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79 N.C. L. Rev. 1383 (2000-2001)
Drawing Effective Minority Districts: A Conceptual Framework and Some Empirical Evidence

handle is hein.journals/nclr79 and id is 1397 raw text is: DRAWING EFFECTIVE MINORITY DISTRICTS: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE BERNARD GROFMAN, LISA HANDLEY, AND DAVID LUBLIN* When applying the Voting Rights Act, courts and commentators alike have too often fixated on the distinction between majority-minority districts and majority-white districts, while paying relatively little attention to the likely electoral outcomes that any given districting plan will actually generate. In this Article, three political scientists provide a conceptual framework for predicting minority electoral success, taking into account the participation rates and voting patterns of minority and white voters, as well as incorporating the multi-stage election process (primaries plus general elections, and sometimes runoff elections). The Authors also analyze empirical election data to demonstrate how the model can be applied to address voting rights disputes. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1384 I. THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT AND EFFECTIVE MINORITY D ISTRICTS ................................................................................... 1386 II. THE POLITICAL SCIENCE DEBATE ON EFFECTIVE MINORITY DISTRICTS ................................................................ 1390 III. AN ANALYSIS OF MINORITY DISTRICTS IN THE SOUTH IN THE 1990S .................................................................................... 1394 A. Black Congressional Districts in the South ....................... 1394 B. Factors that Affect the Opportunity to Elect Minority- Preferred Candidates: Data from the U.S. House of * The listing of co-authors is alphabetical: Bernard Grofman, School of Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine, C.A.; Lisa Handley, Frontier International Electoral Consulting, Washington, D.C.; David Lublin, Department of Government, American University, Washington, D.C. This research was partially funded by grant 99- 6109, Program in Political Science, National Science Foundation (to Lublin) and grant SBR 97-30578 (to Grofman and Anthony Marley), Program in Methodology, Measurement and Statistics, National Science Foundation. Basic research for this Article was begun under an earlier grant to Grofman from the Ford Foundation. We are indebted to Clover Behrend and Annabel Azim for library assistance. Many of the ideas discussed in this Article, including the graphic representation of the formal model, originated in discussions between the co-authors and Sam Hirsch, an attorney with the Washington, D.C. office of Jenner & Block.

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