TY  - JOUR
AU  - Washington,Ebonya L.
TI  - Do Majority Black Districts Limit Blacks’ Representation? The Case of the 1990 Redistricting
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17099
PY  - 2011
Y2  - May 2011
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17099
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17099.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ebonya L. Washington
Yale University
Box 8264
37 Hillhouse, Room 36
New Haven, CT 06520
Tel: 203/432-9901
Fax: 203/432-6323
E-Mail: ebonya.washington@yale.edu
AB  - Conventional wisdom and empirical academic research conclude that majority Black districts decrease Black representation by increasing conservatism in Congress. However, this research generally suffers from three limitations: 1) too low a level of aggregation 2) lack of a counterfactual and 3) failure to account for the endogeneity of the creation of majority minority districts. I compare congressional delegations of states that during the 1990 redistricting were under greater pressure to create majority minority districts with those under lesser pressure in a difference-in-difference framework. I find no evidence that the creation of majority minority districts leads to more conservative House delegations. In fact point estimates indicate that states that increased their share of majority Black districts saw their delegations grow increasingly liberal. I find similar results for majority Latino districts in the southwest. Thus I find no evidence for the common view that majority minority districts decrease minority representation in Congress.
ER  -