WHITES AND BLACKS: The GOP helped send Black members to Congress!

FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 2026

Hulse explains why the GOP did that: In yesterday's report, we floated a question about Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC):

Without the 1982 addition to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, would Rep. Clyburn ever have been elected to the House of Representatives from his home state of South Carolina?

Rep. Clyburn has been an extremely significant member of Congress. But, especially given the ways of the times, would he ever have gotten there, absent the1982 addition to the Voting Rights Act?

When we floated that question, we didn't remember the fact that Rep. Clyburn recently answered that question. Carl Hulse recorded his answer right at the start of this history lesson, which appeared on page A19 of the New York Times back on May 10 of this year:     

CONGRESSIONAL MEMO 
How Minority Districts Fueled the G.O.P.’s Southern Ascendancy in Congress

Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, formerly the No. 3 Democrat in the House, is certain he would never have been elected to Congress without changes in the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court determined last week amounted to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

“And about half of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus wouldn’t be there,” said Mr. Clyburn, the first African American sent to Congress from his state since Reconstruction. He was part of the historic 1992 class of Black and Hispanic lawmakers elected after new maps were drawn to comply with 1982 changes meant to strengthen the Voting Rights Act.

Plainly, Hulse was referring to the changes made to the VRA in 1982, not to the original provisions of the legislation. That said, Clyburn's answer was clear:  

Absent those additions to the VRA—changes supported by both major parties—he never would have served in the House! 

Also, “about half of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus wouldn’t be there,” Clyburn said.   

New language was added to the VRA in 1982. In the redistricting which followed the 1990 census, those somewhat murky new provisions resulted in the deliberate creation of a significant number of districts which were newly majority Black. 

Those newly created districts sent new members to the House—new members like Rep. Clyburn. There had long been Black members of the House—but now the number roughly doubled. The leading authority on this significant change ciphers the matter like this:

1992 United States House of Representatives elections    

The 1992 United States House of Representatives elections were held on November 3, 1992, to elect U.S. Representatives to serve in the 103rd United States Congress. They coincided with the 1992 presidential election, in which Democrat Bill Clinton was elected president, defeating Republican incumbent President George H. W. Bush.

Despite this, however, the Democrats lost a net of nine seats in the House to the Republicans, in part due to redistricting following the 1990 census. This election was the first to use districts drawn up during the 1990 United States redistricting cycle on the basis of the 1990 census. The redrawn districts were notable for the increase in majority-minority districts, drawn as mandated by the Voting Rights Act. The 1980 census resulted in 17 majority-black districts and 10 majority-Hispanic districts, but 32 and 19 such districts, respectively, were drawn after 1990.

This was the first time ever that the victorious presidential party lost seats in the House in two consecutive elections. As of 2025, this is...the last time the Democrats won the House for more than two consecutive elections.   

Oof! The Democrats still controlled the House, but that was soon going to end. As we detailed yesterday, the GOP took control of the House in 1994 for the first time in forty years.  

The GOP didn't take control of the House because of those majority minority districts. Majority Black districts were mainly being created in the South—in states like Jim Clyburn's South Carolina—but Democrats lost more seats in the state of Washington that year (6) than in any other state.  

Incredibly, Speaker Tom Foley was swept out of office in that northwestern state in the 1994 elections. Strikingly, so were Rep. Maria Cantwell, a future United States senator, and Rep. Jay Inslee, a future governor of the state. 

With five incumbents defeated and a sixth (retiring) Democratic incumbent replaced by a Republican, the congressional delegation in Washington flipped in the 1994 elections from 8-1 Democratic to 7-2 Republican. "The Republican Revolution" struck on a nationwide basis that year, even on the Canadian border.

In states like Washington, the original partisan alignment would largely be restored over time. But in many Southern states, the 1994 Republican wins, along with the ongoing party-switching, was part of the larger movement in which "the solid South" slowly but steadily moved from solidly D over to solidly R.   

This raises the question which Hulse explores in his New York Times report. That question goes like this:   

If Republicans were slowly seizing control of the Southern states, why would they agree to form majority Black districts in those states—districts which would almost surely send Democrats on to the House? 

Why did Republicans do that? In 1982, why did they overwhelmingly supports the changes to the VRA which led to the creation of those new districts? After the 1990 census, why did they support the creation of majority Black districts in the South—districts like the one which enabled Rep. Clyburn's monumental career in the Congress?   

As far as we know, Hulse's answer to those questions is the standard historical answer. If memory serves, the Republican Party's political strategy was publicly discussed at the time.   

Why did Republicans agree to create those Democratic districts? Midway through his concise report for the Times, the historian Hulse explains:   

In the late 1980s, Republicans had been deep in the House minority for nearly 40 years. But growing dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party had begun moving white Southern conservatives into the Republican ranks, as illustrated by high-profile party switches in Washington. Then the redistricting initiated under a series of court decisions aimed at fostering more minority representation provided yet another opening that might have seemed counterintuitive at first glance.

Architects of the [new congressional] maps realized that if they could maximize Black and Hispanic representation in the new districts, they would simultaneously dilute Democratic strength in surrounding jurisdictions where coalitions of white and Black voters had elected white Democrats for decades. The shift would ultimately create dozens of openings for Republican candidates in what had formerly been known as Democrats’ “Solid South.”   

Slick! If Republicans packed Black voters into heavily Democratic districts, that would help Republican candidates win in the neighboring districts which had been robbed of such voters! The creation of those new [and heavily Democratic] districts "would create dozens of openings for Republican candidates" in other nearby districts!

As far as we know, this is fairly standard history of the era. As he continues, Hulse explains how the creation of those districts was accomplished:

[continuing from above]
Groups bankrolled by wealthy conservatives joined with liberal organizations to school minority advocacy groups in state capitals and in Washington about how to shape new districts to meet court tests and best guarantee the election of minority representatives for minority communities—an outcome that many on the left argued was long overdue. Republican groups even provided free access to expensive computer software that could craft the new districts. Democrats eagerly accepted the help.

Some civil rights figures such as Representative John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat, warned at the time that the new maps could empower Republicans by weakening the partnership of progressive white and Black voters in the South. But others said the new districts were the only way to overcome centuries of institutional discrimination against minorities in the region.  

According to Hulse, so the tradeoffs were assessed at that time.

According to Hulse, "many on the left" believed that "the [increased] election of minority representatives for minority communities...was long overdue" in the region. For their part, Republicans saw the creation of these majority minority districts as a way to continue their party's ongoing march through the South.   

In modern parlance, it was Red and Blue Together as Rs and Ds joined hands to move these changes along. Some high-end figures—congressional figures like Rep. Clyburn—were sent to Washington from these districts. As is occasionally true with white congressional reps, some of the new Black reps who were elected were perhaps occasionally perhaps a bit less impressive overall.   

At any rate, so it went as the GOP slowly accomplished its political conquest of the South. Early in his report for the Times, Hulse brings us up to date on the way Republican strategy has changed in the present day:   

Now, Republicans see the chance to cement their grip on the region—and to try to maintain their thin House majority—by eliminating the minority districts that initially worked to their advantage and to take those seats for their own.   

It is the latest chapter in an ongoing political saga that has had profound implications for the House of Representatives over the past three decades. Redistricting in minority communities could again be a major factor in deciding the November elections as Republicans try to lessen the traditional midterm advantages for the party out of power—the Democrats in this case—in a year when they face particularly strong headwinds.

Having consolidated their power throughout the South, Republicans are now emboldened to try to eliminate the majority-minority districts, believing they can carry them without risking their strength elsewhere as Democratic-leaning minority voters are dispersed into other districts.   

Within the realm of Republican strategy, it's time for those districts to go! According to Hulse, Republicans feel that they now could win every House district in some Southern states, especially if they're helped along by a bit of gerrymandering as they create those states' new districts.  

In such circumstances, it's time for those once-helpful districts to go! Or so goes current Republican strategy, at least according to Hulse.   

As far as we know, this is fairly basic political history. If memory serves this general Republican strategy was publicly discussed back in the 1990s.

None of this helps us evaluate the constitutional and legal merits of those recent Supreme Court decision. None of this tells us how various groups should react to the new legal realities concerning these endangered districts.

One such district is Alabama 7, a district which will remain largely unchanged and majority Black for this November's election. According to the leading authority, its modern history goes something like this:

Alabama's 7th congressional district   

Alabama's 7th congressional district is a United States congressional district in Alabama that elects a representative to the United States House of Representatives. ...The largest city entirely within the district is Selma.

The district has been majority nonwhite, with a majority of African-American residents, since the redistricting following the 1990 census. As such, and with a Cook Partisan Voting Index rating of D+13, it is the most Democratic district in Alabama...It is currently represented by Democrat Terri Sewell.

Back when he was still a Democrat, this was Rep. Shelby's district. In the years since its redistricting, it has sent three Black Democrats to the House—first Earl Hilliard, then Artur Davis, and now Terri Sewell.

(According to the leading authority, it was created in 1992 as "a 65 percent black-majority district." If that number is accurate, that seems like an unusually heavy degree of "packing," as these matters go.)

Rep. Sewell is highly capable. She recently spoke about the prospective dismantling of these majority Black Southern districts.

We strongly agreed with one of the things she said. Concerning a second statement she made, we may not agree quite so much.  

The issues here have always been quite complex. Much more remains to be said.

Still to come: Good grief! Will the mid-census dismantling of some majority Black districts let the GOP retain control of the House this year? 

Much, much more remains to be said about the many different aspects of this important topic.