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Political Parties – Question 6
Question for Matt S, Courtney T, and Erica W. The rest of the chapter gives a history of elections (up till the text was written) and the fortunes of the two parties in those elections. The trends are all Republican. After Fritz Hollings retired from the U.S. Senate, the state elected a second Republican Senator, Jim DeMint, to go along with Lindsey Graham (who replaced Strom). Four of the state’s U.S. Representatives are Republican and today all Constitutional Officers, with the exception of State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex are Republican. Perhaps of most importance is the make-up of the legislature, because in South Carolina the legislature is the most powerful political body. Table 13 in the text is particularly revealing. In 1971 practically no Republicans were in the legislature. By 1991 the Democrats still had a strong majority on both houses. But by 2001 Republicans had majorities in both houses. To update, the numbers have remained pretty steady but slowly trending Republican. In 2007 the House is 74 Republicans and 52 Democrats and the Senate is 26 Republicans and 20 Democrats. So most of the change took place in the 1990s. Part of that is due to changes in voter preferences, but part is also due to redistricting. Here is the question. Explain how redistricting helped both Black Democrats and white Republicans in the 1990s.
4 comments:
Both democrats and republicans had more representation electorally. Democrats seemed to have benefited a lot from redistricting because black voters were spread around to create a virtually guaranteed pool of votes. Republicans benefited as well. They won four districts away from the Democrats as a result of racial redistricting in 1992.
In South Carolina during the 1990s whites and blacks from the General Assembly decided to start redistricting. Following the 1990 census the GA decided to redistrict, but 18 African American Democrats and 52 white Republicans came up with a plan to have nine majority black districts that came from white districts. The crucial part of this plan was that for every black democrat produced then two white Republicans were produced as well. The impact this had though was not good. Minorities were losing seats because of this redistricting. White Republicans were now taking the seats lost by African American voters, because African Americans were now voting less frequently. Hodges called this the creation of “super-majority white districts.” What this does for politics is that white politicians no longer have to concern themselves with minority issues. Then you have unequal representation and citizens deserve better than that.
Matt Spivey
Courtney did not quite get it and Matt did well except that blacks DID gain seats, but white Democrats lost seats and white Republican gained even more seats!
Bob B
Redistricting did not help Blacks. It appears that the only ones who benefited from the redistricting were the white republicans. They shuffled the voters around to benefit the republilcan party. Districts were minorites lived have a better chance at minority representation. If you re-dostrict then those voters will be placed ina district where their vote have as much weight. The Black politicans were also placed in a disadvantage. The new districts did not fairly represent them and vice verca.
Erica
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