usual justifications for emphasizing
compactness in districting do not stand up to critical scrutiny. As shown above, such
districts are not "race-neutral" and they actually do a poor job representing
all the voters in a district. Moreover, supporters of compact districts assume that voters
in such districts have homogeneous interests and that geographical considerations play a
central role in people's political lives -- neither of which is usually true.
As the standard justifications for the
importance of compact geographical districts are not persuasive, the creation of such
districts should not be given the highest priority in the districting process. When
necessary, the criterion of compactness must yield to the goal of enhancing the process of
representation -- in this case, the specific goal of ensuring a fair opportunity for
representation of racial and ethnic minorities traditionally shut out of the political
process in North Carolina congressional elections.
The notion of sacrificing compactness to
higher democratic goals is in fact not a new one. For example, by insisting on the goal of
equal populations in districts, the courts have given this a higher priority over
maintaining compactness. The result has been the creation of districts that are not
particularly compact and that often violate the traditional lines of political
subdivisions.
But the courts have found those districts
to be acceptable because they further the more important goal of establishing districts of
equal population. The logic in the Shaw case is similar: the traditional criterion
of compactness should yield to the higher good of enabling racial and ethnic minorities to
have a fair chance to elect officials to represent them.
Douglas Amy is a professor of politics
at Mount Holyoke College. He wrote Real Choices, New Voices: The Case for Proportional
Representation Elections in the United States (Columbia University Press, 1993).