Ballot Watch: The South (Part 1, The Solid South)

This is Bal­lot Watch. Today is the 13^th in the series of arti­cles on the upcom­ing bal­lot ini­tia­tives and some key local elec­tions. Some of these cov­ered top­ics in com­mon with mul­ti­ple states, but the remain­der look at a state level. With the sec­ond of the two-​​part arti­cle on the South which runs next Mon­day, our series closes.

This region includes the states of the Con­fed­er­acy, minus Texas and Vir­ginia, which were cov­ered in sep­a­rate geo­graphic Bal­lot Watch divisions.

Of the ten states in this region, the only com­pet­i­tive states for Demo­c­ra­tic Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates are North Car­olina (15 elec­toral votes) and Florida (29 elec­toral votes). I’ll cover those two states (what I call the “Swing­ing South”) in my last Bal­lot Watch on Mon­day Octo­ber 8.

In the Sen­ate, the South (as depicted here) is rep­re­sented by four Democ­rats (Kay Hagen, North Car­olina; Mary Lan­drieu, Louisiana; Mark Pryor, Arkansas; and Bill Nel­son, who is retir­ing both to and from Florida) and 16 Republicans.

The only white Demo­c­ra­tic mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the South, Geor­gia Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 12 Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Bar­row (D-​​Savannah, GA) is run­ning, but his seat is in dan­ger of flip­ping to the Repub­li­cans. Over­all, 65 Repub­li­can and 25 Demo­c­ra­tic House mem­bers rep­re­sent this region.

How did the Solid South get this way? Sim­ply put, racial pol­i­tics and gerrymandering.

The par­ti­san turn­ing point for the South was dur­ing the 1960s. From the post-​​Civil War era to the 1960 elec­tion, almost a cen­tury, the Repub­li­can Party of Lin­coln was the party of Recon­struc­tion and car­pet­bag­gers. Repub­li­cans were widely hated in the post-​​Civil War South, hence the term “yel­low dog Demo­c­rat”: “I’d vote for a yel­low dog if he ran on the Demo­c­ra­tic ticket.” Dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Roo­sevelt and Tru­man, how­ever, had bub­bled up dur­ing the Depres­sion and in the 1948 elec­tion. The South was hit hard, eco­nom­i­cally, by the Depres­sion and recov­ery was slow. To make mat­ters worse, African-​​Americans (then called “Negroes” in polite soci­ety) had served with dis­tinc­tion in World War II and were no longer sat­is­fied with the second-​​class cit­i­zen­ship offered them by most South­ern polit­i­cal institutions.

In the 1960 elec­tion, Demo­c­rat John F. Kennedy won by a razor-​​thin mar­gin in Illi­nois (win­ning its then-​​27 elec­toral votes by 0.19 per­cent, amidst alle­ga­tions of elec­toral fraud by the Daley machine in Chicago) and new state Hawaii (three elec­toral votes, 0.06 per­cent mar­gin), and thereby defeated Nixon, 303 elec­toral votes to 220. Both Kennedy and Nixon had pub­licly com­mit­ted to stand­ing up for Negro vot­ing rights, a stance that angered white con­ser­v­a­tives in the Deep South. Rather than elect­ing a civil rights sup­porter on the Demo­c­ra­tic ticket, Mis­sis­sippi and Alabama vot­ers were given a choice of an “unpledged” elec­tor slate. This slate won all eight of Mississippi’s elec­tors with 39 per­cent of the vote, a plu­ral­ity. Six of the 11 total elec­tors from Alabama were also unpledged. These elec­tors cast their Elec­toral Col­lege votes for Sen­a­tor Harry F. Byrd, Sr. for Pres­i­dent and Sen­a­tor Strom Thur­mond for Vice-​​President and were joined by one “faith­less elec­tor” from Okla­homa who voted for Byrd for Pres­i­dent and Gold­wa­ter for Vice-​​President. Byrd there­fore received 15 elec­toral votes. As the addi­tion of Alaska and Hawaii had tem­porar­ily cre­ated an Elec­toral Col­lege with 537 mem­bers, the Elec­toral Col­lege would have been almost evenly split had Hawaii and Illi­nois gone the other way. In that case, the unpledged elec­tors from the South would have held the bal­ance of power in the Elec­toral Col­lege. That year, Ten­nessee, Ken­tucky and Florida all voted for Nixon. Note that Florida had the same num­ber of elec­toral votes as Louisiana, and fewer than Ten­nessee and Alabama, in the 1960 elec­tion based on 1950 cen­sus apportionments.

Reflect­ing an increase in social strife, elec­toral strife in the South­ern U.S. con­tin­ued in the 1964 elec­tion. On June 21, 1964, civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Good­man and Michael Schw­erner were killed in Philadel­phia, Mis­sis­sippi. Their burned-​​out auto­mo­bile was found on the nearby Choctaw reser­va­tion, which Fed­er­al­ized the crime, and the FBI became involved, adding to the siege men­tal­ity among seg­re­ga­tion­ist whites. An inte­grated slate of del­e­gates from Mis­sis­sippi, call­ing them­selves the Mis­sis­sippi Free­dom Demo­c­ra­tic Party (MFDP), made a claim to be seated at the 1964 con­ven­tion, argu­ing that the elected slate of del­e­gates was ille­git­i­mately elected on a seg­re­gated Jim Crow bal­lot. Even­tu­ally, Pres­i­dent John­son and party lead­ers effected a com­pro­mise, in which they would pick and seat only two of the MFDP del­e­gates and asked for a promise (which the Mis­sis­sippi del­e­ga­tion refused to sign) that Mis­sis­sippi have no more Jim Crow pri­mary bal­lots. The all-​​White Mis­sis­sippi del­e­ga­tion threat­ened to aban­don John­son in the gen­eral elec­tion if the MFDP del­e­gates were seated. MFDP Vice-​​Chair Fan­nie Lou Hamer, when asked why she per­sisted, responded with her famous quote: “All my life I’ve been sick and tired. Now I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” The com­pro­mise sat­is­fied nei­ther side of the dis­pute. MFDP del­e­gates left the con­ven­tion, the South aban­doned John­son any­way, and the del­e­gate selec­tion rules were changed for the 1968 convention.

In the 1964 Repub­li­can pri­mary and con­ven­tion, the con­ser­v­a­tive (Gold­wa­ter) and moderate/​liberal (Rock­e­feller) wings of the Repub­li­can party were in open war­fare as well. Rockefeller’s well-​​deserved rep­u­ta­tion as a ladies’ man weak­ened him, and Gold­wa­ter pre­vailed in the pri­maries. (Rock­e­feller later served as an appointed Vice-​​President under Ford and died of a heart attack in 1979, age 70, while “edit­ing an art book” with his 25-​​year-​​old aide, Megan Mar­shack.) In the gen­eral elec­tion, Gold­wa­ter got shel­lacked, win­ning only his home state of Ari­zona and the south­ern states of Louisiana, Mis­sis­sippi, Alabama, Geor­gia and South Carolina.

In 1968, the Demo­c­ra­tic pri­mary process was dis­rupted by ongo­ing civil rights bat­tles and the assas­si­na­tion of Robert Kennedy. Nixon and Kevin Phillips devel­oped “the South­ern Strat­egy” which involved tak­ing back the South for the Repub­li­can Party. The South still had plenty of yel­low dog Democ­rats and they were appar­ently not entirely con­vinced that the Repub­li­cans could be trusted, and Arkansas, Louisiana, Mis­sis­sippi, Alabama and Geor­gia all voted for the Amer­i­can Inde­pen­dent Party ticket of Alabama Gov­er­nor George Wal­lace and Gen­eral Cur­tis LeMay (the inspi­ra­tion for “Gen­eral Jack D. Rip­per” in the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove), who ran on a plat­form of hatred for blacks, hip­pies and anti-​​war protesters.

Since 1968, how­ever, the South (with the excep­tion of Florida) has been almost exclu­sively Repub­li­can ter­ri­tory in Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. The Democ­rats’ last gasps were in 1976, when for­mer Geor­gia Gov­er­nor Jimmy Carter was the Demo­c­ra­tic nom­i­nee, and 1992, when Arkansas Gov­er­nor Bill Clin­ton was the nom­i­nee. Geor­gia went for Carter in 1980, Louisiana, Arkansas, Ten­nessee, Ken­tucky and Geor­gia went for Clin­ton in 1992, Louisiana, Arkansas, Ten­nessee, Ken­tucky and Florida voted for Clinton’s re-​​election in 1996, and then the Democ­rats com­pletely lost the South except for Florida, which remained the swing state it is today. Out­side of these excep­tions, since 1972, the South­ern states pic­tured here were solidly Repub­li­can through the 2004 election.

The so-​​called “solid South” may be start­ing to break up. North Car­olina was a nar­row (0.3 per­cent mar­gin) sur­prise vic­tory for Sen­a­tor Barack Obama in the 2008 elec­tion. Florida, now with three times as many elec­toral votes as Louisiana or Alabama, went deci­sively for Obama, who won by almost three per­cent. Vir­ginia (not part of this post, but part of the old Con­fed­er­acy) also swung from Repub­li­can to Demo­c­rat between 2004 and 2008.

Repub­li­can leg­is­la­tures have used their ger­ry­man­der to cor­ral African-​​American vot­ers into a few “major­ity minor­ity” dis­tricts, and we see these as the blue islands on a sea of red in the map below. This map, mod­i­fied from The New York Times, shows the Times’s esti­ma­tion of the state of House seats in the 2012 elec­tion: yel­low for tossup, striped blue for Lean Demo­c­rat, and striped red for Lean Repub­li­can (the Times has no “likely” category.)

Out of 97 House seats in this region, there are only three tossups and only 12 (12 per­cent) total seats in play (Florida 2^nd, 9^th, 10^th, 16^th, 18^th, 22^nd, 26^th; Geor­gia 12^th; Ken­tucky 6^th; North Car­olina 7^th, 8^th, 11^th, 13^th, accord­ing to The New York Times). Exclud­ing the swing states of Florida and North Car­olina, there are only two seats (3.5 per­cent) in play out of 57 House seats in the other eight South­ern states. Com­pare this to the national totals: with 435 House seats, the Times esti­mates 81 (19 per­cent) are in play, so this is one of the least com­pet­i­tive regions in the coun­try. This is the deplorable state we find our­selves in, at least until the Amer­i­can elec­torate wakes up and dis­cov­ers the advan­tages of a non-​​partisan reap­por­tion­ment process. (Com­pare the Iowa map to the map above.)

I’ve sur­veyed House race rat­ings from as many sources as I can find, and those who want to check on indi­vid­ual races can use the fol­low­ing links: Larry Sabato’s Crys­tal Ball; Cook Polit­i­cal Report; New York Times; National Jour­nal; Roll Call; Real Clear Pol­i­tics (RCP).

Alabama

Alabama’s House dis­tricts are all safe ter­ri­tory for incum­bents. The House del­e­ga­tion is six Repub­li­cans and one Demo­c­rat, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Terri Sewell (D-​​Birmingham) who rep­re­sents Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 7, which has been ger­ry­man­dered (under the pro­vi­sions of the Vot­ing Rights Act of 1965) into a mis­shapen majority-​​minority dis­trict (63 per­cent African-​​American, 33 per­cent Cau­casian). Sewell was a fresh­man in the 112^th Con­gress, tak­ing over from Artur Davis, who ran for Gov­er­nor and then repu­di­ated the Demo­c­ra­tic Party.

Alabama’s House dis­trict Cook Par­ti­san Vot­ing Indexes (PVIs) range from a “low” of R+12 to a high of R+29. This gives Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 6 the “dis­tinc­tion” of tying the Texas’s Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 13 for the most par­ti­san Repub­li­can House dis­trict in the coun­try. The sole Demo­c­ra­tic dis­trict in Alabama is sim­i­larly par­ti­san, D+20.

(New York Con­gres­sional Dis­tricts 15 and 16 are D+41, the most par­ti­san in the coun­try. In New York, the Democrat-​​controlled Assem­bly and the Republican-​​controlled Sen­ate tus­sle over the redis­trict­ing process and have resisted Demo­c­ra­tic Gov­er­nor Andrew Cuomo’s call for an inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion.)

Arkansas

Sabato, Cook, Roll Call and The New York Times all rate the four Arkansas seats in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as safe, but Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics fig­ures Con­gres­sional Dis­tricts 1 and 4 are com­pet­i­tive at the mar­gins (rat­ing them “Likely Repub­li­can”) so I’ll cover them briefly.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 1 (PVI R+7) is in the north­east­ern sec­tion of Arkansas. The gen­eral elec­tion pits incum­bent Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Craw­ford (R-​​Jonesboro) against the Demo­c­ra­tic chal­lenger, pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney Scott Elling­ton. Even though RCP rates this as com­pet­i­tive, they list a sin­gle poll from mid-​​September that has Craw­ford at 53 per­cent vs Elling­ton at 28 percent.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 4 (PVI R+9) in south­west­ern Arkansas is served by retir­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Ross (D-​​Prescott). Repub­li­can Tom Cot­ton faces Demo­c­ra­tic state Sen­a­tor Gene Jef­fress, who won a June 12 Demo­c­ra­tic Pri­mary runoff. RCP lists the same poll as for Dis­trict 1 that has Cot­ton at 51 per­cent vs Jef­fress at 22 percent.

Five mea­sures are on the bal­lot. Issues 1 and 2 were referred by the Arkansas Leg­is­la­ture, and both were dis­cussed in the Bal­lot Watch on Taxes. Issue 1 would increase the diesel fuel tax by five cents to pay for high­way improve­ments. Issue 2 would increase the state sales tax by ¹⁄₂ per­cent to pay for a statewide four-​​lane high­way sys­tem.  The only polling, from March, has Issue 2 down by 10 per­cent­age points.

Issues 3, 4 and 5 were ini­ti­ated by peti­tion. Issue 3 would allow 24-​​hour casi­nos in seven Arkansas coun­ties (Boone, Crit­ten­den, Gar­land, Jef­fer­son, Miller, Pulaski, and Sebas­t­ian). A July poll shows 66 per­cent oppo­si­tion. Issue 4 is a sim­i­lar casino amend­ment filed by pro­fes­sional poker player Nancy Todd and would allow casi­nos in Crit­ten­den, Franklin, Miller and Pulaski Coun­ties; if both get a major­ity (though it seems unlikely), then the one with the largest vote total will be enacted. Issue 5 autho­rizes the use of med­ical mar­i­juana in the state, and was cov­ered in our Bal­lot Watch on Mar­i­juana. It has just cleared an Arkansas Supreme Court chal­lenge from The Coali­tion to Pre­serve Arkansas Val­ues. If the mea­sure passes, Arkansas would be the first south­ern state to allow Bill Clin­ton to inhale.

Geor­gia

Incum­bent four-​​term Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Bar­row (D-​​Savannah) faces an uphill bat­tle to hold onto his seat in Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 12, which was for­merly PVI D+1 but has now been mag­i­cally trans­formed by a Republican-​​controlled state­house to a PVI R+10 dis­trict. Barrow’s oppo­nent is Repub­li­can farmer and State House mem­ber Lee Ivey Ander­son. Sep­tem­ber polling had this as a tie, with Ander­son at 44 per­cent and Bar­row at 43 per­cent. As men­tioned above, Bar­row is the sole white Demo­c­rat rep­re­sent­ing a south­ern state. The New York Times and Roll Call fig­ure this one’s a tossup. Sabato, Cook, and RCP all rate it “lean Repub­li­can”. Bar­row has a three-​​to-​​one fundrais­ing advan­tage ($1.9 mil­lion vs. $530 thousand).

There are two legislatively-​​referred Con­sti­tu­tional Amend­ments on the bal­lot. Amend­ment 1 allows for the estab­lish­ment of pub­lic char­ter schools. This is a response to a May 2011 Geor­gia Supreme Court rul­ing that the Geor­gia Char­ter School Com­mis­sion, cre­ated in 2008, is uncon­sti­tu­tional because it approves and funds char­ter schools over the objec­tion of local school boards.

A 4–3 Court major­ity opin­ion said,

No other con­sti­tu­tional pro­vi­sion autho­rizes any other gov­ern­men­tal entity to com­pete with or dupli­cate the efforts of local boards of edu­ca­tion in estab­lish­ing and main­tain­ing gen­eral K-​​12 schools.

Accord­ingly, the bal­lot text reads,

Shall the Con­sti­tu­tion of Geor­gia be amended to allow state or local approval of pub­lic char­ter schools upon the request of local communities?

It is sup­ported by Atlanta Journal-​​Constitution colum­nist Kyle Wing­field and many state leg­is­la­tors. It is opposed by pub­lic school admin­is­tra­tors and the orga­ni­za­tion Vote Smart Geor­gia.

Amend­ment 2 is an uncon­tro­ver­sial “house­keep­ing” amend­ment that allows the State Prop­er­ties Com­mis­sion to enter into mul­ti­year lease agreements.

Ken­tucky

In the Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 6 con­test, in a PVI R+7 dis­trict which includes and sur­rounds the city of Lex­ing­ton, four-​​term incum­bent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ben Chan­dler (D-​​Lexington) faces Repub­li­can attor­ney Gar­land “Andy” Barr. Chan­dler should win a close race; The New York Times, Sabato, Cook and RCP all rate this seat “leans Demo­c­ra­tic” while Roll Call says it’s a “likely Demo­c­ra­tic”. In 2010, Chan­dler barely squeaked by Barr (50.1 per­cent to 49.9 per­cent) Polling released in May showed Chan­dler a 49–42 favorite. Chan­dler has raised $1.5 mil­lion to Barr’s $1.0 mil­lion. Coal exec­u­tive Heath Lovell is threat­en­ing to sue Chan­dler for slan­der. Lovell appeared in a pro-​​Barr TV ad dressed in min­ing gear; Chandler’s alleged slan­der was to claim in his own TV ads that Lovell is “not a miner”. This prob­a­bly won’t affect the out­come of the elec­tion, as it appears to be a miner tiff.

The Ken­tucky leg­is­la­ture, like the Idaho and Wyoming leg­is­la­tures, has some­how deter­mined that hunt­ing and fish­ing rights might be cur­tailed by ram­pag­ing Magic Ponies, and so they’ve put a legislatively-​​referred Con­sti­tu­tional Amend­ment on the bal­lot. Any­one think ALEC might be behind this?

Louisiana

None of the House seats (six Repub­li­cans, one Demo­c­rat) are com­pet­i­tive this cycle, accord­ing to pundits.

The Louisiana Leg­is­la­ture referred no fewer than nine Amend­ments to the Louisiana Con­sti­tu­tion, which appar­ently needs a lot of patching.

Amend­ment 1 puts state Med­ic­aid funds for the elderly in a “lock-​​box”.

Amend­ment 2 reaf­firms the right of Louisiana cit­i­zens to keep and bear arms, but doesn’t men­tion a mili­tia. The text which appears on the bal­lot reads:

Do you sup­port an amend­ment to the Con­sti­tu­tion of the State of Louisiana to pro­vide that the right to keep and bear arms is a fun­da­men­tal right and any restric­tion of that right requires the high­est stan­dard of review by a court?

Amend­ment 3 requires a 45-​​day period between fil­ing bills to alter the pub­lic employee’s retire­ment sys­tem and the start of the leg­isla­tive session.

Amend­ment 4, like pop­u­lar amend­ments in other states, allows for a prop­erty tax exemp­tion for wid­ows and wid­ow­ers of mil­i­tary spouses.

Amend­ment 5 requires pub­lic employ­ees to for­feit ben­e­fits if they are con­victed of a felony related to their pub­lic ser­vice. In “the most cor­rupt state” of Louisiana, this might actu­ally have a fis­cal impact.

Amend­ments 6 through 9 appear to be non-​​controversial “house­keep­ing” provisions.

Mis­sis­sippi

Noth­ing in Mis­sis­sippi will be heav­ily con­tested this year. The three Repub­li­can House dis­tricts are safe with their incum­bents, and the one Demo­c­ra­tic House dis­trict (in the same benighted region that was Fan­nie Lou Hamer’s home) is now rep­re­sented by Con­gres­sional Black Cau­cus mem­ber Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ben­nie Thomp­son (D-​​Bolton). He is stand­ing for his 10^th reëlec­tion bid and is expected to cruise to a victory.

South Car­olina

Like Mis­sis­sippi, the polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion is South Car­olina is unre­mark­able. In the House, Sabato rates all six Repub­li­can seats and the sin­gle Demo­c­ra­tic seat, served by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive James Clyburn (D-​​Columbia), as non-​​competitive.

The South Car­olina Guber­na­to­r­ial Elec­tions Amend­ment is a legislatively-​​referred Con­sti­tu­tional Amend­ment that would require can­di­dates for gov­er­nor to pick a lieu­tenant gov­er­nor can­di­date as their run­ning mate.

Ten­nessee

Tennessee’s seven Repub­li­can and two Demo­c­ra­tic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives are safe, accord­ing to all analysts.