An overwhelming allegiance to the Democratic Party has left black lawmakers in the South without power in Republican-controlled state legislatures, according to a new report.

The nonpartisan Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies said in a report issued Friday that despite Barack Obama’s election as president, black voters and elected officials in the South have less influence now than at any other time since the civil rights era.

“Since conservative whites control all the power in the region, they are enacting legislation both neglectful of the needs of African-Americans and other communities of color,” the senior research associate, David A. Bositis, wrote in a paper titled “Resegregation in Southern Politics?” The center, based in Washington, conducts research and policy analysis, particularly on issues that affect blacks and other minorities.

Read more at The New York Times.

It was previously available at The Washington Post, ABC News, and MSNBC.