The Voting Rights Act and the Protection of Mexican American Electoral Participation

1
The Voting Rights Act and the Protection of
Mexican American Electoral Participation

• Mexican Americans and Politics
• Lecture 10
• February 9, 2006

2
Participation Not Simply the Result of Individual
Initiative

• Institutions create barriers
• Few mass democracies with full, equal
  participation exist
• Not all barriers are malicious
• Should 16 and 17 year olds vote? How about 6 and
  7 year olds?
• Electoral participation
• States set limits on voting
• Reasonable people can disagree on appropriate
  limits
• Barriers established primarily in the South to
  restrict Black voting (and less so in the
  Southwest to limit Mexican American voting) can
  only be seen as racially motivated

3
Voting in the United States State Control to
Federal Oversight

• Constitution States regulate voting
• The right of citizens of the United States to
  vote shall not be denied or abridged by the
  United States or any state on account of race,
  color, or previous condition of servitude
• 15th Amendment to the Constitution
• Nevertheless, states regulated voting with no
  federal oversight until 1965

4
Provisions of the 1965 VRA

• Applied to states in the South with gaps between
  white and black voter registration
• Prohibition of literacy tests
• Federal supervision of registration/voting
• Federal monitors could register voters
• Pre-clearance or rule/districting changes
• Judicial oversight transferred to federal court
  for the D.C. circuit
• Prohibition on devices to dilute Black votes
• Not part of VRA 24th Amendment to the
  Constitution (1964) eliminates poll tax

5
Impact

• Immediate and overwhelming
• Black voter participation increases from a few
  percent in some states to 60 percent almost
  overnight
• Blacks run for office and form a political party
  (that quickly dissolves)
• White leaders find new strategies to limit the
  impact of black votes
• Most important at-large districting schemes

6
Extension to Mexican Americans and Other Latinos
(1975)

• Little debate about Mexican American or Latino
  needs
• What discussion there was asserted similarities
  to Blacks
• No discussion of whether Mexican American
  experiences applied to other Latinos
• 1975 Extension
• Protections extended to Blacks in 1965 extended
  to language minorities
• One new provision bilingual voting materials

7
Consequences

• Legal
• Federal monitoring of Latino registration and
  voting
• Legal/structural linkage of Mexican American and
  other Latino voting rights
• Political
• Expansion in the number of Mexican American and
  other Latino officeholders,
• But new officeholders havent kept up with
  population growth
• Increase in Latino share of national vote, but no
  big increase in share of eligible Latinos voting

8
Voting, By Group, 1964-2004
Before 1980, turnout as a share of all adults,
not U.S. citizen adults
9
Focus of VRA Shifted After 1965, Particularly in
1982

• 1965 Remove barriers to Black participation
• 1970s Ensure that jurisdictions do not dilute the
  effect of minority voting
• 1975 Remove language as a barrier to
  participation
• 1982 Ensure that districts are drawn in areas of
  Black, Latino, Asian American or Native American
  concentration that will elect minority
  officeholders

10
Shift from Focus on Participation to Focus on
Representation

• Both are important, but Mexican Americans need
  incentives to participation

11
Latino Elected Officials, 1973-2004
1973-2004 change, 279, overall population
growth 291
12
Long Term Impact of the VRA

• African American vote increased dramatically
• Descriptive representation up considerably
• New immigrants from covered groups immediately
  protected
• Foundation of white partisan shift and national
  Republican dominance after 1968

13
What Can Be Done to Return Focus to Mexican
American/Latino Mobilization?

1. Non-citizen voting as a path to citizenship
2. Election day voter registration
3. Voting rights in U.S. national elections for
   residents of Puerto Rico

14
VRA Up for Renewal in 2007

• Congressional debate will not focus on how to
  reduce barriers to Mexican American/Latino voting
• Instead
• Question of constitutionality of
  majority-minority districts
• Burden placed on jurisdictions by bilingual
  election material requirement
• Whether the federal intervention in what was
  traditionally a state responsibility is still
  needed
• The Supreme Court that considers the
  constitutionality of whatever Congress passes
  will be quite different than the Court in 1966 or
  1983

15
For Next Time

• What parts of California supported Proposition
  187?
• Why?