
          Drawing the Lines: A Reapportionment Primer
          By Sherman, BrianBrian Sherman
          Vol. 5, No. 5, 1983, pp. 12-18
          
          Reapportionment occurs, or at least should occur, every ten
years--when the results of the population census are released. Three
years after the 1980 census, some jurisdictions (states, counties,
municipalities) have not yet completed their reapportionment
plans. Other plans have become the subject of lawsuits which will take
many months to resolve. Groups such as the Voting Rights Project of
the Southern Regional Council have continued to review reapportionment
plans of state and local governmental bodies in the South, to assist
community groups who are fighting discriminatory plans and to develop,
upon request, alternative plans.
          Many jurisdictions in the South persist in using reapportionment as
a means to prevent blacks and other minorities from full political
participation. Blacks tend to be severely underrepresented at every
level of government. There are still many counties and cities where
blacks constitute a majority of the voting-age population but whose
elected officials remain all white.
          Most visibly, there are no black governors and no black
U.S. senators. Only two blacks--one from Texas, the other from
Tennessee--sit in Southern delegations to the House of
Representatives. Only 5.9 percent of the members of state legislatures
in the Old Confederacy are black, whereas the black population of
these states is 19.7 percent. Only forty-six municipalities, of all
sizes, in these 

states have black mayors. Invariably, blacks win
election only in jurisdictions or districts which are clearly majority
black and only after they have overcome various impediments placed by
established white power structures.
          In recent years, the major obstacle to black representation has
been white bloc voting in combination with either at-large or unfairly
apportioned election districts.
          In developing standards for enforcement of the Voting Rights Act,
the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) has come to recognize that, at
present, the only blacks will win representation is by election in
districts which are majority black. Consequently, DOJ has defined a
fair reapportionment plan as one in which the percentage of majority
black districts in a jurisdiction comes nearest to the percentage of
blacks in the population. If a county, for example, has a five-member
elected commission and a population which is 41.6 percent black, a
fair plan will provide for two of the five districts (forty percent)
to be majority black.
          The Department of Justice defines a "majority black district" as
one whose population is at least sixty-five percent black. This figure
takes into account the greater percentage of blacks than whites in a
jurisdiction's population who are under voting age and the fact that
blacks usually have lower registration and voting rates than
whites. These lower rates can be partially explained by the greater
number of blacks than whites who are poor. Poor people are less likely
to be able to leave work to register, less likely to have
transportation to distant registration and polling sites and less
likely to be members of special interest groups which have the money
to mobilize their members.
          In addition, the legacy of terror and oppression to which blacks
have been subjected is perpetuated by intimidation, threats and other
abuses. Many thwarting devices remain. Inaccessible registration sites
and polling places, uncooperative registrars, menacing poll-watchers,
discriminatory purges of the voting rolls and absentee ballot abuse
are some of the most frequent obstacles faced by blacks.
          Since 1965 all of six Southern states (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia) and parts of three others
(Florida, North Carolina, and Texas) as well as all of the counties
and municipalities in them, have been required by Section Five of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 to submit any proposed changes in any aspect
of the electoral process to the Department of Justice for preclearance. The jurisdiction must submit a
description of the planned change along with evidence to show that the
change will not discriminate against blacks or other minorities. If
Justice agrees, the change is precleared and can
go into effect; if it is considered discriminatory, the Assistant
Attorney General for Civil Rights will write an "objection letter"
informing the jurisdiction that the plan is not precleared.
          When a jurisdiction receives an objection letter, it should
withdraw the proposed change and offer a new, non-discriminatory, plan
to the Department of Justice. Ideally, blacks will be included in
discussions leading to the development of a new plan. They will
negotiate with white leaders to reach an agreement. Often a consensus
is arrived at because whites realize they will be vulnerable to a
lawsuit unless a fair plan is developed. Predictably, if a plan has
received the support of both blacks and whites in the jurisdiction,
Justice will preclear it.
          Often however, white leaders will refuse to negotiate with
blacks. Some jurisdictions make no changes even after receiving an
objection from Justice. Other jurisdictions don't even bother to
submit their plans for preclearance at all. In either case, the plan
goes into effect. Other than preclearing or objecting to plans, the
Department of Justice rarely takes an active role in the
reapportionment process. Local black leaders who have carefully
monitored the reapportionment process and find a proposed change to be
discriminatory often have to initiate litigation in order to stop a
discriminatory plan from going into effect.
          There are some three thousand jurisdictions in the South with
significantly large black populations. Even a Department of Justice
with officials at every level who are determined to enforce the Voting
Rights Act would have a difficult time assessing all of these plans
for discriminatory intent or effect. Their task is made more difficult
by the professionals (lawyers, demographers) often hired by
jurisdictions to prepare elaborate materials purporting to show that
the submitted plan is not discriminatory. Unless local black leaders
are aware of what the jurisdiction is doing and communicate with DOJ
directly or through civil rights groups, the Justice official assigned
to the case may see no reason to believe the plan may be
discriminatory. Having only sixty days to review the plan, the
official may find no justification for any other action besides
preclearance.
          The attitude of the President and the Justice Department is
critical. An obviously discriminatory plan may still be precleared if
the Justice Department has other things on its mind. This was the case
after the 1970 census when the Department, under the direction of
Attorney General John Mitchell, was more concerned with mobilizing
white support for Richard Nixon's reelection than with enforcing the
Voting Rights Act. Emblematic of the discriminatory plans which the
Nixon-Mitchell DOJ ignored was the Mississippi congressional
reapportionment plan which fragmented newly franchised black voting
strength in the Delta by dividing it among three districts. Equally
discriminatory plans were allowed to stand throughout the
South. Blacks continued to be underrepresented throughout the 1970s
and had to wait until after the 1980 census for their next opportunity
for electoral fairness.
          Supporters of fair reapportionment increased their 

political
sophistication and organization during the 1970s, hopeful of
implementing fair plans for the 1980 census. Unfortunately, in many
instances, Reagan and his appointees to the Department of Justice
displayed as little sympathy and understanding of fairness during
their first two years in office as had Nixon and his appointees.
          Early in 1983 however, the supporters of fair plans began to notice
a shift in the way Justice reacted to the submissions for
preclearance. The DOJ has written objections to a greater proportion
of the plans during the past year than in the previous two. Perhaps
the shift has come with Reagan's increasing awareness of claims that
he is sympathetic to the proponents of continued racism. Yet, some
fear that if Reagan is re-elected, he and his supporters will abandon
any attempt to appear sympathetic to the development of fair
reapportionment plans.
          
            A Gazetteer of Inequality
          
          A fair reapportionment plan is one which, following the "one
person, one vote" principle, gives every significant population group
the opportunity to elect representatives of its own choice. Each
district should contain more or less the same number of
people. Districts should be compact, with few twists and turns to
their boundaries. The perimeter of the ideal compact district might
resemble a square or a rectangle, or follow recognized boundaries such
as a major highway or river. It should be contiguous, not chopped into
more than one part (an example of a non-contiguous district is
Louisiana's St. Martin Parish in the south-central portion of the
state).
          The most common techniques used by incumbent white elites to
prevent the development of fair reapportionment plans are dilution, packing, gerrymandering, packaging and rationalization.
          Dilution fragments concentrations of black
residents into as many districts as possible so that no one district
has a sufficiently large black vote.
          Packing puts as many blacks as possible into
as few districts as possible. Packing often occurs when the white
power structure realizes that the proportion of blacks in a
jursidiction's population is so large that it will be impossible to
draw a plan without at least one majority black district.
          Gerrymandering distorts the shape of a
district, abandoning the ideal of compactness to create a district
whose voting majority supports the incumbent power-holders.
          Packaging is resorted to when a jurisdiction
that has developed an unfair plan tries to present it publicly and to
the Department of Justice in such a way as to fool potential
critics. Some jurisdictions hire specialists who put the plan in a
slick form--perhaps as a booklet with charts, tables, maps and other
details. Packaging may also include outright lying.
          Rationalization involves the submission of an
unfair plan while claiming that for some reason or other, it should be
accepted by the DOJ anyway. One form of rationalization argues that
the proposed plan uses districts which are already in place for
another purpose.
          The Department of Justice and the courts follow a number of
criteria in assessing whether or not a plan is fair. Included are retrogression, intent, effects and totality of
circumstances.
          Examining a plan for retrogression involves making a comparison to
see if the percentage of majority black districts in the proposed plan
is fewer than in the existing plan. If so, then the DOJ will
invariably object to it. In 1981 and '82, retrogressive plans were the
only form of discriminatory plans that the DOJ was likely to object
to. During the first two years of the Reagan Administration, the DOJ
precleared many proposed plans from jurisdictions which had no
majority black districts in their existing plans. As a result, blacks
in many jurisdictions with sizable black populations still do not have
the opportunity to elect any representatives of their choice. Barring
litigation, they will have to wait until after the 1990 census and for
a more sympathetic administration.

          The criterion of intent involves documentation of the intention to
develop a plan which discriminates against blacks. These days, only a
few politicians are as publicly bold as the chair of Georgia's
legislative reapportionment committee who vowed, during this past
year's congressional redistricting process, not to support the
creation of even one "nigger district" in the state.
          To demonstrate intent in the absence of blatant public
pronouncements requires documentation of a history of repeated
attempts to thwart minority groups' efforts for a fair plan. A case
for intent can be built out of such evidence as failure to hold public
meetings, failure to give serious attention to plans presented by
black community groups, failure to submit plans for preclearance and
the continued use of such devices as dilution and packing.
          It is much easier to establish that a proposed reapportionment plan
will have the effect of discriminating against
blacks than it is to prove intent. Until
recently, however, the DOJ did not consider this a sufficient basis
for requesting an objection. A narrow interpretation of the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 by the DOJ and many courts allowed the
implementation of many discriminatory plans after the 1970 census and
again, immediately after the 1980 census. When it was renewed in 1982,
the Voting Rights Act was strengthened to make it easier for Justice
to object to plans having discriminatory effects. And, throughout 1983
there has been a perceptible movement in the DOJ towards more frequent
objections on these grounds.
          The criteria of retrogression, intent and effect are all relatively specific in the data and
analysis they require: Are blacks worse off under the proposed plan
than they were under the existing plan? If so, then the plan is
retrogressive. Did designers intend a discriminatory plan? Will the
consequences of the plan be such that the black electorate will not
have fair representation? If yes, then the plan's effect may be
assessed as discriminatory.
          There is yet another criterion, not as specific as the preceding
three, but one that can be used to argue against unfair
plans. Designated by the legalistic term totality of
circumstances, this criterion involves a much more extensive
analysis of the lives and positions of blacks in the jurisdiction with
special attention to the nature of black participation in political
life. With regard to the plan itself, one can ask: Was there black
involvement in its preparation? Were discussions of the plan public?
Were blacks intentionally or unintentionally excluded from the
discussions? If blacks made public their criticisms of the plan, were
they taken seriously? More generally, one can ask: How have whites
responded to black efforts at increased political participation? How
have white leaders responded to black attempts to mitigate the effects
of the legacy of segregation and racism?
          Answers to many of these questions often come from the personal
archives kept by many blacks involved in struggles for fair
treatment. Their letters, leaflets, clippings, old maps, lists tables,
charts, etc., provide a wealth of details not only about their
particular situations "but about the operation of power in their
jurisdictions. Information from these archives along with interviews
and quantitative data from a variety of sources can be combined into a
powerful analysis of the level of local discrimination.
          
            Four Recent Cases
          
          Each of the following cases. all from 1983, involve a
reapportionment map submitted by a jurisdiction to the Department of
Justice for preclearance. In each, the Voting Rights Project of the
Southern Regional Counci1 consulted with a group of black citizens in
the jurisdiction who felt that the plan was discriminatory. We
gathered as much data as we could in preparation for a "comment
letter" in which we asked the DOJ to object to the plan. To show what
a fair reapportionment plan would look like, we also drew alternative
maps. In each of these cases, the DOJ did object to the jurisdiction's
changes.
          The four jurisdictions include Caddo and St. Helena parishes in
Louisiana, Williamsburg County in South Carolina, and Winston County
in Mississippi.
          
            Caddo Parish
          
          Caddo Parish is located in northwestern Louisiana. Over eighty
percent of its population lives in its largest city--Shreveport. The
parish submitted a plan for the reapportionment of its police jury
(analogous in structure and function to other states' county
commission) which was a textbook case of retrogression.
          Under the existing plan there are twenty members of the police
jury. Six, or thirty percent of them, are black. Under the proposed
plan, in which the police jury was to have shrunk to twelve members,
only two of the twelve districts or 16.7 percent were majority
black. A third district was almost, but not quite, majority
black. Even if this district were counted as majority black, the plan
would remain retrogressive (black representation declining from thirty
percent to twenty-five percent).
          White parish officials rationalized that their plan was identical
to a school board plan already precleared by Justice. Upon a closer
look, however, the school board plan appears to be retrogressive, too,
insofar as it doesn't provide for three well-defined majority black
districts. Also, the school board plan had been precleared early in
the Reagan Administration when the DOJ was not objecting as frequently
to discriminatory plans.
          There were other grounds for suspecting Caddo Parish's proposed
change in the police jury. The demographer hired by the parish to draw
and present the plan was president of a company which, according to
its own advertisement, had prepared reapportionment plans for many
other jurisdictions, including over half the parishes in Louisiana. He
was surely aware of the retrogression criterion and of the likelihood
of objection by the DOJ once it realized the plan was
retrogressive.
          The Voting Rights Project sent a letter to Justice with a
statistical analysis indicating the retrogressive effect of the
proposed plan. We also drew and sent an alternative, fair plan. Caddo
Parish is thirty-eight percent black. We argued that the fairest plan
would provide five majority black districts in a twelve district
plan. We showed that because Shreveport is so segregated, it is
possible to create six majority black districts, so there is no excuse

for Caddo Parish not to provide five.
          
            St. Helena Parish
          
          St. Helena is a rural parish northeast of Baton Rouge. It has a
six-member police jury and is slightly more than fifty percent
black. A fair plan should provide for three majority black
districts. Instead, the parish submitted a plan which provided for
only one majority black district. St. Helena did not hire a
demographer, but drew the plan on its own. Without a professional's
tricks, their proposed plan was transparently discriminatory. The
parish's white power structure packed the one majority black district
that they couldn't avoid drawing, adding to it a gerrymandered slice
from an adjacent district and hanging this slice, like a tail, down
from one corner (see accompanying map).
          In the comment letter which the Voting Rights Project wrote to
Justice, we analyzed this plan and some of the factors which helped
account for it. We found that the parish was run in a manorial style
by whites who held essentially feudal attitudes and committed rather
unsophisticated sins. A television reporter from nearby Baton Rouge
showed that some of the names on the voting rolls were the same as
those on parish gravestones. Votes were bought seasonally at a local
sporting goods store. There is a pattern of harassing black leaders
which has forced several to leave the parish because of firings or
threats.
          St. Helena Parish presented an additional difficulty. We were
unable to send a fair alternate plan along with our comment letter
because of the unavailability of detailed census data. The white
incumbents didn't have the data either. They simply made their own
head counts, but provided no information about how they did it. When
census data are not available, Justice says it is reasonable for
jurisdictions to make their own counts, but only if all groups in the
jurisdiction agree on how the counting will be done. Blacks in
St. Helena are attempting to get the white leaders to agree to this
process. Otherwise, they will have to go to court in pursuit of a fair
plan.
          
            Williamsburg County, South Carolina
          
          Williamsburg County is sixty-one percent black. Its county council
has seven members. Before reapportionment there were three majority
black districts. This enabled whites to hold a four to three majority
on the council. The reapportionment plan proposed by the council was
designed to preserve the white majority. A fair plan, however, would
provide four majority black districts out of seven, a proportion which
comes closest to the percentage of blacks in the county.
          Blacks had no opportunity for discussion of the proposed plan at
public meetings because no meetings were held. Under South Carolina
state law, a county's representatives to the state legislature have
authority over the development of new reapportionment plans. In
Williamsburg, one state senator had the main voice in development of
the new plan. He and other state legislators met with the county
council at a closed meeting to present the already developed plan to
the council members. Neither the press nor the public was notified. A
local reporter, tipped off about the meeting. was allowed to stay only
through the insistence of a black count councillor--a councillor who,
under the proposed plan, was to lose his well-defined black majority
district and be thrown into a non-majority black district with a white
incumbent whose father happened to be the state senator who supervised
the development of the proposed plan. When the reporter asked for a
copy of the plan, the senator refused, saying it might "confuse the
public."
          In a front page editorial, the newspaper pointed out that the
secrecy of the meeting violated South Carolina's Freedom of
Information Act and was also solid evidence that the county did not
intend to allow black community participation in the development of
the plan. Despite newspaper stories and protests from the black
community, the county approved the plan, sent it to Justice, and
without waiting for preclearance, prepared to put the plan into effect
for upcoming county elections.
          In order to dilute three adjacent districts, the proposed plan
packed a large proportion of the county's blacks into a single
district which one observer said was shaped like a "crawling snake."
It also fragmented a large concentration of blacks in one of the
poorest regions of the 

county into three separate districts.
          Black leaders in Williamsburg County contacted the Voting Rights
Project and asked that we write a comment letter requesting the
Justice Department to object to the proposed plan and that we draw an
alternate.
          It was relatively easy to draw a fair seven-member plan- with four
compact majority black districts. The Justice Department objected to
the proposed plan and subsequently, the county adopted a fair plan
resembling the one we had drawn. It will be used in the next
election.
          
            Winston County, Mississippi
          
          Winston County is thirty-eight percent black but no black has ever
served on its five member county commission. Using an extraordinary
bit of gerrymandering, the county submitted a 1983 plan which
fragmented the black community in the county's largest town
(Louisville) among four of the five districts so that no district
would be majority black. One proposed district (see accompanying map)
extends for some twenty-six miles as it contorts its way from the
northern boundary of the county through Louisville, finally extending
in a strip to the eastern boundary of the county. This district
narrows at one point to the 190 foot width of a cemetery.
          The other proposed Winston County districts also had a lot of
twists and turns in them as they moved through Louisville, especially
in the black residential areas. Besides gerrymandering the black
community out of a district, the odd shapes make it difficult for
people to know what district they actually live in. Such confusion is
a further inhibitor of political participation.
          Winston County hired a private firm which sent the proposed plan to
Justice in a slickly packaged booklet. On the booklet's first page a
demographer flatly stated that the plan conformed to all the standards
of a fair plan according to interpretations of the Voting Rights
Act. He claimed that there was no dilution of the black vote despite,
as we showed in our comment letter to DOJ, his managing to achieve an
almost ideal example of dilution this drawing of districts.
          Along with our comment letter, we sent in an alternate plan. A fair
plan in this thirty-eight percent black county would provide for two
majority black districts out of five. In this case however, the
segregated residential patterns of the county are checkerboard rather
than ghetto style in their segregation, and thus do not al low for the
drawing of two black districts. Our plan provides for only one,
suggestive of a need to consider other measures to give blacks an
opportunity to elect representatives of their choice.
          
            Drawing the Lines
          
          Only one of the four cases just described has yet been resolved. In
the other three jurisdictions, blacks are attempting to negotiate with
white political leaders in order to reach a consensus which includes a
fair reapportionment plan. Illustrative of both the strength and the
limits of the Voting Rights Act, if the negotiations are unsuccessful,
blacks may have to go to court.
          The Voting Rights Act has not been interpreted to mean that the
Justice Department take an active role in 

securing fair
reapportionment plans. Usually, a jurisdiction's black citizenry,
relying upon limited resources, must initiate litigation. A Justice
Department objection letter or the documentation of failure to submit
a new plan for preclearance may provide strong supportive evidence but
don't necessarily mean that the courts will rule favorably or that a
fair plan will be adopted. Without the Voting Rights Act, blacks might
still be excluded completely from the reapportionment process in the
South and be absent from elected positions altogether. Yet, much more
white resistance must be overcome before blacks will gain fair
treatment.
          
            Brian Sherman is a clinical sociologist who works as a
research analyst for the Voting Rights Project of the Southern
Regional Council. He has drawn alternate reapportionment plans for
over twenty jurisdictions and is author of an empirical study of voter
discrimination in Georgia: Half a Foot in the
Door.
          
        