Voting Rights Gone Wrong
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on March 15th, 2009 4:37 am by HL
Voting Rights Gone Wrong
WASHINGTON — During Reconstruction, Mississippi created a “shoestring” congressional district, sweeping so many blacks into a narrow district along the river that other districts had comfortably large white majorities. This was racial gerrymandering deplored by liberals. After the 1990 census determined that North Carolina was 22 percent black, the state’s redistricting created a black-majority congressional district. President George H.W. Bush’s Justice Department deemed this insufficient under the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Hence the creation of North Carolina’s 12th District, which slithers 160 miles down Interstate 85. This was racial gerrymandering applauded by liberals. And by cynical Republicans. While preening about their civil rights sensitivity, Republicans could concentrate black voters into electoral ghettos, thereby making contiguous districts more Republican.
Dumping ‘Smart Growth’ is Wise 
America is still trying to sort out the housing mess that helped trigger the recession. So far, most of the focus has been on how mortgage companies induced many modest-income families to get too deep into debt. More recently, attention has turned to borrowers who willfully took out mortgages and second mortgages to live a lifestyle they knew they couldn’t afford. But there is another element to the story. In many areas of the country, Americans reluctantly took on huge mortgages as their last, best chance of homeownership. “Yes, house prices are incredibly high,” the thinking went, “but they keep rising fast. I must buy now, even though it will stretch me to the financial limit, or we’ll never be able to afford a home of our own.”
