“It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”–Chief Justice John Roberts in his partial concurrence/partial dissent in LULAC v. Perry.

Indeed.

I am not opposed, in theory, to institutional mechanisms that would enhance diversity of various types within government.

However, within the US system of representation by real estate (i.e., the single member district) I have long thought the notion of trying to guarantee a specific racial/ethnic outcomes was problematic at best and specious at worst.

For one thing, the notion that the thing that best defines us in terms of representation in government is our skin color is simply wrong. Clarence Thomas and Sheila Jackson Lee have the same basic hue, but their politics are quite different and would represent a given district in substantially different ways.

Yes, a higher concentration of blacks, hispanics or whites in a given location increases the probability that a person of that category will run for office and that they may potentially win. However, it hardly guarantees such an outcome.

Hence, the court’s opinion that partisan gerrymandering, which decreases democratic competition is ok, but diluting the Latino population’s voting strength strikes me as odd, if not a non sequitur. The reasoning is especially tortured because it would seem, in looking at the opinion, that part of the logic that makes dilution of hispanic voters a problem for the Court is because the dilution was done for partisan reason, i.e., that hispanics were more likely to vote Democratic, so diluting their voting power aided the GOP. If that is the logic, then surely that is partisan gerrymandering, which the Court seems to find acceptable, not pure racial gerrymandering. It is as if the Court is sayinf you can more Democrats out of the district in a way that would help Republicans so long as the bulk of said Democrats aren’t black or hispanic.

If we want to increase diversity in the legislature, and not just the racial kind (i.e, the ideological kind s well–which is ultimately far more important than skin color), we need to radically change our electoral system to one that promotes some serious amount of proportionality.

That, however, is unlikely to happen any time soon.

For further analysis of the case, see Rick Hasen’s post at Election Law.