Analysis: Paradox
of Hispanic vote clout
By Steve Sailer
UPI National Correspondent
LOS ANGELES - Jan. 26, 2003 (UPI) -- The
Census Bureau announced last week that
Hispanics have surpassed
African-Americans as the most numerous
minority group. Will Hispanics soon
become the premiere minority in political
clout as well?
Strangely, it's easy
to both overestimate and underestimate
the potential impact of Hispanic voters
on American politics. That's because
Latinos will have much less influence on
statewide elections than on district
races.
As home to 11
million Hispanics, California's
experience can serve as a guide to what
mass immigration and the high birthrate
of first generation Hispanics will
eventually mean for much of the rest of America.
Although Hispanics
comprise one-third of California's
population, they cast merely one-tenth of
its vote last November, according to the
Los Angeles Times exit poll. In contests
for president, senator and governor, a
study suggests that the electoral clout
of Latinos will continue to lag far
behind what their burgeoning share of the
population implies.
Paradoxically,
however, California shows that Hispanics,
despite their relatively low propensity
to vote, will become a major force within
the House of Representatives and state
legislatures. Although Latinos comprised
merely 10 percent of California voters in
2002 (down from a high of 14 percent in
1998), Latino politicians now hold 22.5
percent of the seats in each of the two
houses of the state Legislature. The main
reason for this curious Hispanic
over-representation relative to their
number of voters is little understood
today.
According to the new
Census estimate for 2001, there were 37
million Hispanics in the United States,
amounting to 13 percent of the national
population. Many political commentators
have drawn attention to these rapidly
growing ranks of Hispanics.
Yet, the
much-discussed "Latino
domination" of American elections
has not yet fully gone through the
formality of coming into existence. The
Census Bureau's survey of 50,000
households following the 2000 election
found that Hispanics made up just 5.4
percent of the electorate, compared to
80.7 percent for whites. At the polls,
there were 15 non-Hispanic whites for
every Hispanic.
No national figures
are available yet for the 2002 election,
but patchy state turnout data suggests
little growth in the Hispanic vote, or,
more likely, a decline. The
best-documented evidence is from that
well-established L.A. Times exit poll,
which found the Hispanic fraction of the
voted in California declined from 13
percent in 2000 to 10 percent.
According to a
recent study by demographers Jack Citrin
and Benjamin Highton of the Public Policy
Institute of California, "Latinos
participate at lower levels primarily
because they are less likely to be
citizens and secondarily because many of
them lack the socioeconomic resources
that boost political interest and
participation."
About 46 percent of
California Hispanics are not citizens.
The study also noted that Hispanics tend
to be on average younger, poorer, and
less educated, all of which make them
less likely to vote.
This low electoral
profile will not change as fast as many
political pundits assume. The PPIC
forecasted, "Although the numbers of
Latino and Asian voters will increase in
the future, their relative shares of the
electorate will not substantially grow
unless there are major changes in either
their citizenship or turnout rates."
Although
non-Hispanic whites made up only 46.7
percent of California's population in
2000, the PPIC expects whites to cast a
majority of the votes in California for
another four decades. The two experts
forecast that in 2040 non-Hispanic whites
will still comprise 53 percent of California's
electorate. In contrast, Hispanic voters
will be only half as important, at 26
percent.
In the rest of the
country, whites are likely to hold on to
their dominance of the presidential,
senatorial, and gubernatorial vote for
even longer. Currently, there are no
Hispanic U.S. senators and only one
governor (Bill Richardson of New Mexico,
whose mother is Mexican-American).
On the other hand,
Latinos are not underrepresented in the
House of Representatives relative to
their share of the national vote (5.4
percent in 2000). In the new Congress,
the 24 Hispanics make up 5.5 percent of
the 435 members.
A leading indicator
of future Hispanic national strength is
the California Legislature, where Latinos
hold more than one-fifth of the seats.
This represents well below their
one-third of the population, but far
above their one-tenth of the vote in
2002. Slightly less impressively, Latinos
make up more than one-seventh of California's
congressional delegation, with eight of
the 53 seats.
A little-discussed
quirk in how districts are drawn up will
likely help Hispanics gain substantial
power in numerous other state
legislatures and congressional
delegations in decades to come.
One major reason why
Hispanics win more district-level
elections in California than their vote
totals would suggest is that it typically
takes fewer votes to elect a Hispanic.
That's because there just aren't as many
voters in Latino-dominated districts.
These areas typically contain high
proportions of the ineligible, the young,
the poor, and the less educated.
UCLA sociologist
Roger Waldinger wrote, "Heavy
immigrant densities make the Mexican
American districts into rotten boroughs,
where only a small proportion of the
adult population votes, a situation that
does little to encourage electoral
competition or mobilization." (The
term "rotten borough" is
borrowed from 18th century British
politics, a time when some Parliamentary
districts held only a literal handful of
voters.)
For example, in
congressional District 30 in the posh
Hollywood Hills, where merely 8 percent
of the population is Hispanic, veteran
Beverly Hills Democrat Henry Waxman won
re-election last November in a race in
which all the candidates combined drew
184,000 votes. In sharp contrast, in
nearby congressional District 31, a 70
percent Hispanic area that includes East
L.A., Democrat Xavier Becerra gained
another term in a contest in which only
67,000 voters showed up.
Similarly, in
beachfront District 46 (17 percent
Hispanic), 173,000 voters decided the
fate of the surfing Republican Rep. Dana
Rohrabacher. (He won again.) Next door in
District 47 (65 percent Hispanic) in
gritty northern Orange County, prominent
Democratic fundraiser Loretta Sanchez
triumphed despite just 68,000 votes being
cast.
Overall, the eight California
congressional elections won by Latinos
averaged 80,000 ballots split among all
the hopefuls. In the other 45 races, a
mean of 143,000 voters went to the polls.
This meant that the average voter in a
district that elected a Latino had a 78
percent greater say in choosing a House
member than voters in the rest of the
state.
Similarly, only 59
percent as many voters showed up in the
nine California state Senate races won by
Latinos compared to the 11 won by other
politicians. In the 18 state assembly
districts captured by Hispanics, total
turnout was only 64 percent as great as
in the other 62 races.
How can these
disparities exist when all the districts
were made equal in size following the
2000 election? It depends upon how size
is measured. The courts have interpreted
the principle of "one man one
vote" to mean that districts should
be equalized not on the number of actual
voters or registered voters or citizens
or legal residents, but purely on the
number of residents of any description.
Even illegal aliens are counted.
Regions with lots of
undocumented workers, such as Santa Ana, Calif.,
reap greater representation per voter.
Likewise, California is given an extra
four or five congressional seats for
being home to several million illegal
immigrants.
Some "rotten
boroughs" are currently represented
by non-Hispanics. Conservative Democrat
Cal Dooley's 20th District (63 percent
Hispanic) in the agricultural Central
Valley is home to many farm workers, few
of who vote. Only 73,000 ballots were
counted there last fall.
In the 35th
congressional District in South Central
Los Angeles, Hispanic immigrants are
slowly squeezing out blacks, who now
comprise just 34 percent of the populace.
African-Americans, however, still make up
the majority of the electorate, so the
96,000 voters gave veteran black radical
Maxine Waters a landslide victory.
Fewer votes are
required on average to elect a Democrat
in California. All eight of its Latino
members of the House and 24 of the 27
Hispanic state legislators are Democrats.
In heavily immigrant
states, it typically takes fewer votes
for a Democrat to win than for a
Republican. In the 20 state Senate races
in California last year, the Democrats
won 13 (nine of which were accounted for
by Hispanic Democrats). In the seven
districts won by Republicans, an average
of 30 percent more total votes were cast.
All this suggests
that in the future there will be numerous
openings for Hispanic legislators and
members of Congress, but Hispanic clout
in statewide and presidential elections
will be less formidable.
Copyright ©
2001-2003 United Press International
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