Effects of the Voting Rights Act in Texas: Perceptions of County Election Administrators

Texas county election administrators view the Voting RightsAct negatively, but acknowledge that the act affects their decisionsabout election administration. The VRA is also seen as costlyand not contributing to citizen participation; however, onlya small percentage of the survey sample reported on here wouldeliminate the VRA. Although there is hostility expressed aboutfederal government intrusion in local affairs, there is compliancewith the VRA by local election officials. The number of Texassubmissions and U.S. Attorney General objections to electionchanges is sizable when compared with other states covered bythe VRA. Federal objections to some election law changes haveresulted in the election of minority public officials. Texas'Section 5 objections are evidence of a history of voter discrimination.     

Applying the Voting Rights Act in Houston: Federal Intervention or Local Political Determination?

Has the Voting Rights Act (VRA) provision requiring local boundarychanges to be precleared by federal officials to ensure minorityvoting strength been excessive national intervention, or haslocal political determination been retained? This question isexamined in Houston, Texas, where the VRA was the catalyst forthe reorganization of Houston's city council in 1979. At firstglance, the Houston case seems to suggest overt federal intervention.On closer examination, however, we found that council changewas born out of compromises among contending local groups. Federalofficials were active participants in the processes of change,but acted as rules interpreters and referees rather than asdirectors of change. Moreover, the application of the VRA inHouston did not result in less local autonomy; instead, it servedto increase the representation of minorities on the council,thus laying the foundation for a more pluralistic local system.     

The Voting Rights Act and Black Registration in Mississippi

The impact of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) on black registrationin Mississippi was dramatic. Black registration increased from28,500 in 1965 to 406,000 in 1984. The influence of the VRAon black registration, however, varied across Mississippi counties.The impact of the VRA was especially evident in counties havinga large number of unregistered blacks. The presence of a largenumber of unregistered blacks apparently stimulated a high levelof civil rights activity, which then provoked federal intervention.Nevertheless, blacks are registered at lower rates than whites;blacks are less likely to vote than whites; and blacks are lesslikely than whites to be elected to public office.     

Racial Vote Dilution: Impact of the Reagan DOJ and the Burger Court on the Voting Rights Act

Since passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the subsequentregistration of millions of minority voters, racially basedvoting discrimination has shifted from a strategy of vote denialto one of vote dilution. The VRA, especially Section 2 and 5,is the dramatic congressional effort to eliminate strategiesthat deny effective political participation to millions of citizens.However, the VRA has to be aggressively implemented by the U.S.Department of Justice (DOJ), and it has to be broadly validated,in concrete cases and controversies in federal courts, if itis to blunt the vote discrimination/dilution strategy. Whilethe Warren Court saw Section 5 as a radical but legitimate toolto end the perpetuation of voting discrimination, the BurgerCourt has seen Section 5 in less sweeping terms. And while theCarter administration DOJ aggressively supported minority plaintiffsin federal voting rights litigation brought under Sections 2and 5, the Reagan administration has redirected civil rightspolicy, including the methodology of implementing Sections 2and 5 of the VRA.     

"Conquered Provinces"? The Voting Rights Act and State Power

Congress will soon review key provisions of the Voting RightsAct (VRA). A perennial concern has been the act's effect onfederalism. In 1982, Congress amended the VRA both to preventdiscriminatory electoral outcomes and to enhance minority politicalpower. Since the 1990s, the Supreme Court has adjudicated theVRA in a way that limits states' use of race to protect thatpower. An informal alliance has since emerged between Congress,the Justice Department, states, and minority voters againstwhat they view as a retrogressive voting rights jurisprudence.This article will argue that Congress should restore state autonomyto use race as a remedial factor when districting by reaffirmingthe spirit and intent of the 1982 amendments.     

Violence and/or Nonviolence in the Success of the Civil Rights Movement: The Malcolm X–Martin Luther King,Jr. Nexus

Nonviolent mass protests are often considered as having been mainly responsible for the two major legislative gains of the Civil Rights Movement half a century ago—the 1964 Civil Rights Act (CRA) and the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). In this article, I argue that it was the combination of that course and the threat of violence on the part of African Americans that fully explain those two victories. A close reading of the texts and actions of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X is indispensable for my claim. The archival evidence, as well, makes a convincing case for the CRA, its proposal by the John F. Kennedy (JFK) administration and enactment by Congress. For the VRA, its proposal by the Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) administration and enactment by Congress, the evidence is more circumstantial but still compelling. The evidence reveals that for the threat of violence to have been credible, actual violence was required, as events in Birmingham, Alabama, demonstrate. Such violence, the “long hot summers” of the 1960s that began with Birmingham, probably aided and abetted subsequent civil rights gains—a story that has potential lessons for today’s struggles for social equality.     

College Enrollment and Completion Among Nationally Recognized High‐Achieving Hispanic Students

Hispanic high school graduates have lower college completion rates than academically similar white students. As Hispanic students have been theorized to be more constrained in the college search and selection process, one potential policy lever is to increase the set of colleges to which these students apply and attend. In this paper, we investigate the impacts of the College Board's National Hispanic Recognition Program (NHRP), which recognizes the highest‐scoring 11th‐grade Hispanic students on the PSAT/NMSQT, as a mechanism of improving college choice and completion. The program not only informs students about their relative ability, but it also enables colleges to identify, recruit, and offer enrollment incentives. Overall, we find that the program has strong effects on college attendance patterns, shifting students from two‐year to four‐year institutions, as well as to colleges that are out‐of‐state and public flagships, all areas where Hispanic attendance has lagged. NHRP shifts the geographic distribution of where students earn their degree, and increases overall bachelor's completion among Hispanic students who traditionally have had lower rates of success. These results demonstrate that college outreach can have significant impacts on the enrollment choices of Hispanic students and can serve as a policy lever for colleges looking to draw academically talented students.     

Repairing the Crack in New Orleans' Black Vote: VRA's Results Test Nullifies "Gerryduck"

In 1982, Section 2 of the U.S. Voting Rights Act was amendedto allow plaintiffs to prevail in voting rights litigation ifthey demonstrate that a challenged law or practice has a discriminatoryresult. One of the first applications of this new statutoryprovision invalidated a congressional districting plan for theNew Orleans metropolitan area, a plan that had divided the city'sblack population virtually in half. This article reviews boththe making and the unmaking of that plan, derisively known asthe "gerryduck." Although the judicial action invalidating thisexercise in racial cartography demonstrates the potential importanceof this new section of the VRA as a legal weapon against minorityvote dilution, the results test provides federal judges withenormous discretion, and the application of the test may thereforebe quite capricious.     

Strengthening Efforts to Engage the Hispanic Community in Citizen‐Driven Governance: An Assessment of Efforts in Utah

How can the Hispanic community in Utah strengthen its active engagement in government? Interviews by the authors with key government and community‐based organization representatives offer evidence on (1) who is being engaged in the Hispanic community, (2) what are the barriers to engagement, and (3) which modes of engagement are likely to be effective and under what conditions. Findings indicate that only a small elite in the Hispanic community is currently involved. Even for the elite, engagement is fairly superficial. Historical patterns characterize the Hispanic community limited interaction. The peculiar nature of Utah government also reduces their participation. Pragmatic lessons are drawn to enhance substantially improved partnerships, build comprehensive action plans, and strengthen government commitment to civic inclusion that transcend Utah and apply to diverse minority communities everywhere.     

Explaining race,poverty, and gender disparities in advanced course‐taking

We use panel data on Florida high school students to examine race, poverty, and gender disparities in advanced course‐taking. While white students are more likely to take advanced courses than black and Hispanic students, these disparities are eliminated when we condition on observable pre–high school characteristics. In fact, black and Hispanic students are more likely than observably similar white students to take advanced courses. Controlling for students' pre–high school characteristics substantially reduces poverty gaps, modestly reduces Asian–white gaps, and makes little dent in female–male gaps. Black and Hispanic students attend high schools that increase their likelihood of taking advanced courses relative to observably similar white students; this advantage is largely driven by minorities disproportionately attending magnet schools. Finally, recent federal and state efforts aimed at increasing access to advanced courses to poor and minority students appear to have succeeded in raising the share of students who take advanced courses from 2003 to 2006. However, secular trends (or spillovers of the policies to non‐poor, non‐minority students) have spurred faster growth for other students, contributing to widening demographic gaps in these years. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Hispanics, Social Security, and Supplemental Security Income

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that Hispanics are the country's largest and fastest growing minority, representing about 14.4 percent of the population in 2005 (Census Bureau 2006b). By 2050, Hispanics will account for an estimated 24.4 percent of the population--or 1 in every 4 persons in the United States (Census Bureau 2004, Table 1 a). The Hispanic population tends to be younger than the overall population and currently represents a relatively small but growing fraction of the Social Security beneficiary population. The representation of Hispanics in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, however, approximates that of their representation in the overall population. This article compares the Hispanic population with the overall population along several dimensions, with a particular focus on the Social Security beneficiary and SSI recipient populations. Data are drawn mainly from the 2005 Public Use Microdata Sample of the American Community Survey (ACS PUMS), a relatively new data source with a rich set of economic and demographic variables. Fully implemented nationwide for the first time in 2005, the ACS became the largest household survey in the United States with a sample of almost 3 million addresses. The analysis using the ACS finds that the Hispanic population is significantly different from the general population, particularly in the areas of age distribution, educational attainment, and economic well-being. Compared with the general population, the Hispanic segment is younger and is characterized by lower levels of educational attainment and a higher rate of poverty. The Hispanic Social Security beneficiary population also differs significantly from the general beneficiary population in the same areas. In contrast, the Hispanic and general SSI populations are more comparable with regard to age and economic status and differ significantly only with regard to education.     

Impacts of housing and mortgage market discrimination racial and ethnic disparities in homeownership

Abstract

There are persistent differences in homeownership rates across racial and ethnic groups. Homeownership rates for whites are over 20 percentage points higher than for blacks or Hispanics. This paper uses a model of the housing tenure decision to gain a better understanding of these racial and ethnic differentials in homeownership and employs a decomposition technique that has been applied to labor market discrimination to report the results of the empirical testing of two hypotheses: (1) race (ethnicity) influences the probability of ownership through differences in household endowments (income, education, age, gender, and family type) and market endowments (price and location); and (2) race (ethnicity) directly influences the probability of ownership through racial or ethnic discrimination and other factors that may be correlated with race or ethnicity.

We find endowment effects important in explaining the persistent racial and ethnic disparities in homeownership. In brief, logit analysis of 1989 American Housing Survey (AHS) national sample data reveals that 81 percent (78 percent) of the differences between the predicted probability of ownership between black and white households (Hispanic/non‐Hispanic) are due to differences in group endowments. Direct effects explain 19 percent of the black‐white differentials and 22 percent of the Hispanic/non‐Hispanic differentials. Because the direct effects are modeled as residual differences, it must be realized that the residual components could also be capturing the influence of important omitted or harder to measure variables internal to the market process and correlated with race or ethnicity. These include wealth, household location, employment history, credit history, and cultural predisposition toward homeownership.     

Acculturating Contexts and Anglo Opposition to Immigration in the United States

This article explores the impact of novel change in the ethnic composition of Americans’ local context on their attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy preferences. Adapting the “defended‐neighborhoods hypothesis” regarding residential integration and black‐white interracial relations to the context of immigration and intercultural relations, this article advances the acculturating‐contexts hypothesis. This hypothesis argues that a large influx of an immigrant group will activate threat among white citizens when it occurs in local areas where the immigrant group had largely been absent. This theoretical argument is explored within the context of Hispanic immigration and tested using national survey and census data. This article demonstrates that over‐time growth in local Hispanic populations triggers threat and opposition to immigration among whites residing in contexts with few initial Hispanics but reduces threat and opposition to immigration among whites residing in contexts with large preexisting Hispanic populations.     

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act: Implementation of an Administrative Remedy

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is an administrative remedythat has not been fully enforced to protect the voting rightsof minority citizens in those jurisdictions covered by the VRA.Failure to enforce Section 5 fully is the result of: (I) thestructure of the Section 5 review process, (2) the poor qualityof data received by the U.S. Department of Justice, and (3)the cursory analysis of data by the Equal Opportunity Specialists.What is needed to strengthen Section 5 enforcement is a strongpresidential commitment to protect the interests of minorityvoters. Reform of the Section 5 review process can only takeplace if the president places voting rights enforcement highon his political agenda.     

The Health Care Safety Net and the Affordable Care Act: Implications for Hispanic Immigrants

There are currently more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States; the majority of them are of Hispanic origin. This article shows that Hispanic immigrants in the Greater Richmond, Virginia, area rely heavily on free clinics for basic health care services. Free clinics do not receive any public funding and thus face reduced government regulation. As a result, these clinics typically present fewer barriers to undocumented immigrants seeking care. Although free clinics function outside the mainstream of government funding for health care services, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 is so broad and far‐reaching in its scope and potential application that free clinics cannot escape its grasp once the new law is fully implemented. Because the ACA does not provide insurance coverage to undocumented immigrants, free clinics will remain their primary sources of care and treatment. Consequently, those responsible for implementing the ACA should consider the impact on free clinics.     

Understanding the changing fortunes of metropolitan neighborhoods, 1980 to 1990

Abstract

This article develops a model that relates decadal changes in neighborhood poverty rates to metropolitan‐wide economic changes and the neighborhood's demographic profile, predetermined poverty rate, and locational characteristics. The model is estimated for the 1980–1990 period using metropolitan census tracts as proxies for neighborhoods. This national sample of tracts is stratified into predominantly white, African‐American, Hispanic, and mixed subsamples.

Results indicate that only a few variables consistently predict growth in neighborhood poverty: overall job availability; the age composition of neighborhood residents; the proportion of nonmarried households; and the neighborhood's 1979 poverty rate. Other variables have distinctly different coefficients depending on the racial‐ethnic subsample. These coefficients include segregation, welfare benefits, the location of manufacturing employment, and availability of automobiles. We conclude that studies that focus solely on African‐American poverty neighborhoods fail to recognize common patterns across all neighborhoods and to discern unique features of neighborhoods inhabited predominantly by non‐African Americans.     

Implicit Attitudes,Explicit Choices: When Subliminal Priming Predicts Candidate Preference

Citizens are asked to make many judgments in politics, often in the face of scarce information and limited motivation. In making political judgments, citizens may rely upon a variety of cues, including the partisanship, ethnicity, race, or sex of candidates. Some cues, however, are more democratically troublesome than others. Democratic norms of equality suggest that attitudes towards racial or ethnic groups should not influence citizens’ evaluations of candidates. Often, however, attitudes towards these groups do matter. This article identifies a limiting condition on the effect of group attitudes: the presence of a party cue. I demonstrate that attitudes towards Hispanics influence willingness to support a Hispanic candidate, but only in the absence of a party cue. The article also contributes to existing work by analyzing both explicit and implicit measures of attitudes towards groups. Explicit measures include stereotypes and feeling thermometers; implicit measures are derived from a subliminal priming task. Subjects with positive attitudes towards Hispanics (whether these attitudes were measured implicitly or explicitly) were more likely to support the Hispanic candidate, in the absence of party cues. Subjects with negative attitudes towards Hispanics were less likely to support the Hispanic candidate, in the absence of party cues. The presence of party cues, however, eliminates the impact of attitudes towards Hispanics on political choice.

Information Shocks and the Take‐Up of Social Programs

The causes of participation in social programs have been studied extensively, with prominent roles found for program rules and benefits. A lack of information about these programs has been suggested as a cause of low participation rates among certain groups, but it is often difficult to distinguish between the role of information sharing and other features of a neighborhood, such as factors that are common to people of the same ethnicities or socioeconomic opportunities, or uniquely local methods of program implementation. We seek to gain new insight into the potential role of information flows by investigating what happens when information is disrupted. We exploit rich microdata from Florida vital records and program participation files to explore declines in Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) participation during pregnancy among foreign‐born Hispanics in the “information shock” period surrounding welfare reform. We identify how the size of these reductions is affected by having a high density of neighbors from the same place of origin. Specifically, we compare changes in WIC participation among Hispanic immigrants living in neighborhoods with a larger concentration of own‐origin immigrants to those with a smaller concentration of own‐origin immigrants, holding constant the size of the immigrant population and the share of immigrants in the neighborhood who are Hispanic. We find strong evidence that having a denser network of own‐origin immigrants mediated the information shock faced by immigrant women in the wake of welfare reform.     

THE EXCLUSION OF ILLEGAL HISPANICS IN AGENDA-SETTING: THE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND CONTROL ACT OF 1986

In November of 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, designed primarily to control illegal Hispanic residents was signed into law. The new policy as implemented failed to remove, via legalization, illegal residents residing within the United States. The perspectives of Hispanic organiza- tions and 594 illegal residents were collected and evaluated to ascertain those variables that may have served to negate this public policy. The utilization of a subsequent qualitative and discriminant analysis indicated that the exclusion and/or lack of consideration given the perspectives of policy targeted groups and individuals in agenda setting, adversely affected the efficacy of the policy-making process, and thus, the laws it creates.     

A new barrier to participation: Heterogeneous application of voter identification policies

In democratic societies there is a tension between maximizing ballot access and minimizing voter fraud. Since the 2000 presidential election, this tension has been central to discussions about election reform at the national, state, and local level. We examine this tension by focusing on the implementation of voter identification laws in one state that has experienced significant issues in recent elections, and that is currently implementing election reform: New Mexico. We hypothesize that Hispanic voters are more likely to show some form of identification than other types of voters. Using a voter data set from New Mexico's First Congressional District in the 2006 election, we find that Hispanic, male and Election Day voters are more likely to show some form of identification than non-Hispanic, female and early voters. In addition, using an overlapping study of Bernalillo County 2006 poll workers, which almost entirely overlaps with the First Congressional District, we find no evidence that differences in poll worker partisanship or ethnicity produce differences in voter identification procedures. Our findings suggest that broad voter identification laws, which may be applied unequally, may be perceived as discriminatory.