Western Washington University's Center for Law, Diversity and Justice, Fairhaven College, and the WWU Political Science Department will host a pair of presentations on Tuesday, Oct. 21 on topics with a common theme of elections and social justice.
Both events are free and open to the public, and are co-sponsored by the American Democracy Project; AS Civil Controversy, AS Social Issues and Western Votes.
The presentations, given by Professor Kareem Crayton of the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law, are:
- 12:30-2 p.m., Environmental Science 313 - "A New Day in Racial Politics: Understanding Bartlett vs. Strickland."
- 7-8:30 p.m., Communications Facility 115 - "Hopes and Fears of the 2008 Elections."
Kareem Crayton is an expert specializing on issues related to the intersection of law, politics, and race. His academic work explores redistricting, the political representation of racial minorities, and the emerging democracy in South Africa. At USC Law, he teaches Civil Procedure, Election Law and Comparative Constitutional Law. Crayton also holds an appointment in USC's Department of Political Science, where he teaches the undergraduate courses Civil Rights & Civil Liberties as well as The Politics of the American City. Crayton is also a principal research consultant on the design of a computer website, www.redistrictinggame.com, to educate the public about redistricting reform.
Crayton's graduate work focused on the legal and political effects of the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial "racial gerrymandering" cases on Southern legislatures and electorates in the 1990s. His political science dissertation, entitled "What's New About the New South," considered many of the empirical puzzles associated with these themes.
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Partisan politics play a huge role in how our elected officials are chosen. Race discrimination has a long history. Discriminatory practices spill into the fundamental structure of our electoral system. Redistricting is one such area where these discriminatory practices are rampant. They are rampant despite efforts by some law maker efforts to craft language to our laws that would mitigate for the inequities.
Dr. Crayton talked about some of the vote dilution schemes created to reduce the effectiveness of minority voting. This dilution is done by “cracking and “packing” districts in a way that prevents an “identifiable group” from representation. These practices have been challenged in the court. The courts have struggled with setting a fair white/minority voter ratio to help in the delineation of district lines.
Because of the effect of partisan and racial prejudices within the makeup of our elected bodies of government, finding a fair solution is very difficult. Although a 50/50 white/minority ratio may seem fair intuitively, there are many unstable variables. The primary variable Dr. Crayton talked about at the lecture was crossover votes. In other words, is a 43/57 split sufficient if there are enough crossover votes to the “identifiable group” with the 43? This question leaves lots of room for partisan interpretation.
From my perspective, there may be another unstable variable issue. Because of voter disillusionment and/or voter suppression, voter participation is lower for many demographics, in particular African Americans and Latinos. Even with a 50/50 population split, voter participation may skew the advantage to the white group.
There is no easy answer to the problem. With flexibility in the law, there is too much room for partisan interference. With rigidity, there may still be problems with partisan interference, but at least there would be less ambiguity. In my naïve and idealistic quest for a solution, I would be an advocate for a system that threw out district lines and picked candidates by a strict percentage of votes. In other words, if a state represents 100% and the democrat gets 30% of the vote, he or she gets that percentage of representation in the state. If the republican gets 25%, the republicans would get 25% representation. Any other party would also get representation if they achieved a pre-determined vote percentage threshold.
Obviously, there are no easy solutions and the issue will continue to keep our courts and law makers occupied. I will be interested in seeing how the courts and elected officials address these issues as the nation slowly becomes more tolerant and diverse. As our nation progresses socially, so too will the laws of our nation. We have made great strides in becoming a more tolerant society. To achieve equality and justice, further progress remains a crucial need.
I thought the orator was more engaging than the last speaker we saw as a class. This is no mark against the last speaker, but possibly the material was more catered to my personal interests. He was able to spell out exactly what he wanted to say and I believed his responses to questions from the audience were exceptional. Dr. Crayton was able to successfully explain the issue of gerrymandering as much as he could in a two hour presentation.
The topic itself was well presented. Dr. Crayton did tend to point out Republicans as perpetrators of gerrymandering, but did qualify that by also pointing out that Democrats gerrymander as well. There were good visuals that helped illustrate exactly how political parties redistrict states to stack the odds.
It is especially egregious to use the race card towards a political end. Such practices are common, but those in power do what they can to keep that power. We must all be careful when justifying our own actions, especially when putting our own ideas and needs above those of others. Neither Republicans nor Democrats should be allowed to monitor themselves unchecked. If there were only a feasible way to form bipartisan or nonpartisan committees with safeguards to have oversight on redistricting, but neither party would be willing to give up their potential power.
I enjoyed this speaker more than our last because I felt he was more specific and more detailed. This is an extremely complicated issue and it doesn’t help that both political parties seem to have a clear and opposing agenda in many specific situations. Both sides, if left unmonitored, would try to turn the rules to their favor.
This is obviously an incredibly difficult issue to decide. Cases are sometimes determined by looking at a census from several years prior, which can create inaccuracies. Also the court struggles to determine what the correct ratio of each ethnicity should be in each district. Obviously we can’t force a large amount of non-white voters into one district because then we have one district with say 80% blacks, and maybe two other districts with 60 or 70% white. But if you add up the total population of the area it’s 60% black and yet the Black population would most likely only get one representative of their choice. This is a dilution of votes.
A perfect system would one that obviously has completely proportional representation, but it is impossible to do with a constantly shifting population. But in a proportional representation there will still be inequalities
We have to do all of this without seeming to form boundaries based on race, which is essentially what we are doing and at the same time trying to prevent. What is the correct percentage of race that should be in each district? Should it be 33% Asian 33% black and 33% white? That would be an impossible district to create. Should it be 50% black and 50% white? That could create friction between the two sides or it could cause the two sides to work together.
This is a central issue in our country as minority populations, especially Hispanics, continue to rise. I don't know the solution and I don't really even know if there is a solution.
I really enjoyed hearing Professor Kareem Crayton speak both times, though I particularly enjoyed the detail he spent on his first presentation. It was fascinating to learn about a recent case, one that has yet to be decided, and the impact it could have on redistricting law. It was very clear that Crayton was extremely knowledgeable, and the way he answered audience questions in great depth was indicative of this. He raised really interesting questions in regards to how districts should be divided and in regards to what kind of influence race should play in the redistricting process. One thing that really struck me was how since blacks tend to vote Democratic, redistricting is pretty dramatically effected in a practical way because it’s possible to analyze how a district will vote on a racial basis, and how politics comes into play in regards to trying to get more votes for your party.
One of the aspects I particularly enjoyed from his later presentation was the “sweet tea” map he presented that dealt with voting trends in Virginia. It was really cool to me that political analysts could use something as basic as whether a McDonalds serves sweet tea as an indicator of whether the area would tend to vote Democratic or Republican.
In all, Crayton was one of the more interesting speakers I’ve heard in a while.
Dr. Crayton raised a lot of interesting questions for me, especially as I try to prepare myself for studying the Constitution and its relationship to the way our legislative process is established.
As I left the Environmental Science building last week, I was speaking with my dad and trying to explain the presentation. With federal/state regulations of voting not only coinciding, but conflicting, it seems virtually impossible to create a voting system to create some sort of equality. Even by creating judicial standards in cases like Bartlett v. Strickland, or Vieth V. Jubelirer, the states are still ultimately left to their own devices to make other decisions about redistricting, how to represent these districts, and how to promote voting to involve more underrepresented groups. If we consider that re-districting is usually arranged by the geography of the state, it must be considered that neighborhoods are usually constructed to include like incomes...and if certain demographics are limited by their education, (which leads to) employment...then there is still the potential tendency to racially divide.
Overall, very informative, interactive, and interesting!
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