In 2011, as Illinois politicians redrew congressional district maps, they exercised a power grab that was intended to protect those already in office or even gain more seats for Democrats.

Officials split some of the state's growing Latino population between districts already represented by Democrats and those where they hoped to see Republicans lose. An incumbent Democrat like former Chicago-area Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. was supposed to have little problem holding a seat that for three decades has been held by an African-American. But in 2011, no one knew then that Jackson would spend a portion his term in seclusion trying to manage a mental illness. And no one knew that, after winning reelection earlier this month, Jackson would resign amid allegations of misappropriated campaign funds.

Now, with Jackson out and Illinois set to stage a special election in February, Jackson’s former district could end up being represented by a white Democrat from Chicago’s suburbs. And for the crowded field of mostly black candidates that have expressed interest in Jackson’s old job, winning support of Latino voters and at least a smattering of white voters may be the key to victory.

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In the 1970s and 80s, political power struggles flared in cities around the country as whites decamped to the suburbs, said David Bositis, a senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. Minority voters were frequently divided among crowded fields of black candidates, leaving room for well-financed white candidates often backed by conservative business interests to win by narrow majorities, Bositis said.

That’s a pattern that dominated elections in cities like St. Louis for decades, according to Bositis. In the 1980s and 1990s, the number of black elected officials peaked in cities like Los Angeles. Then, in the 1990s and 2000s, cities like Baltimore and Gary, Ind. -- a city which was then about 90 percent black -- began to elect more liberal white politicians with substantial support from black voters. Black officeholders had to work harder to appeal to white liberals and, in the Dallas and Los Angeles areas, even fought to have them drawn into their once overwhelmingly black districts. Now, the growing presence of Latinos will likely spur a new political resort that begins with more politicians courting Latino voters and may later lead to an increase in Latino officeholders, Bositis said.

"But in a lot of places that’s still a ways off," Bositis said. "It’s not just about population numbers. Its also about age."

Read more at The Huffington Post.

We join with residents of California in mourning the loss of one of the state’s most remarkable leaders and a key figure in the founding of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in 1970, the Honorable Mervyn Dymally. For more than 40 years, he embodied the notion that anyone who works hard and plays by the rules can realize the American Dream.

A native of Trinidad, Congressman Dymally’s career in public service was marked by a series of “firsts.”  He was the first African American to serve in the California Senate and became the first to hold statewide elective office when he became Lieutenant Governor.  In the United States House of Representatives, he distinguished himself as a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee by championing the sanctions that helped end apartheid in South Africa. During his six terms in the House, he served as Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Congressman Dymally was a mentor to a generation of California politicians and an inspiration to public servants and civic leaders across the country.  We salute him for his lasting contributions.

The U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee, following a two-year investigation, has cleared U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) of alleged wrongdoing.

Their finding paves the way for her to become the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee and possibly its chairman if Democrats retake the House in the November election.

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Late last year when U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) announced his retirement, it opened the door for Waters to become the ranking Democrat or possibly chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. It oversees the nation’s economy through the Federal Reserve Board, the U.S. Treasury and the production and distribution of currency.

Dr. David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank for black elected officials, said last year that Waters could gain the coveted post if the ethics committee cleared of the charges.

Read more at The North Star News.

The performance by the Rev. William Owens at the National Press Club last week was enough to make a cynic blush. In a nearly empty room, as the C-SPAN cameras rolled, Owens, a Tennessee minister and self-proclaimed leader of the civil rights movement called out the president for his changed position on same sex marriage.

“I didn’t march one inch, one foot, one yard, for a man to marry a man, and a woman to marry a woman,” he said.

Claiming to speak for thousands, he connected the prevalence of same-sex marriage to the collapse of the African-American family. And he threatened the president with a widespread revolt by black voters on Election Day. “He has not done a smart thing,” Owens said.

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“I would place the odds of African Americans defecting the president as about the same as the odds of an asteroid hitting the Earth and wiping out all human life,” says David Bositis at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. “It’s not going to happen.”


Read more at The Washington Post.

After the 2010 elections, it seemed a safe bet that the District would continue its 12-year streak without a major political scandal. The image of a city run by a crack-smoking mayor was a distant memory, no longer visible in the rearview mirror as successive mayors drove the District on the road to municipal respectability.

Washingtonians took pride in their city’s improved reputation, particularly longtime black residents who lived through the embarrassing arrest of former mayor Marion Barry on drug charges.

The civic pride began diminishing in the past few months, after D.C. Council members Harry Thomas Jr. and Kwame R. Brown, both Democrats, were forced to resign. It came to screeching halt when a federal investigation implicated that three political aides to Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) were involved in a scheme involving boatloads of illicit campaign contributions and irregularities. Everyone is waiting to see whether Gray will be charged next.

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“People who have a local perspective, rather than a larger perspective, view everything bad that happens in the District as a negative thing about them,” said David Bositis, a senior researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a D.C.-based think tank focused on political and public policy issues.

Read more at The Washington Post.

When President Barack Obama arrives in New Orleans on Wednesday to speak before the National Urban League annual conference, he will touch down in a state where his party, less than a month before the qualifying deadline, has yet to find a congressional candidate for any district outside the black-majority seat held by Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans.

For Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans, who seized control of the party from Buddy Leach in April, it is a year for "grassroots rebuilding." But so too was last year, when the party failed to field a single major candidate for any statewide office, including governor.

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"Black voters and elected officials have less influence now than at any time since the civil rights era," David Bositis, an analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, wrote in a stark analysis late last year. It is the culmination of nearly a half-century process that began with the dismantling of Jim Crow, the empowerment of black voters and an explosion in black representation, but that now finds its ironic coda in a once-dominating Democrat Party transformed into a largely African-American enterprise that is only occasionally able to scrounge enough white votes to compete effectively outside black districts. The result has been the loss of legislative control in every Southern state save Arkansas.

Read more at the Times-Picayune.

For more than four decades, the people in Charles Rangel's Harlem congressional district have willingly kept him in office every two years.

For a repeat performance, he's got to first get through Tuesday's congressional primaries, where changed demographics in a redrawn district, shadows from an ethics controversy in recent years and strong challengers could result in something no one under the age of 42 has ever known:

Harlem represented by someone who isn't Charles Rangel.

"He's more than just a long-standing incumbent, he's a significant historical figure," said David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington. "He's somebody who, when you think of people who symbolize New York, he symbolizes New York."

Read more at Real Clear Politics.

Congressional map-drawers in states across the country are struggling to maintain majority-black congressional districts as African Americans move out of urban areas. And now, it appears plausible that one of those new districts could be won by a non-black candidate.

Former congresswoman Debbie Halvorson (D-Ill.) is trying to do what few before her have accomplished: win a majority-black district as a non-black candidate. She faces an ethically wounded Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) in a primary in a district that has been stretched from the South Side of Chicago far out into the Cook County suburbs and Will County, which Halvorson represented for one term before losing in 2010.

Only two majority-black districts have been won by a candidate who isn’t black in recent years. One is the Memphis-based district currently held by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.); the other was a New Orleans-based district briefly held by Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.).

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David Bositis, an expert on race and politics at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and a friend of Jackson’s, said black voters are actually more apt to vote for white candidates than the inverse. It’s simply a matter, he said, of white candidates not running in majority-black districts.

“Contrary to what a lot of people think, black voters do tend to be very pragmatic,” Bositis said. “They look to elect somebody who is going to benefit them.”

Read more at The Washington Post.

Herman Cain’s turn atop the polls in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination captured the attention of journalists and pundits and sparked excitement among grass-roots conservative activists. But is it really possible that he — a black man who overcame poverty in the segregated South to become a wealthy entrepreneur and front-runner in the GOP race — would be the one to bring African American voters back to their original political home?

Cain seems to think so. In a mailer sent to Iowa voters recently, the candidate says “as a descendent of slaves I can lead the Republican party to victory by garnering a large share of the black vote, something that has not been done since Dwight Eisenhower garnered 41 percent of the black vote in 1956.”

It is a proposition that was quickly dismissed by political scholars and analysts, including some members of Cain’s party. Although he has done better than any other black Republican presidential candidate in terms of attracting support, few believe Cain could snare a sizable number of black voters in a general election, especially against President Obama.

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David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, argues that as the Republican Party grows more white and conservative, it represents the interests of most black people less.

“The fact of the matter is, there are no more savvy voters in the country than African American voters, and they’re not interested in any candidate who is not promising them more and better jobs, more and better education, more and better health care and an agenda that aims to deal with the historic racism in the country,” Bositis said. “None of those things are being offered by the Republicans, including Herman Cain.”

Read more at The Washington Post.

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.