Democratic Decline: What Happens to Minority Representation when Section II Protections are Gone?

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs program on Global Trends in Autocracy and Democracy presents “Democratic Decline: What Happens to Minority Representation When Section II Protections are Gone” with Loren Collingwood. 

Section II of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) has facilitated the creation of majority-minority districts around the United States, and allowed plaintiffs to challenge districting plans and election systems that produce disparate racial effects. The U.S. Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais may strike down Section II this year. What would be the effects? I argue that racial minorities in many states are likely to be redistricted out of VRA-protected districts and instead cracked across white-dominated districts. Consequently, southern states with sizable Black populations will almost certainly reduce the number of majority-Black districts, not only in Congress, but in state legislatures, county commissions, and school boards. The same process will occur for Latinos in the south and southwest, and Native voters in the Plains states. Finally, state VRAs, like in California and New York, are also likely to be ruled unconstitutional, further eroding protections even in strong Democratic states.

Loren Collingwood is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at University of New Mexico. His research interests include American politics, as well as race and ethnic politics with a particular emphasis on Latino politics and immigration. He is the co-author of “Sanctuary Cities: The Politics of Refuge” (2019) and author of “Campaigning in a Racially Diversifying America: When and How Cross-Racial Electoral Mobilization Works” (2020) both with Oxford University Press. Collingwood holds a Ph.D. from University of Washington and B.A. from California State University, Chico.

In person event. Co-sponsored with the Political Science Department. For more information on the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs, click here.