White Challengers, Black Majorities: Reconciling Competition in Majority-Minority Districts with the Promise of the Voting Rights Act

Since their inception, majority-minority districts' have been the subject of extensive, and often rancorous, critique and debate. In their prime, these districts nearly single-handedly changed the face of American politics by enabling racial minorities to elect their preferred candidates who re...

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Veröffentlicht in:The Georgetown law journal 2007-04, Vol.95 (4), p.1287
1. Verfasser: Nelson, Janai S
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Since their inception, majority-minority districts' have been the subject of extensive, and often rancorous, critique and debate. In their prime, these districts nearly single-handedly changed the face of American politics by enabling racial minorities to elect their preferred candidates who reflected both their interests and identity. However, precisely at the point when these districts achieve an optimal balance of majority and minority populations and host multi-candidate competition, they reveal a frailty that not only thwarts their immediate purpose but contradicts both the express and implicit goals of their source: The Voting Rights Act of 1965. Nelson argues that this limitation of majority-minority districts, defined by a team of social scientists as "the collective action problem," lies in their general inability to withstand competition among multiple minority candidates and a white candidate while simultaneously preserving their function to elect minority voters' candidates of choice.
ISSN:0016-8092