Power Lines:

Redistricting an integral role in Hispanic political representation

By Tomás Alberto Avila

As we welcome a new millennium and look forward to the 2002 reapportionment, battle lines are
already forming on how the Rhode Island political map will be redrawn in 2002. This battle is brewing
in the General Assembly over how to conduct legislative reapportionment, the politically explosive issue
of drawing a new political map to reflect Rhode Island's population changes over the decade of the 90's
as well as in the minority communities across the state.

Adding ammunition to this battle is the schedule down sizing of the Legislature from 150-member body
to 113 approved by the voters in 1994 by a margin of 51.8%. This schedule downsizing is fuelling a lot
of concern, from a variety quarters, over the impending size reduction for the Rhode Island General
Assembly.

Every ten years, following the census, the nation's political map undergoes an upheaval as political
jurisdictions at the local; state and federal levels change district lines to comply with the constitutional
requirement for equal representation.

At the federal level, the process of reapportionment is intended to ensure that each state has the number
of U.S. Representatives proportionate to its population. The subsequent process of redistricting is
intended to ensure that each congressional district in a state has exactly the same population as all other
districts in that state. Similarly, state legislative districts are redrawn every ten years to reflect
population changes, as are local district lines.

Now that the 2000 census official numbers have been published, the reapportionment of the House of
Representatives will be determined by a complicated mathematical formula (called the "method of equal
proportions"), set by a 1941 federal law, that allocates the proper number of congressional seats to each
state. In Then state legislators who will be redistricting their own seats at the state level will undertake
the process of redistricting the actual drawing of congressional district boundaries.

Because the redistricting process affects the political life and death of politicians, it has always been, and
remains, an intensely political and partisan struggle. Incumbents of both political parties strive to have
district lines drawn so that their reelection prospects are enhanced as much as possible. Where one party
in a state is dominant and controls the drawing the lines, it inevitably strives to draw lines that favor its
candidates.

The process of redistricting is extremely powerful. By packing or splitting concentrations of voters,

those who draw district lines can often effectively eliminate competitive elections in a given district for
a decade, by ensuring for all practical purposes that the candidates of one party or the other will prevail
in that district, essentially without regard to who those candidates are.

The extremely partisan nature of the redistricting process, and the deeply-rooted reluctance of legislators
to open up the process to reform, present formidable challenges to those interested in establishing a
more fair and open process for redistricting, as well as more competitive elections.

Political empowerment involves many facets voting, lobbying, and—the most easily overlooked
redistricting. Minority representation still depends on the ability of minorities to elect their own leaders,
and the way voting districts are drawn greatly affects that ability. Gerrymandering deliberately drawing
lines to achieve a political agenda has come full circle. The political bosses who historically rigged the
election process from city hall to Congress now complain that minority groups rig the electoral map to
get their own people into lawmaking bodies. The political establishment labels it “racial
gerrymandering.” The Supreme Court, in reviewing the issue, described it as “political apartheid.”
Minority group leaders call it tit for tat and add that it’s about time they gave as good as they got. With a
new census count around the corner, from which new districts will again be drawn, the future strength of
minority representation remains at stake.

Since the sixties, minority groups, with the help of the U.S. Justice Department, have used a special
provision of the Voting Rights Act to enhance their political participation. This has caused some partisan
civic opponents to respond with legal challenges claiming that some redistricting has been too extreme
and has abused the Fourteenth Amendment, which among other things guarantees the rights of U.S.
citizens to vote regardless of race or color.

Challenges to voting districts in Dallas and Houston have involved communities with large Hispanic
populations. Other challenges have jeopardized the district served by Representative Luis V. Gutierrez
(D-Illinois) of Chicago and forced the district of Representative Nydia M. Velazquez, (D-New York) to
be redrawn with a reduced Hispanic constituency. Both apportionments were challenged on the basis
that Latinos had created the districts to benefit themselves instead of fairly determining the realignment
on a more equitable basis. An emotionally charged debate in south Florida is offering a preview of what
could become a flood of litigation over efforts to redraw congressional and other voting districts across
the United States.

At issue is the extent to which officials may rely on racial criteria to draw new districts after the all-
important 2000 Census. The issue has been the subject of several US Supreme Court decisions in the
1990s, but the legal standards remain murky. Thus the outcome here could have a direct impact on
minority participation and representation in government - and eventually help shape the direction of
democracy in America.

Depending on who wins the legal challenges, African-Americans and Hispanics across the country could
find themselves losing voices in Congress and state legislatures. On the other side in this case are some
white voters who feel disenfranchised because they live in neighborhoods included in strangely shaped
districts designed to elect minority candidates. At the heart of the debate: Whether it is appropriate to
use racial gerrymandering to compensate for generations of racial discrimination and segregation.

Drawing of districts is mostly self-serving for the political parties because the lines are often contorted
into the most bizarre shapes to fit party biases. One political scientist described it as a system in which
representatives choose their constituencies before their constituencies choose them. The Voting Rights
Act of 1965 knocked down many of the barriers that had kept minority groups from getting into the
elective and political-spoils game. Not all of these barriers came down quietly or obligingly. The federal
government put some teeth in the act by including Section 5, which fought the voting discrimination
then rampant in Latino communities and other minority areas. Section 5, however, applies only to a
select group of southern and southwestern states and Alaska. Another legal mechanism under the Voting
Rights Act is employed for other reviews.

While challenges have occurred to minority-majority districts, Latinos have gained ground by
converting at-large districts to single-member districts. Latinos achieved political empowerment in
Monterrey County, California, by using Section 5 enforcement, successfully challenging at-large
elections in Salinas, a countywide method of electing municipal court judges, and a redistricting plan of
the Board of Supervisors. In San Antonio, Houston, and Hanford, California, Latino litigators
eliminated at-large election systems.

Unquestionably, much still needs to be done to empower Latinos. The system is too entrenched to yield
easily, and Latinos are still learning the ways of negotiating the rough-and-tumble paths of redistricting.
An interesting aspect of this enfranchisement struggle is that it lacks sex appeal, even among Latinos
who seem to concentrate on other marquee matters like Affirmative Action, bilingual education, and
immigration, forgetting to some extent that the power of the vote and adequate representation in
legislative bodies are key in resolving the other issues confronting them.

No ethnic group has a larger stake in the path our state legislature chooses between now and the 2002
reapportionment than Latinos. Latinos comprise more than 6 percent of the state population, including
almost 50 percent of the school age population in the larges urban community of Providence. It is also
the youngest and fastest growing community. Since 1990, Latinos represent the largest minority group
in Rhode Island, and within 50 years 25 percent of the entire population will be Latino. As citizens with
a substantial role and stake in the future of this state, Latinos of the state should take the responsibility of
our future in our own hands, by taking active participation in the redistricting process.