Although low voter turnout in national elections has garnered considerable attention and concern, much lower turnout in municipal elections has often been largely ignored. Using a survey of cities in California, this article examines a series of institutional remedies to low turnout in mayoral and city council elections. Moving local elections to coincide with the dates of national elections would have by far the largest impact on voter turnout, but other institutional changes that tend to raise the stakes of local elections also increase turnout. Specifically, less outsourcing of city services, the use of direct democracy, and more control in the hands of elected rather than appointed officials all tend to increase turnout.Observers of American politics have repeatedly expressed concern about low voter participation in federal elections (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995;Lijphart 1997;Bennett and Resnick 1990). The fact that almost half of all eligible voters do not vote in presidential elections has been cited repeatedly as evidence of an ongoing crisis in American democracy. Declining voter participation over time in these national elections has also been highlighted by a host of scholars who have raised questions about the health of American politics (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993;Teixeira 1992).Yet for all of the attention garnered by national elections, turnout in these elections is comparatively high. Nowhere is the turnout problem worse than at the local level. Although few studies have looked comprehensively at municipal-level turnout in recent decades, the existing evidence suggests that 645

There is a widespread concern that imbalances in voter turnout across race and class have led to biased outcomes in American democracy. Yet empirical tests have generally found that the unrepresentative nature of the electorate has little effect on who wins and loses elections. We challenge this finding by arguing that existing research minimizes the chances of finding bias because it focuses largely on national elections where turnout is relatively high and where minority groups are generally too small a percentage of the population to sway elections. By focusing on city elections we find that lower turnout leads to substantial reductions in the representation of Latinos and Asian Americans on city councils and in the mayor's office. For African Americans district elections and off-cycle local elections are more important barriers to representation.At its core democracy rests on the vote. The vote is the primary tool for citizens to control their government. Through the vote citizens communicate information about their interests, preferences, and needs and make important decisions about who to elect to office. Nevertheless, most Americans do not vote when given the opportunity. At best roughly half of eligible voters vote in national contests. At worst, fewer than 10% of adults vote in local elections (Bridges 1997;Hajnal, Lewis, and Louch 2002). Even more importantly, those who do turn out to vote look very different from those who do not. Study after study of American elections has found that individuals with ample resources vote much more regularly than those with few resources-the poor, racial, and ethnic minorities and the less educated (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993;Verba and Nie 1972;Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995).The skewed nature of the vote raises real concerns about how well the interests of different groups are served in democracy. As Key noted decades ago, "The blunt truth is that politicians and officials are under no compulsion to pay much heed to classes and groups of citizens that do not vote" (1949, 99).

The proliferation of increasingly strict voter identification laws around the country has raised concerns about voter suppression. Although there are many reasons to suspect that these laws could harm groups like racial minorities and the poor, existing studies have been limited, with most occurring before states enacted strict identification requirements, and they have uncovered few effects. By using validated voting data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study for several recent elections, we are able to offer a more definitive test. The analysis shows that strict identification laws have a differentially negative impact on the turnout of racial and ethnic minorities in primaries and general elections. We also find that voter ID laws skew democracy toward those on the political right. V oting is the bedrock of democracy. Through the vote, citizens choose leaders, sway policy, and generally influence democracy. By contrast, citizens who do not vote can be ignored. It is thus not surprising to see that the laws that shape turnout and determine who can and who cannot vote generate enormous attention and controversy. The latest front in this debate concerns voter identification laws. Voter identification laws have been a topic of discussion since 1950, when South Carolina became the first state to request some form of identification at the polls (NCSL 2015). Since then, more and more states have instituted some form of voter ID law. But it is only within the past decade that the strictest forms of voter ID have proliferated and that voter ID laws have received widespread attention. Today these voter ID laws take several distinct forms. Strict voter ID laws require identification in order to cast a regular ballot. Other more lenient laws request, but do not require, voters to show some kind of identification document at the polls. These laws can also be distinguished by whether or not they allow or consider nonphoto identification. All told, 34 states currently enforce some form of a voter identification law (NCSL 2015). Of these, 11 are strict ID law states that require a person to show identification in order to vote. 1 More states appear to be waiting in the wings. New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, and others are all considering new stricter voter identification laws (NCSL 2015). The consequences of all of this could be enormous. Given that more than half of the nation's population is currently subject to these laws, that stricter laws are being considered in multiple states, and that the courts are actively evaluating the merits of these laws in a series of landmark cases, there is a compelling need to know exactly what the true impact of these laws is. There is no shortage of opinions about these laws. On one side, the proliferation of these laws raises real concerns for critics who believe that they are unnecessary and ultimately detrimental to democracy. Activist groups, like the Brennan Center for Justice, claim that voter ID laws serve as effective barriers that limit the legitimate participation of racia...

Critics argue that direct legislation (initiatives and referendums) allows an electoral majority to undermine the interests and rights of racial and ethnic minorities. We assess this claim by examining outcomes of direct democracy in California since 1978. Our analysis indicates that critics have overstated the detrimental effects of direct democracy. Confirming earlier critiques, we find that racial and ethnic minorities-and in particular Latinos-lose regularly on a small number of racially targeted propositions. However, these racially targeted propositions represent less than 5% of all ballot propositions. When we consider outcomes across all propositions, we find that the majority of Latino, Asian American, and African American voters were on the winning side of the vote. This remains true if we confine our analysis to propositions on which racial and ethnic minorities vote cohesively or to propositions on issues that racial and ethnic minorities say they care most about.

The core question driving the study of local politics is-who or what governs local democracy? After decades of study, researchers continue to debate the relative merits of economic, political, institutional, and bureaucratic accounts of local democracy. By providing a test that incorporates each of these four different theoretical perspectives, that analyzes major spending decisions that cities make, and that includes a large, representative sample of localities, we offer a systematic examination of local government decision making. We find that each of the existing one-sided stories is incomplete. Economic constraints are critical in determining what a government can do but the overall balance between redistributional, allocational, and developmental spending is also strongly influenced by political imperatives, institutional constraints, and actual needs.

Changing White Attitudes toward Black Political Leadership Despite the hopes of the civil rights movement, researchers have found that the election of African Americans to office has not greatly improved the well-being of the black community. By shifting the focus to the white community, this book finds that black representation can have a profound impact. Utilizing national public opinion surveys, data on voting patterns in large American cities, and more in-depth studies of Los Angeles and Chicago, Zoltan Hajnal shows that under most black mayors there is real, positive change in the white vote and in the racial attitudes of white residents. This change occurs because black incumbency provides concrete information that disproves the fears and expectations of many white residents. These findings not only highlight the importance of black representation; they also demonstrate the critical role that information can play in racial politics and point to the ability of at least some whites to change their minds about blacks and black leadership.

Despite the hopes of the civil rights movement, researchers have found that the election of African Americans to office has not greatly improved the well-being of the black community. This study focuses on the white community, however, and finds that black leadership can have a profound effect. Under black mayors there is positive change in the white vote and in the racial sentiments expressed by members of the white electorate. Although white Republicans seem largely immune to the effects of black incumbency, for Democrats and independents an experience with a black mayoralty tends to decrease racial tension, increase racial sympathy, and increase support of black leadership.

What is urban politics really about? Despite decades of research, there is still considerable disagreement about the relative roles of race, class, ideology, partisanship, and other factors in shaping the urban vote. In this article, we assemble a wide range of data on a diverse set of urban elections and offer a more explicit empirical test of what shapes urban politics. Our results suggest that local elections are partly an ideological battle, partly a partisan contest, and at least marginally linked to class, religion, and morality. Race, however, is the dominant factor in the local electoral arena. Local elections are in no small part a competition between blacks, whites, Latinos, and Asian-Americans over the leadership of their cities. We also assess how and why these divides vary across cities and electoral contexts finding that a theory of realistic group conflict best predicts patterns in the vote.