Bringing reason to redistricting

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to protecting voting rights of minorities.

One of the least-noticed rulings from last session's exceptionally busy U.S. Supreme Court allows states to draw new election districts without some of the bizarre contortions once deemed necessary to achieve districts in which minorities have a numerical majority. The ruling continues to protect the voting rights of minorities.

The 5-4 court decision — with the court's most liberal members providing the dissenting votes — will allow states to consider the impact reapportionment will have on the overall minority influence. As Dan Hoover and James Hammond reported recently in The Greenville News, the court ruling will allow states to end the practice of "bleaching" or "packing districts."

Rigid interpretations of the 1965 Voting Rights Act resulted in 10-year reapportionment plans, drawn up after each census, trying to put as many minorities as possible in certain voting districts. It might sound odd, but Republicans consistently were some of the best friends that black lawmakers had in the process.

As voting district boundaries were stretched and contorted to put as many blacks as possible in a certain district, more and more districts were left virtually all-white. The Republican rise to power in many states — including South Carolina — has much to do with shifting political allegiances. But on the state and sometimes the local level, it also has been a result of Republicans, with the support of black elected leaders, siphoning off the minority vote from districts that once elected white Democrats.

As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the majority in this case involving a Georgia redistricting plan, "The state may choose that it is better to risk having fewer minority representatives in order to achieve greater overall representation of a minority group by increasing the number of representatives sympathetic to the interests of minority voters."

Minorities often have the potential of achieving greater political influence even if their number of representatives actually declines a bit. The court decision will allow states to create more districts that have a slight majority of white voters but a politically significant number of minority voters. Those districts likely will produce elected officials who can have a moderating influence on a political system that now encourages racial divisiveness and polarization.