@ the link, truly one man, one vote.

Gary Bechtol is a powerful man in these parts; these parts being the Williamson-Liberty Hill Municipal Utility District. Just recently, he single-handedly approved the local property tax rate and the issuance of $84.7 million in bonds.

Not bad for a framing contractor who’s only lived here a few months; “here” being a mobile home (a nice mobile home, but a mobile home) at the end of a short gravel road (a nice gravel road, but a gravel road) leading from County Road 266.

A must read article at CBS that discusses the impact of heightened racial polarization and the impact of the Voting Rights Act applied in its current form.  The article is asserting that Black reliance on the Democratic Party has resulted in a dramatic reduction of influence in the south that parallels the general reduction of influence by the Democrat Party as a whole.  Read the whole article. 

Black lawmakers have lost clout in Southern state capitols as their overwhelming allegiance to the Democratic Party has left them without power in increasingly GOP-controlled state legislatures.  The nonpartisan Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies says in a report issued Friday that despite Barack Obama’s election as president, black voters and elected officials in the South have less influence now than at any time since the civil rights era.

More: Bositis points out state legislatures are increasingly divided along racial lines — making Republican synonymous with whites and Democrat and black interchangeable. According to the report, a majority of Democrats in both chambers in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi are black. In half of the southern state legislative chambers, blacks are a majority or near-majority of Democratic members.  “This begs the question, ‘what is the purpose of having a legislative black caucus when the majority of members in your legislative body are black?'” the report says.

It’s a phenomenon unique to the South, as a majority of black state lawmakers serving in legislative bodies outside of the region belong to the party in charge, the report says.

“That’s one of the costs of putting all your political capital in a single party,” said Emory University professor Merle Black, who is currently researching the rise of the Republican party in the South. “When the Democrats were in power, there was a period there when black lawmakers were very influential.”  That era is over, at least for now, Black said.

“Unless the Democrats can work out some kind of deal with the Republicans, the issues that African Americans want to get passed along would have to have enough support among Republicans to pass them,” he said.

Kansas state Rep. Barbara Ballard, who chairs the state House Democratic Caucus and is president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, said Southern black lawmakers who find themselves on the margins of power need to get more creative to remain effective.

“When you have smaller numbers, you work harder and you work smarter,” said Ballard, who has served in the Kansas House for 19 years. “We still have to represent our constituents. Just because someone else is running the agenda, if we weren’t there, they would totally control everything.”  Ballard said neither black lawmakers nor their constituents can afford to look at the odds and throw up their hands.

“Look at history,” she said. “When African Americans were not able to get what they wanted, they found another avenue to increase the numbers and they started putting the pressure on. We need to look at a wider definition of clout and influence outside of the statehouse.”

Chris Jankowski, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, said that without question, the Voting Rights Act as applied to redistricting has led to the consolidation of a key voting bloc in the Democratic Party: African Americans.

“The effect of that is, in the South, to weaken the ability in the party to compete in other districts,” Jankowski said. “It does have an unintended, but very clear impact on Republican prospects.”

Georgia Democratic state Rep. Tyrone Brooks remembers a different dynamic at the state Capitol. First elected in 1980, Brooks has mostly served under Democratic rule at the General Assembly, including on the influential appropriations committee, where he helped write the budget.

Based on his seniority, he could get things done, bringing his issues to the floor and getting them passed and signed into the law. “Being in the minority, it’s not pleasant,” Brooks said. “The perception across the state is the Democratic Party is the party of black folk. When you have a racially polarized body politic, race becomes a major factor. Where we are today is a step backwards.”

In recent years, Republicans have taken over Georgia state government and now control the governor’s office and both chambers of the Legislature.  Today, Brooks no longer serves on the appropriations committee. Despite serving in the Georgia House for more than three decades, he said he has a hard time getting buy-in from his Republican colleagues — many of whom he has known and worked alongside for years.

“You have to work extremely hard if you’re a Democrat to get anything done,” Brooks said.

White Democrats are fewer and far between in Southern statehouses. More than a dozen state lawmakers in five states defected to the GOP right after the 2010 midterm elections, underscoring dissatisfaction with Obama and the Democrats amid high unemployment and following a contentious fight over health care reform.

Before the 1994 midterm elections, nearly all black lawmakers served in the majority. Even prior to the 2010 midterm elections, about half of black state legislators in the South were in the majority, the report says. Now, only about 5 percent are in the majority.

And of the 318 black state legislators in the South, only three are Republican, according to the center.  “Virtually all black elected officials in the region are outsiders looking in,” the report claims.

The trend has strengthened the GOP’s hand in redistricting fights. Black Democrats have accused majority-Republicans in several Southern states of reducing their overall influence by packing more African-American voters than needed into black-majority districts drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Several of these battles are shifting to the courts.

The report goes on to assert that Republican-controlled Southern legislatures are both failing to address the needs of blacks in areas such as health care and education, and leading “an assault on voting rights through photo identification laws and other means.” Republicans reject the charges, saying they are only trying to maintain the integrity of the voting process.

Jankowski said Southern Democrats are hurt less by racially polarized politics than by the social disparity between the region and national party.  “The Southern states, both culturally and on other issues, are more conservative than the rest of the country,” Jankowski said. “It is hard as a Democrat, whether you’re an African American or not, to defend the national Democratic Party in Southern communities at times.”

Jankowski added that Republican governors and majorities in state houses are pro-right-to-work, pro-growth and for lower taxes — positions they believe will serve as a rising tide that lifts all boats.

“They believe … the best way to get their economies going is to pursue those policies that apply equally to everyone,” he said. “I would not concede the premise that one group of people are not being addressed and others are.”

Experts say reduced black influence in Southern state capitols is not irreversible. Demographic patterns suggest an increasing number of potential minority voters such as Latinos, which could work to the advantage of African American lawmakers.

“Republicans don’t have an appeal beyond whites,” Black said. “The voting electorates in these states are becoming more diverse, and the share of the white voting population is a declining majority. That’s a factor that could potentially help Democrats.”

Brooks agreed, but said that the black electorate will also be a key to reversing the trend.

“The
re’s really not full participation by those we’re trying to help,” Brooks said. “When you talk about the loss of power and where we are today, a lot of that translates to the lack of participation by the very people who need our help the most. In so many ways, they’ve become their own worst enemy.” 

 What could be better than a taxayer funded trip to the tropics?

Lighter blogging this weekend as I am at David Horowitz’s Restoration Weekend in Florida.  I am appearing on a panel Saturday with Monica Crowley, Stanley Kurtz and Ron Radosh.  Catherine Engelbrecht gets the Annie Taylor Award tonight along with Baroness Caroline Cox.

I am sure Tabella will pick up the slack as Tabella always does.

Fox at the link. 

More at PJ Media, “NAACP Doesn’t Just Want Felons to Vote – They Want Them to Be Lawyers, Too.”

At the link, the saga continues in Louisiana as a St. Bernard sheriff candidate questions the votes of hundreds of alleged non-residents, including two dozen deputies.  The last line of the story explains it all:  “There can’t be any confusion when over two dozen deputies that don’t live in St. Bernard are voting in St. Bernard.” 

To the rest of the story: 

A candidate in the runoff race for St. Bernard sheriff is claiming widespread voter fraud in the early voting for this Saturday’s election.  Wayne Landry is disputing hundreds of ballots from voters he claims no longer live in the parish.

His opponent, Jimmy Pohlmann, said the vote challenge is a desperate act by Landry to get votes this last week of the campaign. “It’s a sad day in St. Bernard,” Landry said.  Landry held a late afternoon new conference to reveal what he called new evidence of voter fraud during the early balloting for Saturday’s parishwide election.  Tuesday, he filed more than 1300 challenges contesting the validity of the early ballots.

A coalition of groups have gathered to opposed Voter ID, including the NAACP and a variety of voter fraud denying organizations.  They have chosen December 10 to launch their campaign.  Why?  The South Florida Times:

A coalition of nearly 20 organizations, including the NAACP and the National Urban League, announced they have launched a “Stand for Freedom” voting rights campaign and also a major mobilization on Dec. 10— United Nations Human Rights Day — to protest what they say is an attack on voting rights throughout the country. . . .

The announcement came at New York City’s City Hall earlier this month. Other top leaders present for the occasion included Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League; the Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Council; Lillian Rodríguez López, president of the Hispanic Federation; Margaret Fung, executive director, Asian-American Legal Defense & Education Fund; Michael Mulgrew, president, United Federation of Teachers; George Gresham, president of Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); and Donna Lieberman, president, New York Civil Liberties Union.

As I and many others have predicted, the new Voter ID law in Texas has hit a snag.  The Department of Justice is reviewing the law under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and has made a “more information” request.  This is usually the first overt sign that an objection is coming.  (Actually, the first sign an objection is coming is when the NAACP and other voter fraud denying groups, with their direct access into the DOJ, start making it their number one issue.) 

Texas should immediately withdraw the submission from DOJ and file in Federal District Court before DOJ gets a chance to object to the law.  If DOJ objects to the law, it will be forever tainted in the media, and even to the court in practical terms, if Texas ends up filing with the court for approval.  Florida withdrew a submission from DOJ after strange and troubling discussions with certain DOJ lawyers about a law that merely moved early voting dates and shrunk time to turn in third party voter registration forms. 

Academics have suggested that filing a submission with DOJ is faster and cheaper.  Like the spider to the fly, they claim it is a perfectly friendly forum in the web of the DOJ.  In reality, as Texas may soon find out, it may be fatal to their Voter ID law.  Because Texas will not be back in session, the more information requests adds months before a final objection might be forthcoming, and thereby making it less likely that Voter ID will be used in the 2012 elections in Texas. 

It was an avoidable mistake to submit this law to DOJ, a big avoidable mistake.

The solution?  Withdraw the submission immediately.  Do not turn over a scrap of information to DOJ.  Force them to obtain it in discovery, subject to the Rules of Civil Procedure.

At the link, the Wall Street Journal reports on the denial of a waiver request from New York to comply with the MOVE Act for a series of federal elections in 2012. 

In denying New York’s request for a waiver Wednesday, the Defense Department said the state’s election plan for 2012 “provides no concrete solution to the problems that arose in 2010 from the state’s overly-compressed schedule for preparing and transmitting ballots.”

It’s an outrage that New York is even asking for a waiver.