Debate Race and the Democratic Process: Replies
Plotke, David
The main points of Lani Guinier's essay deserve vigorous assent and criticism. She links debates about racial justice with arguments about representation in ways that are theoretically...
...I think her account leaves out a big part of the reason why blacks' long-blocked entry into political life is now accompanied by so much losing...
...Clinton's desire not to talk about race caused him to withdraw his support of Guinier's nomination when it became clear to him that a significant part of his presidential coalition opposed it...
...I argued that they are unlikely to spur the conversation she rightly believes ought to occur...
...We expect that in fair conditions political results will be due to organizational skills, persuasiveness, and the merit of arguments...
...After mass-production industries peaked as centers of American economic growth, blacks got to be factory workers...
...In practice we are not really in a pure majority, 528 • DISSENT Arguments winner-take-all system...
...A number of local procedures with PR elements might enhance democratic practices...
...She links debates about racial justice with arguments about representation in ways that are theoretically powerful and ambitiously democratic...
...I draw two conclusions...
...Guinier is right to insist that electoral procedures are not sacred, and many local formulas are compatible with an overall regime that is democratic...
...There are procedural elements in contemporary racial inequities, and they need attention...
...PR allows some of them to gain a public role: it won't ensure their influence, much less victories on major issues...
...One secondary winner might be a small centrist party, a descendant of liberal Republicanism or Democratic neoliberalism...
...Yet blacks now lose politically mainly because they have left-of-center political ideas that are unpopular...
...Guinier wants blacks to gain a fuller and more significant political role, and for overall political participation and democratic dialogue to increase...
...Beyond my criticisms of Guinier's specific proposals, my point is that racial inequities are less based on procedural unfairness than she believes...
...In light of this view of the shape of national political argument I examined some of Guinier's proposals...
...I address three questions: Should we talk about race...
...I think this is not so, or at least not so by design...
...Blacks have gained relatively full entry into American politics in decades when national politics has moved well to the right...
...This claim is wrong...
...Should We Talk about Race...
...Take a congressional district with a racial composition roughly equal to the national figures...
...A small far left party (workerist, green, or maybe feminist) might appear...
...109-136...
...If the political spectrum went no further to the right than Christine Todd Whitman, the practical results of such an approach might not be much worse than what we now have...
...black party, 5-10 percent...
...center-left party, 30-35 percent...
...Measures aimed at increasing the number of blacks in public office are in principle legitimate in the contemporary United States (including the odd-looking congressional districts...
...I agree with Guinier's comments insofar as a democratic system with no PR elements will be insensitive to political minorities...
...My effort to find the right word for racial inequality today was aimed at capturing such situations—when a black candidate loses, and part of the reason for the loss is purely racial, but the main reason is the public's rejection of the political views of that candidate...
...No one can keep them out of the process or hide intraparty fights...
...Guinier says that my article is a plea for avoiding discussion of race on grounds that such talk will endanger centrist coalitions...
...They view even invitations to talk about race as strategies for implementing such preferences...
...Do we need more proportional representation now...
...108, Nov...
...This is unfair, in the sense that it should always be politically acceptable to talk about unjust inequalities without having a compelling and elaborated program to overcome them...
...I do not think that racial antagonism now plays this central role...
...The remaining black voters (say, 8 percent to 9 percent of the national vote) would probably divide between a black party and a centerleft party...
...There are still, however, major cases where racial antagonism permeates and frames debate, as in the increasingly awful argument about social welfare...
...It greatly disadvantages those who urge that a conversation about race be a prominent part of national politics, without having proposals that meet such stringent criteria...
...If political proposals are really claims by social groups, almost by definition fairness means the same thing with regard to both...
...My estimate is that the following political configuration would appear if the threshold for getting seats in a new Congress were 5 percent: left party, 3-5 percent...
...I share these goals but doubt her proposals will be effective in attaining them...
...Imagine that in a normal campaign for Congress, a white left-liberal will lose to a right-center Republican by 60 percent to 40 percent...
...I don't see much reason to think that adopting something like full national PR would have strikingly democratic effects in racial politics or in general...
...That is one reason why center and center-right Democrats don't much like primaries...
...The Christian right, to the relief of the Robert Doles and Pete Wilsons, could muster its troops separately, while remaining available to a right-center ruling party as a partner in coalitions...
...Is It Fair to Lose...
...Do We Need More Proportional Representation Now...
...If we took twenty major legislative proposals identified with leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus in the last few years and followed their course, we would find few clearcut victories...
...This dynamic puts proponents of racial equity in a difficult position...
...I do not read Guinier's essay here or her other articles to claim that racism is now the primary direct cause of black electoral or political losses...
...PR would probably not much help two groups, which have in common that they are relatively small, visible in national politics, and now highly partisan...
...FALL • 1995 • 527 Arguments diversity and fluidity of the social order and the requirement in politics that even narrow interest group proposals be made in general terms...
...But for the foreseeable future, the line of claimants under Guinier's approach would reach far to the right and mean giving shares out to groups that I would prefer to see defeated over and over again...
...This situation puts a large burden on black politicians, and illustrates what I described as "slowly diminishing racial domination...
...A distinct black party would * I simplify in leaving out possible regional parties and parties based on ethnic and racial groups other than blacks...
...But Guinier's proposed procedural changes are less promising than she thinks, including proportional representation (PR...
...As often with PR, the big winner is the largest cohesive minority, in this case the right-center party...
...What if a political group's proposals are always defeated, and the reason is that others dislike or want to oppress the social group to which that political group is linked...
...If this means it would be a good thing for blacks to win political victories, I agree...
...The main beneficiary of proportional representation is usually the largest cohesive political minority...
...It might not look much different from the 1995 House, and the black party would have fewer representatives than the current Black Caucus...
...Perhaps Guinier's belief that politics equals (social) group interaction leads her not to see any significant distinction between the political rejection of views articulated by black political agents and the racial rejection of those views because they are proposed by people who are socially defined as blacks...
...Some anti-abortion Catholics have responded to the opening created by the view that equity means fair political shares by claiming that opposition to their views on abortion expresses anti-Catholic prejudice...
...Even without this feature, the right-center party would be in a good position to build winning coalitions with parties to its right and left...
...On the whole blacks in the United States do not now suffer this condition, though they did long into this century...
...Political forces deserve to be heard, respected, and to have every chance to compete openly...
...What is the rule that warrants making sure that black political forces win a fair number of times but not anti-abortion forces or anti-immigration forces...
...In this situation political differences among blacks would be amplified...
...Thus PR generally expands the range of political argument, as the forces near the edges of the current political spectrum are usually small...
...Catholics who accept their church's position can enter politics and act on behalf of their understanding of the social needs and religious commitments of Catholics...
...Now, blacks get to be a large part and often the leaders of the legitimate national American left—after the decline of the left movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the dwindling of trade unions, and the decay or collapse of diverse left-of-center projects in the United States and elsewhere...
...Groups also benefit whose size is just above the threshold set for representation...
...The damage done by their policies would outweigh my inclination to be neighborly (as if I were to say to my Catholic neighbors, "If it will make you feel better and make our political community a warmer place, it's your turn to decide on abortion law...
...Substitute a black left-liberal for the white left-liberal...
...Here is what I meant to say...
...I doubt that Guinier thinks the main reason for this outcome is racial antagonism to Ron Dellums or John Conyers (though I am sure that some representatives would be more comfortable in a whiter Congress that reminded them of home in the newer suburbs and the rural West...
...If racism—refusal to acknowledge the basic political standing of blacks and refusal to listen— were the primary source of political outcomes, that would be a good reason to rearrange procedures in order to change outcomes...
...right-center party, 35-40 percent...
...After decades of suburban growth and urban decline, blacks got to be mayors...
...How would it affect prospects for racial equity...
...I can't think of such a rule that would meet minimal criteria of procedural neutrality...
...We could expect the black candidate to lose another 5 percent or so of the vote, from the right side of the Democratic coalition...
...1994), pp...
...People who are interested in racial justice should continue to talk 526 • DISSENT Arguments about race and seek to create and improve (procedural and other) proposals that might be workable...
...She thinks that more inclusive procedures would increase black political representation, increase the number of significant victories by those representatives, and improve the quality of political deliberation...
...And we should not be surprised if efforts to place racial questions prominently in national political debates are resisted by center Democrats who believe they have little to gain from doing that...
...Several features of current American politics informally play the roles PR is meant to play, including federalism and political decentralization...
...While I agree with Guinier that some PR is better than none, and local change in this direction might often be good, we are not starting from zero...
...She interprets my reservations about this story as reticence to talk about race...
...Is it fair to lose...
...But it is a real political situation...
...In my article I urged that we consider not only the best possible effects of our proposals on our friends and allies, but imagine how they might interact with overall political configurations...
...But her statement in context also sounds like a distributive claim...
...Thus fairness means somewhat different things for social groups and political groups...
...In a multiparty system 40 percent is often enough for a parliamentary majority, as most PR formulas try to compensate for the dispersing effects of a small threshold by allocating seats in a way that favors larger parties...
...More dramatically, the expansion of the primary system in the two parties has much increased chances for political minorities to have real influence...
...They (we) face great difficulty in reopening or trying to change the conversation about race at the level of national politics unless we can begin it with proposals that promise to be effective in increasing racial equity without entailing racial polarization...
...But what would adding a large dose of PR to American national politics do right now...
...It is not surprising if this seems like a poor reward for the decades of difficult work it took to overcome the main forms of racial exclusion from politics...
...Part of a democratic process is the possibility of strongly opposing certain views and wanting to help defeat them...
...FALL • 1995 • 529...
...These forces, mainly center and center-right Democrats, oppose racial preferences in public policy...
...Guinier says, "Blacks should vote, get elected, and be an influential part of governing majorities...
...Guinier believes that in a genuinely democratic polity all political forces gain a fair share of victories...
...My response is, "If you so dislike losing, change your ideas and see if you do better...
...If it could be shown that my desire to defeat anti-choice political projects were really a social prejudice, then my effort to do so should be regarded as illegitimate...
...independent center party, 5 percent...
...probably also emerge and gain a real following among blacks and a small one among other groups...
...The overall alignment might not be worse than the present one, but it doesn't shine with democratic promise or signal racial equity...
...The left's phrases about racism in disguise suggest that routine political outcomes are primarily motivated by efforts at racial exclusion...
...Pat Buchanan, Jesse Jackson, and other noncentrist types and the forces they represent can become real forces in national political life...
...Christian right party, 10-15 percents...
...Perhaps distinctions among forms and degrees of domination are not so important for Guinier because she thinks political representation should be substantially organized by group whether or not race is the issue.' This idea depends on viewing political groups and social groups as so closely linked as to be equivalent...
...Most blacks support political programs and ideas that are now clearly in a losing area of the American political spectrum...
...Some would sign up for a right-center party...
...If one substitutes labor for blacks in her quote, the problem is clearer: We don't expect political victories to be distributed at all...
...Some black voters— probably a small number—would support a far left party...
...As compromise is not the only political virtue, I see no compelling democratic reason to give their destructive political program about gender and sexuality a fair share of victories if this can be prevented in open debate and by fair means...
...But what if fair conditions are corrupted by racism...
...Political forces are often based partly on social groups, but there is always a separation between them, due to the • See Lani Guinier, "Comment: [E]racing Democracy," Harvard Law Review (vol...
...Anti-abortion forces and their defenders, for example, make arguments similar to Guinier's—when majorities continually reject their program they claim that this result is an undemocratic exclusion of a large group...
...The present shape of American politics also makes me unenthusiastic about Guinier's tendency to treat political victories like distributive shares for groups...
...Sometimes the prospect of such losses is enough to mean that black candidates aren't selected to run in races that are expected to be close...
Vol. 42 • September 1995 • No. 4
