Herman Cain's assertion that blacks' overwhelming support of the Democratic Party was evidence of their having been "brainwashed" was the latest salvo in an intra-racial war of words over the state of black politics.

From President Barack Obama's recent run-ins with BET News and the Congressional Black Caucus, to attendees at a caucus conference questioning the racial consciousness of Cain and Republican Rep. Allen West because of their association with the tea party, many observers on both sides of the political aisle are trying to figure out what to make of all of the infighting.

Is there such a thing as a uniform black political agenda? Are conservatism and black cultural pride incompatible? Do blacks really behave as political lemmings, and could they benefit from embracing the Republican agenda?

Read more at the Indianapolis Recorder.

A year ago, Colorado's African-American community braced for the unimaginable: a legislature without a single black lawmaker for the first time in nearly six decades.

Denver's first black mayor, Wellington Webb, was among those who fretted about whether African-Americans would have a voice when the legislature convened in 2011.

But much has changed in the past 12 months.

Two blacks serve in the Colorado General Assembly.

Two blacks are now on the Denver City Council.

And Denver, with a black population of only 10 percent, just elected its second black mayor, Michael Hancock.

A year ago, it was Hancock, a city councilman at the time, who was upbeat despite worries from some in the black community.

"African-American candidates, no matter where they live, can appeal to voters because their issues are the same: education, job security, the economy," he said.

He soared past the white front-runner in the mayoral race, which came as no surprise to David Bositis​, a Beltway political analyst.

"When you're talking about a place like Colorado, its record in many respects is extraordinary," said Bositis, with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C. "The state has a long history of white voters supporting the candidate they believe is best."

Read more at The Denver Post.

African-Americans once were clustered so heavily in urban areas that the terms “Black” and “inner city” came to be used almost synonymously. According to the 2010 U.S. Census results, that time is history.
 
While Blacks have by no means vanished from cities, unprecedented numbers have headed for the suburbs or left the big cities of the North and headed south. As legislative districts are redrawn, nonpartisan groups and both political parties are watching how this unexpected migration will affect local and state elections.
 
Moreover, redistricting experts say the Black exodus from cities such as Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia contributed to placing Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania among the 10 states that will lose congressional seats because of reapportionment after the census. With Republican governors in 29 states, the GOP has greater influence over redistricting than Democrats.

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David Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C., doesn’t expect the Black population decrease to have a huge impact on the city’s political scene.
 
“By and large, white voters have almost always had a major say in D.C. politics, so the fact that D.C. is becoming less Black isn’t really changing the politics,” Bositis says. “The exception is Marion Barry. He was the only politician in D.C. who was able to win without white support.” The former mayor is a City Council member.
 
Nationally, Black movement away from cities will eventually give minorities more political clout in areas where they settle, Bositis says. He adds, though, that this phenomenon will take time because the black and Latino population is on average younger than the white population.

Read more at The Skanner.

Many state legislatures are considering whether to improve election integrity by requiring voters to produce a photograph identification card (voter ID) when they vote at their polling places on Election Day. Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Kansas have answered that question with a resounding “yes” by implementing such voter-ID laws. Those states understand that the United States has an unfortunate history of voter fraud and that requiring individuals to authenticate their identity at the polls is a fundamental and necessary component of ensuring the integrity of the election process.

Every individual who is eligible to vote should have the opportunity to do so. It is equally important, however, that the votes of eligible voters are not stolen or diluted by a fraudulent or bogus vote cast by an ineligible or imaginary voter. The evidence from academic studies and actual turnout in elections is also overwhelming that—contrary to the shrill claims of opponents—voter ID does not depress the turnout of voters, including minority, poor, and elderly voters.

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In the 2008 general election when President Barack Obama was elected, Georgia, with one of the strictest voter ID laws in the nation, had the largest turnout in its history—more than 4 million voters. Democratic turnout was up an astonishing 6.1 percentage points from the 2004 election when there was no photo ID requirement, the fifth largest increase of any state.

Overall turnout in Georgia went up 6.7 percentage points, the second highest increase in the country and a striking jump even in an election year when there was a general increase in turnout over the prior presidential election. The black share of the statewide vote increased from 25 percent in 2004 to 30 percent in 2008 according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. And according to Census Bureau surveys, 65 percent of the black voting-age population voted in the 2008 election compared to only 54.4 percent in 2004, an increase of over 10 percentage points.

Read more of this report at The Heritage Foundation.

Val Demings, the first African-American woman to serve as Orlando, Florida’s police chief, announced this week plans to run for the city’s 8th District congressional seat, now filled by freshman Republican Daniel Webster. She may first have to face off in a primary with the district’s former Rep. Alan Grayson (D), a victim of the voters’ Democratic fatigue during the 2010 midterm elections that gave House Republicans the majority. He also announced plans this week to attempt a return to Washington.

Demings, who served as Orlando police chief from December 2007 to May 2011, when she retired, said in an interview Thursday with WFTV.com, "We're dealing with some tough issues right now, and I want to be a part of developing solutions.” She also guaranteed that she would have the resources to run a competitive race. Demings has already won the support of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who, the television station reports, “has access to people she will need to raise money.”

Orlando is in a state of transition and, like many cities around the nation, has experienced major population shifts. But instead of Blacks moving out, as has been the case in Chicago and Detroit, the city’s 2010 census shows that the state’s African-American population has surged by 250,000 people in the past 10 years, says David Bositis, senior research analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The same is true of the area’s Latino population. These shifts could bolster Demings’s chances, because when Florida creates its new redistricting map, the 8th will likely become a majority-minority district. But it’s not yet clear whether it will be majority Black or majority Latino, since the state is still in the early stages of the redistricting process.

View the original article at BET.

African-Americans have migrated in significant numbers from the urban core to the suburbs and from large metropolitan parts of the North to the South in the past ten years. As states redraw political districts, the impact of their exodus is varied. Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania will each lose congressional seats. Lawmakers in some Republican-controlled states have created redistricting maps that dilute minority voting power by trying to concentrate African-Americans in a contained area so they can influence the outcome in as few districts as possible. In others, minorities claim the lines being drawn don’t accurately reflect the demographic shifts that in a fair process would result in more minority lawmakers.

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As David Bositis, senior research analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, told BET.com, “individually they have relatively little influence, but together they can accomplish a lot. And as the population change evolves, “they can in effect become the governing majority.”

Read more at BET.

President Obama appears to be riding high. Osama Bin Laden, the world’s most-wanted man, has been killed under his leadership. He pulled off an “in your face” coo by producing his long-form birth certificate to silence billionaire Donald Trump. And although the economy is still struggling, it shows some signs of recovery.

Yet, it will be none of these accomplishments that many voters will consider when they go to the polls in 2012. In fact, race and political experts say the fact that President Obama is Black will still be a major factor in his re-election campaign and will likely even increase.

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But, major accomplishments will not likely be enough to deter those who look at the President primarily through the lens of his race, agrees David Bositis, spokesman for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank of racial politics.

“One would think that this would result in a serious increase in his poll numbers. One would hope that it would, but we’ll have to wait and see because if we don’t know that he’s an American, if we think that he graduated from Harvard as an affirmative action student even though he was president of the [Harvard] Law Review, you just can never tell,” says Bositis.

This article was previously available at The Seattle Medium.

When Robert C. “Bobby” Scott was elected to Congress in 1992, he was Virginia’s only black representative, chosen by voters in a serpentine district designed to include most of the state’s heavily African American neighborhoods.

Nearly 20 years later, in a rapidly diversifying state, Scott remains Virginia’s only non-white congressman. He still represents a district that stretches from Hampton Roads into Richmond with squiggly boundaries, drawn to maximize black votes.

Is that a problem?

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In the 1970s and 1980s, civil rights leaders pushed to increase the number of African Americans in Congress, said David Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and an expert in black representation.

Because voting was so racially polarized, particularly in the south, that meant creating districts with high percentages of black voters, he said.

Read more at The Washington Post.

This publication is a brief review of some of the available evidence on what transpired on November 2, 2010, when the Democrats lost their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and at least 19 state legislative chambers, maintained control in the U.S. Senate, and lost several important gubernatorial elections. The black vote was critical to the outcome of some closely contested elections, but not enough in many more. In particular, this review will focus on the behavior and significance of African-American voters in the 2010 midterm elections; and the changing numbers and profile of black candidates for both federal and statewide office, as well as their performance at the polls.

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There is widespread agreement that the Democrats are poised to lose a significant number of congressional seats in the 2010 midterm elections. This is largely due to high unemployment and a poor economy. The extent of the Democrats’ losses will depend on their ability to turn out their most loyal voters, and no voting bloc will be more important than African Americans. If they can mobilize a strong black turnout, the Democrats can reduce their losses.