Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue recently filed a brief in a Texas case before the U.S. Supreme Court regard the pre-clearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act. Perdue referenced the Obama election to question the need for future federal oversight.
After the 1990 Census, the surge of GOP members in the Georgia congressional delegation was a result of putting Black voters into federally mandate Black districts. Blacks and Whites can work together in the Georgia General Assembly because this 90s collaboration blindsided White Democrat congressmen from Georgia who had a functional relationships with the Black community.
Was it the price of progress to see certain members retire in their prime while others when down swinging? I was fond of Thomas, Darden, Hatcher, Ray, Roland, Jenkins, Jones and Barnard. Bishop and Kingston rode that wave into the big leagues and they are good people but the polarization from redistricting means a MOC can win reelect while ignoring a sizable part of his constituents.
The election President Obama does not mean the end of racism; we have it in my neighborhood because Blacks can be big time racists too. At Albany State University, we studied the Voting Age Population requirements of the Voting Rights Act. The GOP was smart to realize that a congressional district can be Black friendly with 51% Black adults—not Black voters, just adults. Of course, Black voter apathy means many of those voters are not registered. So, you get Black districts where GOP candidates have a fighting chance and more importantly the contiguous districts are so White that the GOP candidate (Black or White) can win easily. (We should not assume Black voters are Democrats and White southern voters are Republicans; also, conservative voters can be Democrat moderates who are just over the line.)
In southwest Georgia, the Black community loves Sanford Bishop for his services and many Whites like his responsiveness to regional issues (pork). While Kingston is okay with the Black community in southeast Georgia, some of his GOP colleagues function under the mindset that those who constantly vote against me should be ignored. Georgia congressional Democrats don’t ignore GOP constituents outside Atlanta because they can write campaign checks and that is the mother’s milk of politics.
Project Logic Ga 