Racial Redistricting

How did Mississippi attempt to thwart the election of black officials even after African Americans gained access to the ballot?

What did the Supreme Court decide in Allen v. State Board of Elections?   Why was a broad interpretation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act crucial to overcoming Mississippi's massive resistance strategy?

What type of districts elect African-American and Latino representatives?   What factors can raise or reduce the percentage of blacks needed for a district to be likely to elect a black representative?  Similarly, what factors make it more or less likely that a district elects a Latino to Congress?

What is the relationship between the percentage of blacks in a congressional district and the responsiveness of the representative to black concerns?

Why did racial redistricting harm the Democrats, and black substantive representation, in Alabama, but not in North Carolina in 1992?  More broadly, why did racial redistricting undermine Democratic prospects in some states, but not others?

Republicans have been making steady gains throughout the South over the past two decades.  Explain why growth in the number of southern Republicans might actually make it easier for blacks to win election from some white majority districts.

North Carolina General Assembly Geography and Representation Site This site has maps of current and past state legislative and congressional redistricting plans used in North Carolina, including the now-famous Twelfth District attacked by the Supreme Court in Shaw v. Reno and Shaw v. Hunt.

Virginia Division of Legislative Services has a great site that allows you to examine redistricting plans.  The Republican-controlled legislature has already passed its plans for Congress and the state legislature.  Do you think any of the districts could be challenged under the Shaw standard as being too strangely shaped with race playing too great a factor in the shape of the districts?

Texas Legislative Council Redistricting Services Check out the current state legislative and congressional redistricting plans for Texas at this site.  Click on RedViewer in order to see old and alternative proposed plans.

The Florida House has an excellent redistricting site that has great maps of past and future state legislative and congressional redistricting plans.  As in Virginia, the new plans were adopted by a Republican controlled state legislature.

Other states, including Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, South Carolina, Washington State, Wisconsin, and Wyoming have redistricting sites. 

FindLaw, Internet Legal Resources You can look up Supreme Court decisions on redistricting, and other topics, here.  Some of the more important cases include South Carolina v. Katzenbach, Allen v. State Board of Elections, Thornburg v. Gingles, Shaw v. Reno, and Miller v. Johnson.

The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the American University. If you have any questions about this page, please email David Lublin at dlublin@american.edu. This page was last updated on August 21, 2002.