‘92 POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE : For Blacks and Latinos, Elections May Make ’92 Year of the Minority

WASHINGTON — In a little-noticed breakthrough during a year of general political upheaval and initial success for women candidates, the November election is expected to give Congress its largest influx of black and Latino lawmakers in history.

Across the country, the full effects of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and its amplification in a 1986 Supreme Court ruling are expected to add about a dozen blacks and six or seven more Latinos to the House of Representatives.

The 435-member House now has 25 blacks (another black, Eleanor Holmes Norton, is the non-voting delegate representing Washington, D.C.). The House’s Hispanic Caucus has 13 members.

Thus, if current predictions prove correct, the numbers of blacks and Latinos in the House each will increase by about 50%.

“The chickens are coming home to roost” from the voting rights law, said Dr. David Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington think tank.

The landmark law originally was aimed primarily at protecting an individual’s right to vote. But the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 expanded its interpretation of the statute to require fair representation of minority groups in local government, state legislatures and Congress.

The result was that the law--and the Justice Department’s clear signal that it would be vigorously enforced--played a major role in virtually every state’s redistricting process after the 1990 Census.

Some unusual boundaries emerged as legislatures and courts sought to carve out districts where minorities were in the majority.

It is in the South--where large black populations were effectively thwarted from voting for almost a century before the civil rights revolution of the 1960s--that the anticipated gains by minority politicians are expected to be the most profound.

Bositis predicts that of the 12 blacks heavily favored to become new members of the 103rd Congress, all but one will be representing a Southern state. Four of those states--Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia--are expected to elect their first black to the House since the Reconstruction Era in the years after the Civil War. And Florida’s House delegation, previously integrated but now all-white, appears likely to have two and possibly three black members after the November election. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a crusader for black voting rights and a six-year incumbent, sees the trend as another key step in a long struggle.

“Civil rights is a continually unfolding, unfinished story,” Lewis said.

Bositis said he also expects two new Latino members in the House from New York and at least one more each from Illinois, Texas, Florida and California.

California’s House delegation--which will number 52 in the new Congress--now has three Latino members. There are four blacks, a number that is expected to stay the same.

What, if any, political impact will stem from the House’s anticipated demographic change remains in doubt.

Thomas Mann, a specialist on Congress at the Brookings Institution, calls the likely surge in minority representation “important to the leadership development of black and Hispanic communities.

But he added, “It’s not obvious what the legislative impact will be.”

All but a few of the new minority members are expected to be Democrats on the left side of their party’s mainstream. But their ability to push their agendas may be constrained by another political trend.

The House’s overall turnover will be its largest since World War II as a result of redistricting, retirements and the removal of incumbents. Most political experts believe the change will give Republicans a net gain of 20 to 30 seats, sharply reducing the Democrats’ current 102-seat advantage and moving Congress ideologically to the right.

Still, some key black Democrats believe that the increase in minorities may produce a black-Latino coalition that would have greater influence inside a shrunken Democratic caucus.

With the two groups potentially numbering as many as 50, they could represent as much as 20% of the anticipated number of Democrats in the new Congress.

If these two groups ally themselves with liberal Democratic women, said Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-Pico Rivera), it would result in more solid votes for liberal legislation.

Current Members Here is a geographic breakdown of the 25 blacks currently serving in the House: California: 4 New York: 4 Illinois: 3 Missouri: 2 Michigan: 2 Mississippi: 1 New Jersey: 1 Ohio: 1 Pennsylvania: 1 Maryland: 1 Connecticut: 1 Tennessee: 1 Georgia: 1 Texas: 1 Louisiana: 1