Voting Rights Cases: Nixon to Gray

• Study notes follow:

Nixon v. Condon (1932)

• The Supreme Court ruled that a state Democratic convention could determine its party's membership qualifications.

United States v. Classic (1941)

• Federal courts established criteria for intervening in party primary litigation.
• Intervention is warranted if the state makes the primary an integral part of the election process.
• Intervention is warranted if the primary choice effectively controls the overall election outcome.

Smith v. Allwright (1944)

• The federal courts deemed the white primary in Texas a violation of the 15th Amendment, based on U.S. v. Classic (1941) criteria.
• Party discrimination was considered equivalent to state discrimination.
• Some states resisted dropping white primaries, citing state sovereignty.

King v. Chapman (1946)

• White primary was eliminated in Georgia due to the ruling in this case.

Gray v. Sanders (1963)

• Ended the county unit system and replaced it with a statewide popular vote system.

Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966)

• Extended the 24th Amendment's application to state and local elections.

Baker v. Carr (1962)

• The Tennessee legislature had not reapportioned districts for 60 years, despite population changes.
• Apportionment is both a legal and political issue.
• Urban voters' votes were diluted due to existing districting measures.
• The decision was based on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
• Reapportionment must occur every 10 years based on population with districts having roughly equal populations (+/- 5%).

Toombs v. Fortson (1962)

• Corrected malapportionment in the Georgia House of Representatives.

Reynolds v. Sims (1964)

• Alabama was told it could not have a state senate with each county having one senator, as it was not based on population.
• Both legislative chambers must be properly apportioned.

Westberry v. Sanders (1964)

• Applied the Reynolds v. Sims (1964) logic to congressional districts.

South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966)

• Upheld the 15th Amendment as a valid constitutional basis for the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
• The 15th Amendment prohibits denying the right to vote based on race or previous voting status.

Mobile v. Bolden (1982)

• The Supreme Court ruled that intent to discriminate must be proven under Section 2.
• This was accomplished using the power of statutory interpretation.

Shelby County v. Holder (2013)

• Section 5 of the VRA remains, but its trigger mechanisms in Section 4 are unenforceable.

Connor v. Johnson

• Challenged the constitutionality of state's congressional and legislative districts for population disparities and excluding Black registration.
• Gave legislature excuse to redraw congressional districts due to challenge of 1962 unconstitutional malapportionment plan.

MFDP's 1965 Lawsuit

• Sought constitutionally apportioned legislative districts and desegregation of the state legislature.

Kirksey v. Board of Supervisors of Hinds County

• Landmark decision against gerrymandering.
• Initially accepted roads-and-bridges defense but overturned it.
• Rejected the road-and-bridge equalization defense against gerrymandering.
• Cracking a Black population concentration was deemed unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

Stewart v. Waller

• Challenged the mandate for at-large elections for aldermen in municipalities under 10,000.
• Argued direct evidence of racial discriminatory intent, which the court agreed with.
• Alderman election statute was struck down.

Kirksey v. Danks

• Alleged that at-large Jackson voting violated the new Section 2 standard.
• The new Section 2 standard eliminated the need to prove discriminatory intent and introduced a "results test".
• Ruled in favor of the plaintiff: the at-large voting system diluted the voting strength of Black Americans.
• Required creation of single-member districts.

Allen v. State Board of Elections (1969)

• Challenged newly instituted procedures controlling how illiterate voters could vote for write-in candidates.
• Consolidated with 3 Mississippi cases:
• Whitley v. Johnson: Challenged new qualifying procedures for independent candidates.
• Fairley v. Patterson: Challenging switch to at-large county supervisor elections.
• Bunton v. Patterson: Challenging the elimination of county school superintendent elections.
• Ruled that the right to vote can be affected by dilution of power.
• Broadened scope of VRA.
• Increased voting rights enforcement of Justice Department by making them preclear all voting-law changes.
• Symbolic role of legitimizing Black aspirations for political participation.

Voter Disenfranchisement

• Contributed to one-party rule and economic stagnation.

Suffrage Restrictions: Post-Reconstruction Background

• Black disenfranchisement occurred gradually in different states.
• Created an economic dividing line between haves and have-nots.
• Led to buying Black votes.
• In 1932, Black voters outside the South shifted from Republican to Democrat (New Deal Realignment).
• The "Civil Rights Realignment" continued afterward.
• Bourbons politically aligned with northern businessmen (Republicans), despite being Democrats themselves.
• Post-1896: Populist movement collapsed, and southern populists were reabsorbed into the Democratic party, leading to one-party rule.
• Poor whites made a "devil's contract" with Bourbons and essentially disenfranchised themselves.

Constitutional Amendments

• 14th Amendment: Granted citizenship to naturalized African-Americans, giving them the same rights as white citizens.
• 15th Amendment: Allowed African-Americans to vote, but states set their own voting parameters.
• The 15th Amendment was not effectively enforced until the mid-1960s (Voting Rights Act) due to state-imposed disenfranchisement methods targeting blacks and poor whites.

Suffrage Restrictions: Disenfranchisement Devices

• The Big 3 tactics: the White Primary, the Poll Tax, Literacy and Understanding Tests

Disenfranchisement Devices: The White Primary

• Party representatives printed ballots, and voters had to choose a party ballot.
• The Democratic primary was the only election that mattered due to one-party dominance.
• Black people were barred from voting in the Democratic primary -- arguably the most effective tactic.
• States argued that the Democratic party was a private organization with its own membership requirements.
• The Supreme Court agreed with this in the early cases.
• Every Deep South state had the white primary in place.

Nixon v. Herndon (1924)

• Courts were unsure if the primary was an important part of the general election.

Nixon v. Condon (1932)

• The Court ruled that a state democratic convention could decide membership qualifications for the party.

U.S. v. Classic (1941)

• The Federal Courts set out criteria for when the federal courts can get involved in litigating anything about a party primary.
• The State has made the primary an integral part of the procedure of choice.
• Where in fact the primary effectively controls the choice.

Smith v. Allwright (1944)

• Federal courts ruled the white primary in Texas violated the 15th Amendment, based on U.S. v. Classic (1941) criteria.
• Party discrimination equated to state discrimination.
• Some states resisted dropping white primaries, claiming state sovereignty.

King v. Chapman (1945)

• Georgia’s white primary was eliminated due to this case.

Aftermath of White Primaries

• South Carolina removed all of their laws and regulations relating to primaries to defeat the first criteria from US v. Classic (1941).
• The white primary was effectively removed after the Smith decision, but other disenfranchisement devices remained.

Disenfranchisement Devices: The Poll Tax

• Poll tax = a fee/tax to register to vote.
• Applied not only in southern states but was present in all 11 southern states.
• Designed to disenfranchise African-Americans and poor whites.
• Georgia eliminated it in 1945, Florida in 1937, Louisiana in 1934, NC in 1929
• Typically cost around $1 to $2.
• Cumulative: means that you may have to pay for previous years you missed in back taxes; could be cumulative up to $36.
• Noncumulative: means that you can just go pay it for that year alone, even if you missed previous years
• Had to pay poll tax in advance, sometimes up to a year and a half in advance.
• Poll tax rates fluctuated with economic conditions.
• As foreign born population increased so did poll taxes.
• Fewer poll taxes in urban areas and more in rural counties with larger native white counties
• The 24th Amendment (1964) outlawed the poll tax.
• It may have had more effect on poor white Americans.
• There was only a marginal increase in voter turnout when it was abolished.

Disenfranchisement Devices: Literacy and Understanding Tests

• Second most effective.
• Not every southern state had literacy tests (AL, GA, LA, NC, SC, VA, MS did).
• Can take many different forms.
• Filling out an application and signing it unaided was one requirement.
• Reading or writing a section of the US Constitution or state constitution was another.
• Interpreting a section of the state/US Constitution was also a possible requirment.
• Exhibiting good character was another potential requirement.
• Local governments, specifically the county voter registrar, had the sole power to determine if requirements were met.
• Decisions could also be made by a board of registrars.
• Had to travel to the county courthouse.
• Tests often included a grandfather clause (if your ancestor was a qualified elector, you didn't have to take the test).
• Literacy tests had a limited effect on white registration because they weren’t fairly administered.
• Registrars would often come up with an alternative for whites who wouldn’t be able to pass the test,
• Biggest effect was on blacks living in the black belt area.

Disenfranchisement Devices: Registration Purging

• Counties would sometimes remove everyone from the list so they had to re-register.

Disenfranchisement Devices: Residency Requirements

• Have to establish residency to be able to vote.
• Establishing that you lived in the state for 2 years and 1 year in the election area was a requirement in Mississippi.

Disenfranchisement Devices: Registration Deadlines

• Had to register a lot of time in advance for an election.

Disenfranchisement Devices: Disqualification

• Could be disqualified for a prior conviction, even a misdemeanor.

Disenfranchisement Devices: Challenged and/or Invalidated Votes

• Votes were often not counted for a number of (sometimes unknown) reasons.

Disenfranchisement Devices: Other Mechanisms

• Economic Coercion: Calling an employer and telling them to fire someone if they vote.
• Could be either at the local level or related to organizations like the Klan.

Effects of Disenfranchisement

• White turnout was also low in the South, with one-party system meaning a lot of elections decided during the white primary.
• The higher your socioeconomic status or level of education, the more likely you are to participate and vote.
• Low turnout rates were also helped by poverty and low education levels.
• Non-southern states had significantly higher participation rates in elections.

Measures

• White numerical advantage: Log (registered whites / registered blacks)
• Measure is 0 when black/white electorates are equal
• Negative: black advantage
• Positive: white advantage
• Average County: white registration outnumbered black registration by a ratio of 7:1

Factors affecting white numerical advantage:

• Racial context (% black in county) (-)
• Literacy tests (+)
• Poll taxes (-)
• Residency requirements (-)
• Black race organizations (-)
  • Ex. NAACP chapters
• White race organizations (+)
• Ex. white citizens councils

Post-VRA: The Effect of Federal Registrars; The Mobilization-Countermobiloization Hypothesis

• Black population positively related to increases in White Registration rates (Mobilization)
• Increases in white registration rates led to concomitant increases in Black registration rates (countermobilization)

Party Politics:

• Externally, the South looks like a democratic monolith, but internally, there is a lot of division within the democratic party.
• Factionalism: a faction is a group.

Factional Systems:

• Strong bi-factional: approximate/be closer to two party competition than a multi-factional system (ex. TN, VA, NC), with some Republican opposition.
• Weak bi-factional: (ex. GA, LA), with one dominant Democratic faction and a weaker minority faction that can occasionally vy for power.
• Multi-factional: (ex. SC, AL, AR, TX, FL, MS), with more than two factions operating within the Democratic party, often fluid based on localism (Key called it "Friends and Neighbors Voting").

Factional Fault Lines

• Limitations of Factional Politics:
• Issue-less.
• Lack of retrospective responsibility.
• Instability.
• Disconnect between governor/other offices and legislature.
• Hard for the southern region to cooperate as a whole.
• Prone to political corruption.

Early Republicans

• Not a viable political party.
• Types:
  • Presidential Republicans: vote Democrat at local level but Republican for president.
  • Mountain Republicans: viable at local level, located in Appalachians.
  • Republicans by inheritance: tended to be more populist in nature.
  • Black Republicans: Republicans are the party that freed the slaves.

Southern GOP Leadership

• Aligned for mostly selfish gain (change within electoral system, patronage, nomination system, fundraising).

Malapportionment:

Malapportionment is creating bad districts

• The Georgia County-Unit System : unique to Georgia Operated within the Democratic Primary

• Indirect nomination system

• Was going to extend to the general election but that never happened

• Electoral college district but at the state level -> win a plurality of the vote in a state then you get all the electoral votes

• Established by the Neil Primary Act in 1917

• You get unit votes by winning a plurality of the popular vote in the county

• 159 counties in GA

• Rural counties had a greater percentage of the vote that was disproportionate to the actual percentage of the population they had

  • Fulton: 14,092 voters per unit vote
  • Clarke: 1,859 voters per unit vote
  • Webster: 394
  • Echols: 318

• This system awards rural counties and allowed them to maintain their hold on Georgia politics

• A secondary purpose is to limit the impact of the few blacks that were voting because blacks were more likely to be registered to vote in urban areas

• More prone to corruption because political favors could be done to gain unit votes

• If you're running statewide for office you could completely ignore urban counties and just campaign in town and rural counties.

• The 1946 Gubernatorial Election - you can win the overall election and unit votes without winning the popular vote

Demise of the County-Unit System

• Gray v. Sanders (1963)
• Carl Sanders is the governor
• Easily declared the county unit system unconstitutional based on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment -> "one person equals one note"
• Led to a move to statewide primary for governor with candidates being chosen by statewide popular vote

Legislative Malapportionment

• Both state senate and state house were based on geography
• They are now based on having equal population counts but they were not
• Ideal district size = state district size is state population/180 districts
• When we are drawing these districts we are counting everybody -> people not of voting age included, citizens and noncitizens
• Back in the day they were only based on counties, not equal population size
• One of the reasons we have a lot of counties -> representation scheme
• Georgia is the biggest state east of the Mississippi
• You either get 1, 2, or 3 house members depending on your unit vote (divide it by 2)
• For state senate there were typically a grouping of three counties that rotated between picking a state senator every two years
  • County A picks in year 1, county B picks in year 3, county C picks in year 5
• All counties would participate but the senator had to come from the county for that year

Presidential Politics: The Solid South

• The 1948 Dixiecrat Revolt, also called the state-rights party
• Pre-WWII is the pre civil rights era. Dixiecrats were a splintered group from the Democratic Party headed by Strom Thurmond, Governor of SC.
• Won his first senate election as a state-wide write-in candidate in 1954.
• Holds the record for longest filibuster.
• Switched party from Democrat to Republican. Served in WWII.

Explanations for Revolt

• They opposed Truman's desegregation of the armed forces via an executive order in 1947.
• Sets of inner party fight between progressive national party regarding civil rights and conservative state parties that were concerned with maintaining segregation and black disenfranchisement
• Divergence over the New Deal policies enforced by FDR.
• Truman tries to continue down this path with his Fair Deal, which southern white conservatives opposed.
• Southern Governors conference determines there is going to be this splinter group called the Dixiecrats and hold their own states rights convention
• At national party convention they take a progressive civil rights stance and states walk out

Election Results

• Truman still won most of the states but the Dixiecrats did win SC, MS, AL, LA.
• This did show the splintering of the national party (conservative/reactionary wing embodied by white southerners, more progressive national party backed by northerners.

Congressional Politics:

• The South contributed majorly to dominance of democratic party.
• Legislators were all white and Ideologically conservative.

Roll-call Voting Patterns

• Period I: 1930 - 1950:

  • Cohesion: SD exhibited slightly more solidarity than Democrats outside the South or Republicans when voting.
  • Coalitions
    • Southern Democrat/Republican: agreed about 40% of the time on issues like agricultural policy, pro-business & antibusiness regulation
    • Southern Democrats/Non-southern Democrats: foreign policy and trade issues
  • Issues: stood alone on race issues like societal segregation and black disenfranchisement

• Period II: 1950 -1964-

  • At the end of the period begins real two-party competition
  • Cohesion: Cohesion rates drops at this time, mirrors the decline of Democratic party unity across the nation
  • Coalitions
    • SouthernDemocrats/Republicans:Foreign policy like containment policy and anticommunism with conservatives, social policy, business regulation or rather anti-business regulation, civil liberities
  • Conservative coalition: alignment between conservative SD and conservative Republicans
  • Issues: race issues they stood alone and were fairly successful in blocking real change up until 1964

Southern Democrats

• Held up civil rights action through 3/5ths cloture. Majority of Southern Democrats could essentially filibuster debate related to the civil rights issue in the senate.
• Committee system: gatekeeping power over what leaves and gets to a floor vote, where the majority party gets majority of seats.
• Seniority norm: the longer served, the more likely to get committee chair.
• Logrolling: trading favors
• Arguably overrepresented in Congress despite being a minority.

The Way Things Were:

• Agricultural Dependence: still dominated employment sectors in the South.
• Tenant farming: renting the land.
• Sharecropping: endless cycle of poverty.
  • Implications: over a third of people in the South are living below the poverty line.
• Economic Transition:
  • The Great Migration out of the South to get away from sharecropping looking for better economic opportunities
  • During the Great Depression the Agricultural Adjustment Act was essentially paying people to boost commodity prices by leaving their land fallow.
• Before WWII there was a vibrant textile industry in the region but now it is not economically feasible for US textile mills to operate in the South

The World War II Effect

• Changes to the Region
• Positives:
• More industrialization with war-related industries that are kickstarted by federal government money -> a place for the pent up labor supply to go
• Increase in the number of military bases in the South -> increase employement and housing
• Military training brings an increased number of people and exposes a lot of peple to the South and some of they return after the war
• Increased infrastructure to deal with the number of people moving to the region
• Increase in outside investment in the region -> capital flowing into the south
• Increased urbanization
• Movement from rural areas to urban areas
• Increased racial tensions in these urban areas that are experiencing a lot of population growth
• Increase in blue-collar working class in manufacturing
• After the war, black veterans form groups that are the start of the civil rights movement

Political Ramifications

• Clash of Political Cultures:
• Traditionalists: white bourbon elites preferred to maintain the status quo and wanted nothing to change (pro-business outside of the South) Individualists: entrepreneurialists favored rapid economic growth and Populist favored a redistribution of resources in society.
• Pre 1950 after WWII:
• Very low skill, low wage, low growth manufacturing base Manufacturing sectors that are heavy in the South during this period: textiles, food processing Post 1960:
• Fast growing industries, high wage, higher skill
• These industries include the defense industry, agribusiness, high tech, oil and gas, tourism, real estate/construction

Increased urbanization

• Prior to WWII there was only a handful of cities that had large metro areas 1952-1980 -> large metro areas increased from 25% to 54%
• Losing population in the black belt areas

An End to the Poll Tax:

• Federal Elections: The 24th Amendment (1964) -> the citizens have the right to vote without having to pay a poll tax
• States argued that this only applied to federal elections, not state-level ones
• State Elections: Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections -> this stated that the 24th amendment also applied to participation in state or location elections
• The Georgia Voter ID Statute -> in 2005 the poll tax came back with a strict voter identification law. Must present government issued ID to be able to vote and if not you will vote with a provisional ballot that may or may not be counted
• Now they issue free IDs for voting if you need it

An End To Malapportionment:

• Legislative Apportionment:
  • Baker v. Carr (1962) -> foundational case Tennessee legislature hadn't reapportioned for 60 years until this case despite population change
  • Apportionment is both a legal and political issue
  • Urban voters were having their votes diluted due to districting measures put into place
• Decided under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendments Solution -> you have to reapportion every 1p years based on population Draw the districts with roughly equal population +/- 5%
  • Toombs v. Fortson (1962) -> GA case Fixed malapportionment of the GA House Reynolds v. Sims (1964) ->AL
• Told them they couldn't keep state senate with each county having one state senator because its not based on population
• Both legislative chambers have to be properly apportioned Westberry v. Sanders (1964) -> applied same logic to congressional districts Larius claim -> patterns in population deviations(like packing districts full of one party of voters and spreading out another group) are unconstitutional
• County-Unit System Gray v. Sanders (1963) -> got rid of the county unit system and replaced it with state-wide popular vote

Result

• Political Implications
• Increased black voting power
• Other Electioneering
  • Majority Vote Requirements -> if you don't get over 50% o the vote the top two candidates will go into a runoff election
  • Multimember Districts -> you are electing more than one legislator from a district

The Voting Rights Act:

• Black political participation prior to the VRA Very limited

• 1957 CRA -> it effectively desegregates civil society Establishes federal commission on civil rights

• Sue local election officials and prevents tampering in federal elections -1960 CRA -> required election officials to maintain records for 22 months after an election

• Title I of the 1964 Civil Rights Act -> if you had gone to school up to 6th grade you were considered literate 1965 VRA -> still in effect today

• Specifically targeted jurisdictions that had a history of voting rights discrimination

  • Section 2 -> permanent, applies nationwide, enforced through both criminal and civil sanctions Section 5 -> currently not enforceable,

• South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966) -> the 15th amendment is a valid constitutional basis for the VRA

• 15th amendment says that cant deny franchisement based on race, previous voting status, etc. Section 2

• Mobile v. Bolden -> 1980, Supreme court rules that under section two they must prove that there was an intent to discriminate Using power of statutory interpretation . 1982 Renewal -> clarify and added section b to section 2 . Said that there is no intent to discriminate just that it actually happens If you can prove that minorities have less opportunities to participate in the electoral process than it can be considered discrimination Burden of proof is on the plaintiff Jingles (?) Test -> determines if a section two violation is occurring

• Section 5 -> does not apply nationwide and only applies to certain districts that have a history of racial discrimination Burden of proof is on the government jurisdiction (defendant) Preclearance provisions -> anytime a jurisdiction (state or county) wants to change anything with voting or registration that could have an impact on racial minorities they have to seek preclearance Only applies to jurisdictions under section 5 Most common way is to go to US Attorney Generals office and submit paper work Applies to everything: changing precinct boundaries, annexing land to a city, etc. Purpose and effect -> governmental entity has to demonstrate there is no discriminatory purpose nor effect to the governmental change

• Section 4 Triggers First Trigger: are you a jurisdiction (up to a level of state) that had a registration test or device in effect prior to the passage of the VRA? Second Trigger: in 1964 & 1968-> less than half of the voting age population was registered or cast ballots . 1975 renewal

• 5% of jurisdiction belongs to a single language minority group 1972-> printed out ballots only in English 1972 -> less than half VAP had registered or voted . Bailout Provision (1982 Renewal) -> removal from the preclearance process Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder (2009) -> test case for Shelby County v. Holder

An End to Section 5?

• South Carolina v. US -> SC passed voter ID law and bypassed Attorney General's office and filed directly with District court of DC Shelby County v. Holder (2013) -> Section 5 is still around but it is unenforceable because the trigger mechanisms in section 4 are unenforceable
• Section 6: Federal Registrars Section 3: Bail-In Provision,never been used at state level

Political Consequences of the VRA:

• Black mobilization Varies by jurisdiction, by state, varies in places where federal registrars were necessary or not By the 70s black and white registration rates were nearly identical Increased registration due to increased middle class that reflected increasing education and income levels Competitive elections also increase turnout rates
• White counter-mobilization The New Electoral Calculus -> when running for office you now have to think about appealing to a wider voter based End to outright racist appeals and campaigns
• The Bi-Racial Coalition -> still not a viable republican party
• Right after the voting rights act, still democratic one-party system
• Eventually white conservatives leave the Democratic party and revive the Republican party in the South Across racial lines in the democratic party Majority minority districts -> districts where the majority of the VAP is a minority elsewhere Black Officeholding -> since blacks are no longer barred from voting they can now also hold office Ex. History of black mayors in ATL

Texas: Unique History:

- State in the Republic of Mexico (1821-1836)
 Independent Nation (1836-1845)

• US State (1845-1861)
• Confederate State (1861-1865)
  • Reconstruction (1865-1870)
  • US State (1870-Present)
• Observations: Small black population compared to other Southern states-> east Texas into Central Texas
• Even in the Pre-Civil Rights Era:
  • Economic issues tended to dominate
  • Some economic diversification
  • State experiencing rapid population growth
    • Urbanization
    • In-migration -> movement from outside of Texas into Texas (not foreign immigration)
    • Exploitation of natural resources (oil and gas)
• Politics: - Texans interested in what government should do and how it should be paid for
• Political divide within the Democratic Party along conservative-progressive lines New Deal
• Prior to Depression over the regulation of business Balcones Fault Line : runs through
  • Dallas to San Antonio Some say this is the beginning of the West Might mean that Texas is more Western than Southern
• Geographic Sectionalism: *Although geographic differences exist, there are no clear sectional divisions within the state most likely due to sheer size
  • Loose, unorganized factionalism exists within Democratic party

Absence of friends and neighbors voting Ethnic Groups Heavy concentration of Hispanics in South Texas

• 12% of total state population in 1930
  • Social status lies between that of whites and blacks Those Hispanics who were enfranchised controlled by jefes acting like political bosses Heavy German concentrations in Texas Hill Country Tended to be more Republican but there was still no viable R party in the state at this time

Louisiana:

• North Louisiana: Anglo-Saxon Protestant South Louisiana: French (Acadian) Catholic
• Politics in the Pre-Civil Rights Era: Long Faction v. The Good Government Faction
• Huey Long: Populist, Anti-Corporation (battled the oil companies)
• Business Bloc: Mercantile, Financial, Shipping, Sugar and Cotton Producers; Lumber, Oil, Railroads, and Utilities Huey Long Populist
• Long more than just rhetoric Expanded public works and infrastructure Increased funding to LSU Free school textbooks

Party Politics:

• Weak bi-factionalism : Good Government vs. Long Faction - Good government faction less cohesive
• Long faction did use ticket system Long Family
  • Huey Long: Governor (1928-1932), US Senator(1932-1935), Assassinated in 1935 -> assassinated on LA state capitol steps
  • Earl Long (Brother): Governor(1939-1940; 1948-1952; 1956-1960)
  • Russell Long (Son): US Senator (1948-1987)

The Georgia Political Landscape:

• Bi-factional politics- Talmadge Faction vs. Anti-Talmadge Faction Talmadge was an alcoholic who appealed to populist rhetoric
• Traditionalist vs. Progressive county Unit System -> led to rural domination
• The Demise of the White Primary and Elimination of the Poll Tax

The 1946 Democratic Primary:

• The Candidates - none of them are willing to ending segregation or anything like that
• E.D. Rivers (P)
• James Carmichael (P) -> more progressive

The Purge of Black Voters

The 1946 General Election:

• Talmadge wins the uncontested general election Dies before taking office 1945
• Constitution: Lieutenant governor (M.E. Thompson) -Write-in effort for Herman Talmadge Three possibilities Legislature elects from two remaining top candidates Lt. Governor succeeds Current governor continues

###The Legislature Decides:

• General Assembly rejects Thompsons claim to governorship
• Herman Talmadge elected governor (161 to 87) Support for Talmadge strongly correlated with county (D) primary vote A Protracted
• Stalemate - Three Men Claimed the Governorship Me Thompson- Ellis Amall Herman Talmadge

The Georgia Supreme Court Decides- Thompson would serve until 1948

• AftermathHerman Talmadge elected governor in 1948 US Senate (1956-1980)

The Anti-Talmadge faction never again held power

• Georgia returns to more traditional (conservative) politics Rural domination fails; two-party competition begins

Observations:

• Ideological Shift Changes in Racial Composition of the Party Goal Explain extent and nature of ideological change .

Conclusions:

• Possible Causes of Democratic Party Transformation Cohort Replacement -> certain political generations are aging up and dying off Conversion In-migration -> movement of individuals outside of the south into the south
• More liberal northerners maybe moving into the south and registering as democrats in southern states
• The Democratic party in the south has become progressively more liberal over time The Success of
• The VRA:Black Registration Rates 1 1964: 6.7% 2 1967: 59.8% 3 1971: 62.2% The Realization GapThere is a difference between the expected increase in voting power and the actual increase in voting powerThere is also a difference between the number of blacks that are voting and the number of black candidates taking office

###Second-Generation Disenfranchisement All white Mississippi

• Legislature enacted a series of changes to election administration laws in 1966 Structural Barriers vs. Vote DenialVote Denial is denying them the right to register to vote outright Structural barriers were election laws, practices, or methods that were designed to diminish/blunt the effectiveness of black voting strengthThese changes were designed to blunt increases in black registration and turnout * Vote Dilution -> their votes don’t count as much as it should in terms of weight so they don’t influence the political process as much as they should

###Racially Polarized Voting

• black people typically vote in one direction, possibly for a black candidate and white people vote in the opposite direction, usually for a white candidate
• This can happen in both primary and general elections Inability for blacks to elect their candidate of chocie

###Structural Barriers to Black Political Participation

• Gerrymandering -> drawing political boundary lines to gain an advantage you wouldn’t have otherwise 1966 RedistrictingRequired because of malapportionment -> courts told them to High black population concentration along the Mississippi Delta Three main gerrymandering toolsCracking -> also called splintering
• Stacking
• Packing Black voting sgrength in the Delta region”cracked"Plan remained in effect until 1982 Multi-member legislative districtsStakingSubmerging the black vole i this multipler system Reduced number of house and senate districts

Used a whole county scheme rather than dividing counties up

• AL- at-large elections- Legislature enacts plans to move from single-member districts to county-wide at-large County Board supervisors county Boarde du Municipal Boards of Appointment - Candidate filing requirements More difficult for independent candidates to qualify to run for office Specifically aimed at members of the
• MFDP: Higher signature requirementSignatures had to be certified by circuit Clerks Prohibited any citizen who palitipated in a party primary from running as an (1) inthe general election Majority-vote requirements

Black Political Participation:

• 67State Elections -00 state and local offices up foe election candidates qualified win office
• Differing Strategies: NAACP -> ran andlidates in the Democratic primary - MFDP ran candidats as independents

Judicial ActionConnor v. Johnson

• Goes on for 19 years and several different courts)
• Congressional Redistricting and Legislative Apportionment- argued against theeaching of the Della
• Vote Dilution Claims The legislature cracked the Mississippi Delta, which was a historically black area Submerging involves multi-member districts whereas cracking involved single member ones Mississippi said that section S does not apply to redistricting plans The legislature was going to redraw the districts to equalize populations across the districts
• District court rules that there was no prool that he planis