Democrats Indenture Blacks To The Party

It's a simple fact we all know--African Americans vote heavily Democratic. Although not intractable, this pattern will change very little over the next few decades. Most conservatives also know that in the South, this meant that blacks had to change party loyalty in order to reap the "benefits" of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Those benefits have included the breakdown of the black family, the entitlement mindset, and perpetual reliance on public welfare programs. Yet the Democrats argue that blacks vote Democrat because they love the Democratic Party, plain and simple.

That argument has just been tested in Kinston, North Carolina. And I can only conclude that the Democratic Party loves black folks only if they're Democrats. Otherwise, they would begin to lose their electoral advantage in largely black districts. So much of the litigation over the "right of blacks to be fairly represented" was based on the concept that in Southern districts which are largely or at least majority white, nonpartisan elections would weaken the ability of black candidates to win elections. But now we come to Kinston, where the population is nearly two-thirds black, and where the whites tend largely to be liberal Democrats while a high number of blacks tend to be conservative.

Clearly, that means that the playing field is very level, and the traditional Democrat argument doesn't work. But now that concept has been tested, and the Obama administration has come down on the side of "we need Democrats, and we really don't care if they're black or not." Last year, the good citizens of Kinston decided that good government was more important than parties, and overwhelmingly voted to take all the positions of power locally out of the party structure and make them entirely nonpartisan. This nonpartisanship is very common in most other states. In California, for instance, over 90% of cities elect their councils, mayors and commissions with a prohibition of any mention of political affiliation.

Eric Holder's Justice Department saw a major danger beginning to brew. If nonpartisan offices could be filled by blacks in fair elections, why would they need the Democratic Party? Although the local elections might be nonpartisan, this is the usual way that future candidates for partisan offices first earn their stripes. What if those black mayors, councilmen and commissioners became highly-respected and well-known successes, and then, God forbid, turned out to be Republicans when they ran for higher office?

So Holder intervened. The official position of Obama's Justice Department is that partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their candidates of choice (and then identified those candidates as Democrats who are almost exclusively black). In a masterpiece of divination, Holder opined that "white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters' right to elect the candidates they want." Of course, what he really meant, was that they could elect Democrats, and their status as black was important only so long as it maintained Democrat majorities.

The Washington Times reports that Stephen LaRoque, a former Republican state lawmaker who led the drive to end partisan local elections, called the Justice Department's decision 'racial as well as partisan.'" He went on to say: "On top of that, you have an unelected bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., overturning a valid election. That's un-American."

Wondering which Justice Department lawyer wrote this brilliant opinion? It's the same political hack appointee who dismissed the voting rights cases against the New Black Panther Party thugs in Philadelphia. The votes of the citizens of Kinston, who number 23,000, have been nullified by a vile race-baiting political appointee whose primary concern is keeping blacks on the Democrat plantation. By the way, two-thirds of Kinston's citizens are black, so it is nearly inevitable that whether the office is non-partisan or partisan, a black (or a white liberal) will be elected to the office. Holder doesn't care about blacks, he just wants guaranteed black Democrats. And he's taking no chances.

Recognizing that black private businesses and local "superstars" have included many conservatives, Obama and Holder do not want to risk good government in which the popular mayor or councilman turns out to be a Republican. Party affiliation has kept local Republicans basically out of the running simply because of 40 years of force of habit. But when asked, the locals will tell you that partisan voting is an impediment to advancement since the voters all pretty much know each other and are familiar with their views, and are just as likely to vote for a Republican as a Democrat if that party affiliation is not the ultimate determinant. But that is a trend which the Chicago South Side Democrat crooks cannot risk.

"Justice Department spokesman Alejandro Miyar denied that the decision was intended to help the Democratic Party," says the Washington Times. "He said the ruling was based on what the facts are in a particular jurisdiction and how it affects blacks' ability to elect the candidates they favor." Which, of course, makes absolutely no sense unless you read between the lines to recognize that the Department is saying that there are no universal electoral rules, but only those that guarantee that in favored jurisdictions black Democrats only will be elected. If the most popular nonpartisan candidate in an election is elected solely on that popularity, then isn't it entirely irrelevant if he or she turns out to be a black Republican in a future run for higher office? The voters got what and whom they wanted, so Holder's and Miyar's argument makes no sense whatsoever.

White voters in Kinston tend to vote more heavily than blacks (pretty much a nationwide fact), and the same white voters who fell in love with Barack Obama also led the charge for nonpartisan local elections. Yet in the actual election, black voters outnumbered whites, and both Obama and nonpartisan elections won by a hefty margin of almost 2 to 1. The measure and Obama won in seven of the city's nine black-majority precincts and both of its white precincts. Isn't that making a choice, Mr. Holder? It just wasn't your choice. With Obama's numbers dropping like a stone along with that of his Democrat Congress, they can ill afford to have blacks vote for Republicans who were originally nonpartisan local elected candidates.

So how did Holder get away with this (for now)? It's a holdover from the bad old days. What Holder described was the situation where racist white Democrats kept blacks out of the voting booths, resulting in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Kinston is in one of the areas that was required to get the approval of the Justice Department before making any changes to voting procedures (there are 12,000 of those jurisdictions, all located in the formerly racist parts of the South). The requirement is probably unconstitutional, but in any event, it has long outlived its purpose and usefulness. A move to allow that provision to die a natural death was narrowly defeated three years ago (exactly forty years after its original passage), mostly because of inaction on the part of the Bush administration.

Kinston City Council Member Joseph Tyson, who is a Democrat who favors retaining partisan elections still had some unkind words to say about the Justice Department decision. He said: "Unfortunately, I'm very disappointed with the apathy that we have in Kinston among Afro-American voters. I see no connection between nonpartisanship and the decline of the Democratic Party. If we Afro-Americans don't vote, that's our fault, not something that should interest the Justice Department."

What bothers Holder more than anything else is the fact that almost all municipal elections throughout North Carolina are nonpartisan, they just don't happen to be among the 12,000 districts over which the Department has dictatorial control. And though other largely black North Carolina districts remain semi-solidly Democrat, some have wandered off the plantation and gone Republican. Obama and Holder can't do anything about that, and as far as they are concerned, one black Republican is one too many. They aren't going to let that happen anywhere that they can control essentially without any legal restraint. All politics are local, and by God, they're going to keep those politics Democrat.